The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [224]
“You should’ve gone to the cops.”
“Maybe. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. I played my hand. I got my own firm now, such as it is. I’m happy. I didn’t kill her, but I’ll offer my services pro bono to whoever did. She made me bathe in cold water, every night. Said it was good for me. Cooled hot blood.”
Eve shuddered before she could stop herself. She remembered the cold baths.
“I’m going to want the names of the people who can verify your whereabouts, Maxie.”
“No problem. Tell me how she bought it.”
“Fractured skull, blunt instrument.”
“Oh. I was hoping for something more exotic. Guess that’ll have to do.”
Cold, Eve thought later. Cold and brutally frank. She had to respect that.
Even better, she had her first step toward a pattern of blackmail.
She found two more. Though they didn’t confirm it, she saw it in their eyes. Alibis would be checked for them, and for the two others she couldn’t reach.
She got up for coffee, detoured into Roarke’s office. “Any progress?”
“Continues to dead-end on me.” He shoved back from the desk, obviously annoyed. “Are we sure she had the numbers right?”
“She was shook, so she may have screwed up. But she said them twice, in the sequence I gave you. No hesitation.”
“I’m getting nothing. I’m going to have the computer run them, in various sequences. See what pops up. What about you?”
“I’ve got one confirmed blackmail. Lawyer out in California. I don’t like her for the murder, but she claims she shelled out a quarter million over a couple of years before she cut Trudy off. That’s a lot from one source, and I’m banking there’s more. I’m also banking Trudy had herself a couple of quiet accounts, the sort she wouldn’t report for taxes.”
“Now that I can find easily enough.”
“I’ve got two account numbers from the lawyer where she transferred money to Trudy. But it’s been several years, and maybe Trudy shuffled funds around.”
“The best way to keep the IRS from sniffing. I’ll start with those, find the rest.”
“When you do, if they were e-transfers, we’d be able to track them to the source.”
“Child’s play, and it’ll give me a break from this frustration.”
“Want coffee?”
“How wifely. I would, yes. Thanks.”
“I was getting some for me anyway.”
She heard him laugh as she started out, then she stopped by the board again. If Trudy had income from blackmail, money tucked away, just how much would Bobby inherit now?
A nice boost to his business, she imagined.
She thought briefly of the boy who’d snuck a sandwich into her room when she’d been alone and hungry. How he’d done so without a word, with the faintest of smiles and a finger to his lips.
Then she got coffee, and prepared to find out if he’d killed his own mother.
14
SHE WAS STANDING IN A ROOM, BRILLIANTLY lit, drinking champagne with a group of women. She recognized their faces. The California lawyer was drinking right from the bottle and doing a hip-swinging dance in high red heels. Carly Tween was sitting on a stool with a tall back, sipping delicately while she rubbed her enormous belly with her free hand.
The others—the others who’d been like her—were all chattering the way women do at girl parties. She’d never been fluent in the language of fashion and food and men, so she drank the frothy wine and let the sounds roll over her.
Everyone was duded up. She herself was wearing the same outfit she’d donned for the holiday party. Even in the dream—even knowing it was a dream—her feet ached.
Part of the room was sectioned off, and there the children they’d been sat, watching the party. Hand-me-down clothes, hungry faces, hopeless eyes—all closed off from the lights, the music, the laughter by a sheer glass wall.
Inside it, Bobby served the children sandwiches, and they ate ravenously.