J. Robb - Divided in Death

“I don’t have bruises on my brain. I can still think. Let’s get the rest of the team in here, civilians included, and kick this ball around.”

“You want Ewing in on this?”

“She was married to him for two years. It might have been a convenience to him, but she still would’ve learned something about him. Habits, fantasies, hangouts. If Sparrow lives, regains consciousness, and opts to share information on Bissel, that may help, but right now, Reva Ewing’s our best source.”

“You’re going to tell her that the husband she was accused of murdering is not only alive, in your opinion, but is the one who set her up?”

“If she can’t deal with it, she’s no help and we’re no worse off. Let’s see if she inherited any of her mother’s spine.”

Feeney came in muttering figures and command codes into a PPC. His chin was stubbled with ginger and gray and the bags under his eyes could’ve held a week’s marketing for a family of three-but there was a gleam in them.

“Bad time to interrupt, kid,” he said to Eve. “We’re on the verge.”

“There’s another prong to this investigation, and that may be on the verge, too. Where are the others?”

“Roarke and Tokimoto are finishing up running a series. Don’t want to walk away in the middle of that, not after what it’s taken to get there. We got one of Kade’s units as clean as it’s going to get. McNab and Ewing are just about done reinstalling some…”

He stopped, pursed his lips as he finally lifted his head and took a good look at her. “Said you got slammed around. They meant it. Ought to put some ice on that eye.”

“Is it going black? Damn it.” She pressed her fingers gingerly along the top edge of her cheekbone, and felt the bolt of pain right down to her toes. “I took a blocker. Isn’t that enough?”

Peabody came out of the kitchen with an ice bandage. “If you let me put this on it, it’ll sting a minute, and look stupid. But it’ll decrease the bruising and swelling. You may not end up with a full shiner.”

“Just do it, don’t talk about it.”

Eve set her teeth while Peabody fixed the bandage. The sting drowned out the throbbing, which wasn’t that much of an improvement.

“Ouch,” McNab commented with a sympathetic wince as he strolled in. “Heard you lost your ride, too.”

“Wasn’t much of a loss. Where’s Ewing?”

“Right behind me. Just had to make a pit stop. Okay if I pump some fuel? I’m empty.”

“There’s cobbler,” Peabody called out as he was already heading to the kitchen. “Apple-cranberry.”

“Cobbler?” Feeney repeated.

“Jeez. Go ahead.” Eve threw up her hands. “Eat, drink, be merry. Every multiple homicide investigation should have cobbler.”

“I’m going to get you something cold to drink,” Peabody decided. “You should probably be pushing fluids.”

With that Eve found herself alone in her office, wondering how she’d so easily lost the reins of her team.

Marital discord, she decided, was like some sort of low-grade fever that threw the whole system just slightly out of whack so you couldn’t manage to function at full capacity.

She wasn’t at the top of her game, that was for sure, and had no idea how to get back there again.

“You want food,” she snapped out the minute Reva came in, “get food. You want drink, get drink. But make it fast. This isn’t a damn twenty-four/seven.”

Reva merely angled her head. “I’m fine, thanks. But I’m betting you feel as bad as you look. Roarke and Tokimoto are going to be a few more minutes. They’re at a flash point.”

“They aren’t the only ones. We’re not going to wait for them. Or for anybody else!” she called out. “You’re going to want to sit down for this.”

“Because this is going to be a really long lecture or because you’re going to, metaphorically, give me a punch?”

“I’m hoping you can take a punch.”

Reva nodded and took the closest chair. “Don’t pull it. Whatever it is, I’d rather you go for the knockout instead of a lot of testing jabs. I’m tired. And with every hour that passes, I feel more of an idiot for not seeing what was in front of my face, day after day, for over two years.”

“What was in front of your face was a guy who behaved and portrayed himself as someone who loved you, and was brought into your life by someone else you trusted.”

“Goes a long way to measuring how well I judge people.”

“They were pros at what they did, and they worked hard to set you up, right along. Were you supposed to look at this guy and think: Hey, secret agent?”

“No.” Reva’s lips curved. “But you’d think I’d get some vibes about liar and cheat.”

“They screened you and they studied you. They knew everything there was to know about you before you met either of them. They knew what was public and private. You were laid up for months for shielding a president, for doing your job. Maybe they hoped you’d have some resentment about that, or that your work for the government would make you open to working with them.”

“Fat fucking chance.”

“And when they got that, they moved on you personally. He knew what you liked to eat, what flowers you preferred, your hobbies, your finances, who you slept with or cared about. You were nothing to them but a tool, and they knew how to use you.”

“The first night, at the art showing, he asked me if I’d have a drink with him. Great-looking guy, funny, sweet, hey, why not. We sat for hours, talking. I felt like I’d known him all my life. Like I’d been waiting for him all my life.”

She looked down at her hands. “I’d been involved before, pretty serious involvement before I was injured, then that fell apart. But nothing came close to what I felt for Blair. And it was all fabrication. It wasn’t perfect. He’d get sulky or irritated at the least slight or criticism, but I figured that was part of the deal, you know? Part of being married and figuring each other out, making each other happy. I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to make it work.”

“It’s never perfect,” Eve said half to herself. “Whenever you think it is, something sneaks up and bites you on the ass.”

“I’ll say. Anyway, I’m tired. Tired of feeling stupid, of feeling sorry for myself. So tell me why I’m sitting down. One punch.”

“Okay. It’s my belief that Blair Bissel orchestrated and committed the homicides at Felicity Kade’s apartment, killing her and his brother in order to fake his own death and implicate you.”

“That’s just crazy.” The words wheezed out as if the punch had landed hard on her throat. “He’s dead. Blair’s dead. I saw him.”

“You saw what you were meant to see, just as you saw what you were meant to see when he approached you two and a half years ago. And this time, you were in shock and almost immediately incapacitated.”

“But… it was verified.”

“I think he switched his identification records with his brother’s, in preparation. I believe he set an elaborate stage so that you, the police, and the clandestine organizations he’d been playing against each other would believe him dead. Nobody looks for the dead, Reva.”

“It’s insane. I’m telling you it’s insane, Dallas.” Reva got to her feet as the others came in from the kitchen. “Blair was a liar and a cheat. He used me. I’m doing everything I can to accept all that. I’ll live with that. But he wasn’t a killer, he wasn’t someone who could… could hack two people to death.”

“Who stood to gain from his death?”

“I-you mean financially?”

“In any way.”

“I did, I guess. There’s money, decent money. You know all that.”