The In Death Collection Books 6-10 - J. D. Robb [116]
“From his angle, you’d see both.”
“Yeah. Baxter look like a cop going for his stunner to you? Couldn’t he be a doorman, alerted by the commotion, reaching for his security beeper?”
“I’d go for cop,” Roarke told her. “Look at the way he moves.” He ordered the recorder to rewind thirty seconds, then play. The room erupted with noise so he muted audio. “Watch—it’s a textbook cop move. The spin, knees bent, body braced, the right hand sweeping inside the coat at the armpit. Doormen wear beepers on their belts, so his grab’s too high for that.”
“But it happened fast, look how fast.”
“If he knows cops, has had many dealings with them, it could have been enough. McNab doesn’t look anything like a cop, doesn’t move like one. The only way that would have tipped him is if he recognized Ian, knew him to be a cop.”
“McNab doesn’t do much field work, as he complained to me tonight. But they’re both electronics jocks, so it’s not impossible they’ve brushed up against each other. Damn it, I should have thought of that before I sent him out.”
“You’re Monday morning quarterbacking, darling Eve.”
“What?”
“We really have to do something about your lack of interest in sports other than baseball. It’s useless to second-guess yourself here. I watched you run that operation, and you did it with a cool and steady hand.”
“I still fumbled.” She smiled thinly. “How’s that for sports?”
“The fat lady has yet to sing,” he said and laughed at her confused stare. “Meaning the game isn’t over. But tonight is. You’re going to bed.”
She’d been about to say the same, but it was always hard to resist arguing. “Says who?”
“The man you married for sex.”
She ran her tongue around her teeth, hooked her thumbs in her front pockets. “I just said that to needle a sexually repressed, homicidal maniac.”
“I see. So you didn’t marry me for sex.”
“The sex is an entertaining element.”
“An element you’re too tired to explore tonight.”
Because her eyes were drooping, she narrowed them. “Says who?”
He had to laugh, slipping an arm around her waist to walk with her to the elevator so she wouldn’t have to climb stairs. “Darling Eve, you would argue with the devil himself.”
“I thought I was.” She yawned, let herself lean on him a little. In the bedroom, she stripped, let her clothes lay where they fell. “They’re doing a full scan on the car he left in front of the hotel,” she murmured as she crawled into bed. “It’s a rental—charged to Summerset’s secondary credit account.”
“I’ve shifted all my accounts and numbers.” He lay beside her. “I’ll see that the same is done with Summerset’s in the morning. He won’t find it as easy to access now.”
“No latents on the scan so far. Gloves. Swept some strands of hair. Might be his. Couple foreign carpet fibers. Coulda come off his shoes. Running them.”
“That’s fine.” He stroked her hair. “Turn it off now.”
“He’ll shift targets. Didn’t get his points today.” When her voice thickened, he turned so she could curl against him. “It’s gonna be soon.”
Roarke thought she was right. But the target wouldn’t be her, not for now. For now she was curled up warm against him, and asleep.
Patrick Murray was drunker than usual. In the normal scheme of things, he avoided sobriety but didn’t care to stumble or piss on his hands. But tonight, when the Mermaid Club closed its doors at three in the morning, he had done both, more than once.
His wife had left him. Again.
He loved his Loretta with a rare passion, but could admit he too often loved a cozy bottle of Jamison’s more. He’d met his darling at that very club five years before. She’d been naked as the wind and swimming like a fish in the aquatic floor show the club was renowned for, but it had been—for Pat—love at first sight.
He thought of it now as he tripped over the chair he’d been about to upend on the table directly in front of him. Too many pulls of whiskey blurred