The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [346]
She knew Peabody and McNab were already there because she could hear the music and the voices coming from what she’d designated as the party room. If it made her a coward, she’d live with it, but Eve made a bee-line for her office.
There she updated her board, then sat down to take a closer look at Ellyn Bruberry.
Forty, she mused as the data scrolled onto her wall screen. No marriages, no offspring. The West Side address listed would give Bruberry a grand view of the park and the price tag to match. Not bad for a paralegal and administrative assistant.
American born, though she’d moved from Pittsburgh to London in her early twenties. To join the firm of Stuben, Robbins, and Cavendish—Mull came later—as a legal secretary. Relocated to New York, and the branch there, as Walter Cavendish’s admin six years before.
After the second marriage, Eve mused.
No criminal record.
Eve took a dip into the financials. Hefty salary, she decided, but it wasn’t illegal to pay employees well. Major influxes in income jibed with Christmas, Bruberry’s birthday, and the time she’d come into the law firm—and would be easily explained as bonuses.
But wasn’t it interesting that her personal accounts were handled by Sloan, Myers, and Kraus?
Not Byson’s client though, she confirmed after a check of his list. She made a note to find out who at the firm handled Bruberry’s financials.
Direct lines, she thought again. What was the most direct line from Copperfield/Byson to Cavendish/Bruberry?
The firm again, but if she spiked out from there it was the Bullock Foundation. Clients of both the law firm and the accounting firm. And Cavendish had been flustered when she’d asked if he’d seen the foundation people during their time in New York.
It was the youngest partner, Robert Kraus, who’d been entertaining Bullock and Chase—and who was alibied by them.
“Hey, Dallas.”
She grunted as she called up Kraus’s data.
“You’re not still working. Come on.” Peabody stood beside the desk, hands on her hips. “You need to look at the decorations we’ve got going. I need to run some stuff by you.”
“You just do what you’re doing. It’s fine.”
“Dallas. It’s after ten.”
“Golly, Mom, did I miss curfew? Am I grounded?”
“See, you’re cranky.” Peabody pointed an accusing finger. “Take a break, take a look. It’s for Mavis.”
“Okay, okay. Jesus.” But if she was going to be dragged into decorations, she wasn’t being dragged alone. Eve marched to Roarke’s office. “We’re going to look at decorations and see what else needs to be done. I think.”
“Have fun.”
“Un-uh. We is you, too.”
“I don’t want to.” But he made the mistake of glancing up, and met the same glowering look on Eve’s face she’d seen on Peabody’s. “All right, then. But when this whole business is finally over, you and I are taking that postponed holiday, and doing naked handsprings on the sand.”
“Right with you, ace.”
11
IT WASN’T NUMBERS THAT DANCED IN HER dreams, but rainbows and strange winged babies. When the flying babies began to buzz like wasps and form into packs, Eve clawed her way out of sleep.
She sat up as if her shoulders were on springs and said, “Whoa.”
“Nightmare?” Roarke was already rising from the sofa in the sitting area.
“Flying babies. Evil flying babies with evil wings.”
He stepped onto the platform, sat on the side of the bed. “Darling Eve, we need a vacation.”
“There were balloons,” she said darkly. “And the wings cut through them like razors so they popped. And when they popped, more evil flying babies zoomed out.”
He trailed a finger along her thigh. “Maybe you could make an effort to dream about, oh, let’s say, sex.”
“Somebody had sex, didn’t they, to create the evil flying babies?” Suddenly she reached forward, grabbed fistsful of his sweater. Her eyes radiated desperation. “Don’t leave me alone with all these women today.”
“Sorry. I’m falling back on the penis clause. Which sounds vaguely obscene, when spoken aloud, but I’m using it in any case. No negotiation.