The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [59]
“She’s had sixteen years gilded private education, with honors.”
“A lot of people are school smart and don’t have any practical skills.”
“Get coffee, you’re starting to drool.”
“Thanks.”
“Her father took off, mother’s a medical missionary type, off in the wilds. Dies there.” Eve raised her voice as Peabody hotfooted it to the kitchen. “Only connection I find to Icove is the mother’s professional association. Could be they were lovers, but I don’t know that it matters.”
Eve cocked her head, studied Avril’s ID image on screen. Elegant, she thought. Stunning. And at first glance, she would’ve said soft. But she’d seen that flash, that one instant. And there’d been steel in those eyes.
“We’re going back to the scene,” she continued. “I want to go through the house, room by room. Talk to neighbors, other domestics. We’ll need to verify her alibi. And I want to know the last time, prior to her father-in-law’s death, she was in the Center.”
“Going to be busy,” Peabody said with her mouth full of glazed doughnut. “They were right there,” she mumbled when Eve frowned at her.
“Where?”
“Under D on the menu.” She swallowed hastily. “McNab went in with the electronics, so he got home after me. Way. He said he red-flagged them. He’ll bring Feeney up to date this morning, save you the trouble.”
“She wasn’t worried about the electronics. She wasn’t sweating the security, the transmissions, data.” Eve shook her head. “Either she’s ice, or there’s nothing there to point at her.”
“I’m still leaning toward the adultery angle. If Avril’s in it, she had to have a partner. You don’t kill for someone unless you love them, or they’ve got you by the short hairs on something.”
“Or you pay them.”
“Yeah, that. But I was rolling it around. I know it’s high yuck factor, but what if the father-in-law had been up her skirt? We’re looking at him to have an interest in young women with that project. She was his ward. So he could’ve been using her sexually. Then passes her to the son so he could, um, keep her handy. Maybe they were tag-teaming her.”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
“Then how about this? She’s been dominated and used by men. So she turns to a woman. Emotionally, maybe romantically. They hatch it up.”
“Dolores.”
“Yeah. Say they meet, become lovers.” Peabody licked sugar off her fingers. “Between the two of them they figure out how to take out both Icoves, without implicating Avril. Dolores might have worked on Junior, hooked up, seduced him.”
“He saw her picture after his father’s murder. He didn’t blink.”
“Okay, that’s cold. But it’s not impossible. Or she might’ve looked different with him. Changed her hair, that kind of thing. We damn well know Dolores killed number one. The same method, same weapon used on number two. Probability is ninety-eight and change that she did both.”
“Ninety-eight point seven. I ran it, too,” Eve said. “Going by that and adding my conviction that Avril’s in this, they know each other. Or Avril hired her. It also means Dolores was in town after the first murder. And may still be. I want to find her.”
The door between the offices opened, and Roarke stepped through. The charcoal suit that showed off that lithe body somehow deepened the already staggering blue of his eyes. His hair was swept back from that gorgeous face, and the slow easy smile did something almost obscene to a woman’s belly.
“You’re drooling again,” Eve muttered to Peabody.
“So?”
“Ladies. Am I interrupting?”
“Running a few things,” Eve told him. “We’re going to head out shortly.”
“Then my timing’s good. How are you, Peabody?”
“Up, thanks. And I wanted to thank you for the invite to Thanksgiving. We’re bummed we can’t make it, but we’re going to shuttle it to my parents’ for a couple days.”
“Well, it’s about family, isn’t it, and give them our best. We’ll miss you. I like your necklace. What’s the stone?”
It was