The In Death Collection Books 16-20 - J. D. Robb [425]
“I’ll say. Anyway, I’m tired. Tired of feeling stupid, of feeling sorry for myself. So tell me why I’m sitting down. One punch.”
“Okay. It’s my belief that Blair Bissel orchestrated and committed the homicides at Felicity Kade’s apartment, killing her and his brother in order to fake his own death and implicate you.”
“That’s just crazy.” The words wheezed out as if the punch had landed hard on her throat. “He’s dead. Blair’s dead. I saw him.”
“You saw what you were meant to see, just as you saw what you were meant to see when he approached you two and a half years ago. And this time, you were in shock and almost immediately incapacitated.”
“But . . . it was verified.”
“I think he switched his identification records with his brother’s, in preparation. I believe he set an elaborate stage so that you, the police, and the clandestine organizations he’d been playing against each other would believe him dead. Nobody looks for the dead, Reva.”
“It’s insane. I’m telling you it’s insane, Dallas.” Reva got to her feet as the others came in from the kitchen. “Blair was a liar and a cheat. He used me. I’m doing everything I can to accept all that. I’ll live with that. But he wasn’t a killer, he wasn’t someone who could . . . could hack two people to death.”
“Who stood to gain from his death?”
“I—you mean financially?”
“In any way.”
“I did, I guess. There’s money, decent money. You know all that.”
“Decent money,” Eve repeated. “You’ve got decent money of your own. He’ll have hidden accounts, and once we find them—”
“Located, listed, and filed on your computer,” Roarke said as he walked in. “As requested, Lieutenant.”
“How much?”
“In excess of four million spread over five accounts.”
“Not enough.”
Roarke inclined his head. “Perhaps not, but it’s all there is. He was neither particularly frugal nor skilled in investment areas. All the accounts have slow, steady leaks over the six years they’ve been opened. He spends, and he speculates, and most usually loses his capital.”
“That plays.” She began to re-evaluate. “Okay, that plays. He goes through money, he needs more money. A big score.”
“So he kills Felicity and his brother to get it, implicates me? You’re painting a monster. I wasn’t married to a monster.”
“You were married to an illusion.”
Reva’s head jerked back as if the blow had landed. “You’re grabbing at air because you don’t have anything else. And because you don’t want to leave me with nothing. I loved him, whether or not he was an illusion. Do you understand the concept?”
“I’m familiar with it.”
“You want me to believe I loved someone capable of murder. Cold-blooded, cold-minded murder.”
It took all her will to keep her gaze from flicking, even for an instant, toward Roarke. And to keep her heart and mind from asking herself that same question.
“What you believe is your own business. How you handle this is up to you. If you can’t deal with the direction of my investigation, you’re no use to me.”
“You’re the cold-blooded one. The cold-minded one. And I’ve been used just about enough.”
When she strode out, Tokimoto eased away from the door and followed her.
“Gee, she took that well.” Now Eve allowed herself a slow scan of faces. “Would anyone like to complete this briefing, or should we break for comments about my need for sensitivity training?”
“It’s a hard knock, Dallas,” Feeney said. “No way for you to pretty it up for her. She’ll be back when she shakes it off.”
“We’ll work without her. Bissel has accounts in various locations, odds are he’s got a bolt-hole—a lavish one, maybe more than one. He’s still in the city, cleaning up after himself, so he must have one here. We find it.”
“I found two properties,” Roarke put in. “One in the Canary Islands, the other in Singapore. Neither were very well cloaked, meaning if I found them so easily, others would.”
“So they’re probably blinds. He’s not completely stupid. Let’s look in his brother’s name, or Kade’s, Ewing’s. He might have set himself up, using them as cover, then if . . . No, no. Shit! McCoy. Chloe McCoy. He had to have more use