The In Death Collection Books 16-20 - J. D. Robb [336]
“Yeah. He was a maniac about his studio security. Nobody, but nobody got the passcode.”
“You gave me the passcode.”
Reva flushed, cleared her throat. “I accessed it—on that same visit. I just couldn’t resist. And it seemed like the perfect time to field test a new security scanner we were working on. So I accessed the code, tested it, and got clearance. Then I reset the security, and called up to Blair. I didn’t tell him because it would’ve pissed him off.”
“Did you ever go up there when he wasn’t around?”
“What for?”
“Poke around, see what he was up to.”
“I never spied on him.” She sent a long look toward Caro. “I never spied on him. Maybe I should have, maybe if I had I’d’ve known about him and Felicity long ago. But I respected his space and his privacy, and expected the same from him.”
“Did you know about him and Chloe McCoy?”
“Who?”
“Chloe McCoy, Reva. The pretty young thing who works in his gallery?”
“The little drama queen?” She laughed. “Oh, please. Blair couldn’t possibly have . . .” She trailed off as the cool, direct gaze had her belly trembling. “No. She’s hardly more than a child. She’s still in college, for God’s sake.” She curled herself into a ball and rocked. “Oh God. Oh God.”
“Baby. Reva.” Caro moved quickly to sit beside her daughter, wrap her arms around her. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry over him.”
“I don’t know if it’s over him, or over me. First Felicity, and now that—that brainless little coed. How many others?”
“It only takes one.”
Reva turned her face into her mother’s neck. “Like mother, like daughter,” Reva murmured. “If what you’re saying is true, Lieutenant, maybe it was some jealous boyfriend who killed them. Somebody who knew they were being cheated on.”
“That doesn’t explain why you were lured there at exactly the right time. It doesn’t explain why the passcodes on the elevator to the studio were changed at nearly the same time Blair Bissel and Felicity Kade were being murdered. It doesn’t explain why the computers at your home, at Bissel’s gallery and studio, and at Felicity Kade’s home—Feeney just verified”—she said to Roarke—“have all been infected with an as yet unidentified worm that has corrupted all data thereon.”
“A worm?” She pushed away from Caro. “All those computers, in all those locations? Corrupted. You’re sure?”
“I’ve examined two of them myself,” Roarke told her. “There’s every indication they were infected with the Doomsday worm. We’ll test to be certain, but I know what to look for.”
“It can’t be done by remote. We know it has to be done on site.” Reva sprang up to pace. “It’s a flaw in the system. It has to be uploaded directly into one of the units in a network to infect the network. It requires an operator.”
“That’s right.”
“If the units were infected with the Doomsday, it means someone got through the security. At my house, at the gallery, the studio, at Felicity’s. I can check those systems. I designed and installed all of them. I can run scans to see if they were compromised, and when.”
“If you run the scans, the results are inadmissible,” Eve told her.
“I’ll run them.” Roarke waited until she’d stopped pacing long enough to look at him. “You’ll trust me for that.”
“Damn right. Lieutenant.” Reva came back, sat on the edge of the sofa. “If this is—if what happened has something to do with the project, it means Blair was set up, too. It was all staged, all put together so I’d go running over there, so it would look to me, to everyone as if Blair and Felicity had been lovers. He’s dead because of what he was to me. They’re both dead because of me.”
“You can believe that if you want. Me, I’d rather deal with the truth.”
“But there’s no proof that he was ever unfaithful. It could all be faked. The photographs, the receipts, the discs. He could’ve been kidnapped and taken to Felicity’s. He might’ve been . . .”
She was running down as the facts, the timelines, the sheer weight of her fantasy began to bear down. “It doesn’t make any sense that way. I know it. But it doesn’t make sense any other way either.”
“It makes sense if Bissel