The In Death Collection Books 26-29 - J.D. Robb [337]
“I know better.” He got to his feet. She could see the long, sleepless night on him—the shadowed eyes, the pallor. “Better than to get in your way, better than to ask questions, to push at you when you push yourself harder than anyone could. I know better. But it doesn’t matter.”
“It’s okay.” She shut the door. “It’s okay.”
“I’m going to see her. I needed to come here first, needed you to tell me whatever you could before I went to see her.”
Eve’s ’link beeped, and she ignored it. “A little milk in your coffee, right?”
“Yes, a little. Thanks.”
She programmed coffee, using the time to organize her thoughts. “I spoke with her family.”
“I know. So have I now.”
She gave him the coffee, took her own seat, swiveling it to face him. “And I spoke with her lieutenant here and in Atlanta. With her partner there, with her squad here. She was very well liked.”
He nodded. “You’re trying to comfort me, and I’m grateful. I need more. I need facts. Theories if that’s all you have. I need to know what you think happened. And why. I need you to promise you’ll tell me the truth. If you give me your word, you won’t break it. Will you promise me the truth?”
“Okay.” She nodded. “The truth. I give you my word. I need the same from you. I have to ask you something, and I need the truth.”
“Lies won’t help her.”
“No, they won’t. Morris, did you know that Detective—that Amaryllis had had an intimate relationship with Max Ricker’s son, with Alex Ricker, before she transferred to New York?”
8
SHE KNEW THE ANSWER INSTANTLY. HIS EYES widened; his lips trembled open. He said nothing for a moment or two while she watched him drink coffee and compose himself. He sat, not in one of his sharp, stylish suits, but in a lightweight black sweater and jeans, with his hair pulled back in a simple tail with none of the usual ornamentation.
As he sat, in silence, she knew just as she’d told Roarke, she’d kicked a friend in the gut a second time.
“Morris—”
He held up a hand asking for another minute. “You’ve confirmed this?”
“Yes.”
“I knew there had been someone, that she’d been involved with someone before she left Atlanta.” He lifted a hand to rub at his temple. “They’d broken it off, and it left her upset, at loose ends. It was one of the reasons she decided to transfer. Just a fresh start, a clean slate—some distance between what had been and what could be. That’s how she put it. I should’ve told you yesterday. I didn’t think of it. I couldn’t think—”
“It’s okay.”
“She mentioned it, the way you do when you’re getting to know someone. She said . . . What did she say? I’m trying to remember. Just that they couldn’t make it work, couldn’t be what each other needed them to be. She never mentioned his name. I never asked. Why would I?”
“Can you tell me, did you get a sense she was worried about him, about how they’d ended it?”
“No. I only remember thinking what kind of fool had let her get away. She didn’t bring it up again, and neither did I. It was the past. We were both focused on now, on where we were going. On what could be, I suppose. Did he do this?”
“I don’t know. It’s a lead, and I’ll follow it. But I don’t know, Morris. I’ll tell you what I know, if you trust me to handle it.”
“There’s no one I trust more. That’s the truth.”
“Alex Ricker is in New York.”
The color that came into his face was rage, barely controlled. “Hear me out,” she demanded. “He contacted her, and she went to see him the day before she died. He volunteered this information to me this morning when I went to see him.”
Morris set his coffee aside and, rising, walked to Eve’s skinny window. “They weren’t still involved. I would have known.”
“He said they weren’t, and that they broke off their relationship amicably. They met as friends. They had a drink and a catch-up conversation during which she told him she’d met someone, was involved. He stated that she looked happy.”
“Did you believe him?”
Hell, she thought, how did she dance around her suspicions and keep her word? “I believe he might have been telling the truth, or part of the