J. Robb - Vengeance in Death

"What?" was all he managed.

"You didn't know." Her limbs went limp with it. It wasn't always possible to read him, she knew. He was too controlled, too clever, too skilled. But there was no mistaking the simple shock on his face. "You weren't prepared for that. You had no idea at all." She took a step closer. "What were you prepared for? What did you expect me to ask you?"

"Let's just stick with the initial question." Outwardly his recovery was smooth and quick. His stomach muscles, though, were tightening into oily knots. "You believe Summerset visited Tommy on the day of the murder. That's just not possible."

"Why not?"

"Because he would have told me."

"He tells you everything, does he?" She jammed her hands in her pockets, took a fast, impatient turn around the room. "How well did he know Brennen?"

"Not well at all. Why do you think he was there that day?"

"Because I have the security discs." She stood still now, facing him with the desk between. "I have Summerset in the lobby of the Luxury Towers at noon. I have him getting into an elevator. I don't have him coming back out. The ME puts Brennen's time of death at four-fifty p.m. But the initial injury, the amputation of the hand, is clocked at between twelve-fifteen and twelve-thirty p.m."

Because he needed something to do with his hands, Roarke walked over, poured a brandy. He stood for a moment, swirling it. "He may irritate you, Eve. You may find him… unpleasant." He only arched his brows when Eve snorted. "But you can't seriously believe Summerset is capable of murder, of spending a number of hours torturing another human being." Roarke lifted the snifter, sipped. "I can tell you, without a single doubt, that he isn't capable of it, and never has been."

She wouldn't be swayed by sentiment. "Then where was your man, Roarke, from noon to five p.m. on the date in question?''

"You'd do better to ask him." He reached up, pressed a button on a monitor without glancing at it. "Summerset, would you come up to my office, please? My wife has a question for you."

"Very well."

"I've known the man since I was a boy," Roarke said to Eve. "I've told you most of it, trusted you with that. Now I'm trusting you with him."

She felt a fist squeeze around her heart. "I can't let this be personal. You can't ask that of me."

"You can't let it be anything else. Because that's exactly what it is. Personal," he continued, walking to her. "Intimate." With fingertips only, he skimmed her cheek. "Mine."

He dropped his hand as the door opened.

Summerset stepped inside. His silver hair was perfectly groomed, his black suit ruthlessly pressed, his shoes shone with a mirror gleam.

"Lieutenant," he said, as if the word was ever so slightly distasteful to his palette. "Can I help you?"

"Why were you at the Luxury Towers yesterday at noon?"

He stared at her, through her, and his mouth thinned to a line sharp as a blade. "That is certainly none of your business."

"Wrong, it's exactly my business. Why did you go see Thomas Brennen?"

"Thomas Brennen? I haven't seen Thomas Brennen since we left Ireland."

"Then what were you doing at the Luxury Towers?"

"I fail to see what one has to do with the other. My free time is…" He trailed off, and his eyes darted to Roarke, went wide. "Is that where – Tommy lived at the Luxury Towers?"

"You're talking to me." Eve stepped between them so that Summerset focused on her face. "I'll ask you again, what were you doing at the Luxury Towers yesterday at noon?''

"I have an acquaintance who lives there. We had an engagement, for lunch and a matinee."

"All right." Relieved, Eve pulled out her recorder. "Give me her name."

"Audrey, Audrey Morrell."

"Apartment number?"

"Twelve eighteen."

"And Ms. Morrell will verify that you met at noon and spent the day together?''

His already pale face was slowly going whiter. "No."

"No?" Eve looked up, and said nothing when Roarke brought Summerset a glass of brandy.

"Audrey – Ms. Morrell wasn't in when I arrived. I waited for a time, then realized she'd… Something must have come up."

"How long did you wait?"

"Thirty or forty minutes." Some color seeped back into his cheeks now, of the embarrassed sort. "Then I left."

"By the lobby exit."

"Of course."

"I don't have you on the security discs coming out. Maybe you left by another exit."

"I certainly did not."

Eve bit her tongue. She'd tossed him a rope, she thought, and he hadn't grabbed for it. "Fine, you stick to that. What did you do then?"

"I decided against the matinee. I went to the park."

"The park. Great." She leaned back on Roarke's desk. "What park?"

"Central Park. There was an outdoor art exhibit. I browsed for a time."

"It was raining."

"There were inclement weather domes."

"How did you get from the apartment complex to the park? What kind of transpo?"

"I walked."

Her head began to throb. "In the rain?"

"Yes." He said it stiffly and sipped his brandy.

"Did you speak to anyone, meet someone you know?"

"No."

"Shit." She sighed it, then rubbed absently at her temple. "Where were you at midnight last night?"

"Eve – "

She cut Roarke off with a look. "This is what I do. What I have to do. Were you at the Green Shamrock last night at midnight?"

"I was in bed with a book."

"What was your relationship with Shawn Conroy?"

Summerset set the brandy down, stared at Roarke over Eve's shoulder. "Shawn Conroy was a boy in Dublin years ago. He's dead, then?"

"Someone claiming to represent Roarke lured him to one of Roarke's rental units, nailed him to the floor, and opened up pieces of him. Let him bleed to death." There was shock on his face, she noted. Good, she wanted him to be shocked. "And you're going to have to give me a solid alibi, something I can confirm, or I'm going to have to take you in for a formal interview."

"I don't have one."

"Find one," she suggested, "before eight a.m. tomorrow. That's when I want you at Cop Central."

His eyes were cold and bitter when they met Eve's. "You'll enjoy interrogating me, won't you, Lieutenant?"

"Hauling you in on suspicion of a couple of torture murders is just the chance I've been waiting for. The fact that the media will be screaming the news of your connection to Roarke by midday is only a minor inconvenience." Disgusted, she stalked toward the door that connected her office with Roarke's.

"Eve." Roarke's voice was quiet. "I need to speak with you."

"Not now" was all she said as she closed the door between them. Roarke heard the bad-tempered snick of locks engaging.

"She's already decided I'm guilty." Summerset drank brandy now, deeply.

"No." While regret warred with irritation, Roarke studied the panel that closed him off from his wife. "She's decided she has no choice but to gather the facts." His gaze shifted to Summerset's, held it. "She needs to know all of them."

"That would only worsen the situation."

"She's entitled to know."

Summerset set the snifter down, and his voice was as stiff as his spine. "I see where your loyalties lie, Roarke."

"Do you?" Roarke murmured as Summerset left him alone. "Do you really?"

Eve slept in her office suite, and slept poorly. She didn't care that her deliberate avoidance of Roarke was petty. She needed the distance. Well before eight she was at Cop Central. After toying with a bagel the consistency of cardboard and coffee that bore too close a relationship with raw sewage, she shot off a transmission to Peabody with orders to report to Interview Room C.

Prompt as a palace guard, Peabody was already in the small tiled and mirror-walled room checking the recording equipment when Eve came in. "We've got a suspect?"