J. Robb - Innocent In Death

“Uh-huh.” Eve glanced around, noticed that Roarke was roaming, browsing, examining. All the things that people who actually liked to shop ended up doing.

“I’m really sorry.” And the guy actually looked it. “We don’t have a sale of that model-or any other-with an inscription added that says ‘Craig’-any spelling-during the last thirty days.”

“Go back another thirty.”

“Oh. Um.” He looked distressed now. “That’ll take me a few minutes, and on the main unit in the back, since I’d have to go back into last year. You’ll have to excuse me.”

“Done. I’ll wait.” She turned now and saw that Roarke wasn’t just shopping, he was buying. She crossed the store, winding around displays. “What are you doing?”

“I’m making a purchase.”

“How? Why?” It must be a kind of sickness, she decided. “You already own six of everything.”

He only smiled, and took the bag from the clerk. “Thank you. And now,” he said to Eve, “it appears I have more of everything. Any luck?”

“No. Still checking. It was always going to come down to cash. Killer thinks clearly. Not going to leave a paper trail. It’s easy to breeze into one of these places, buy something, add the fee for inscription, pass some paper money, and walk out. Nobody’s going to remember you.”

The clerk came back, dripping apology. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t find what you’re looking for. I can ask around, see if any of the clerks remember.”

“Yeah, great. Thanks. You can contact me if you find out anything.” She dug out a card, passed it over.

“That’s one to cross off,” she said when they were outside. “Had to be done, though.”

“Here.” He took out a pair of gloves from the shopping bag. “To replace the ones you’ve lost since Christmas.”

“I haven’t lost them.” Why was she always losing them? “They’re just somewhere else.”

“Of course. These can go on your hands. And these”-he tapped the bag-“will go in your vehicle to replace the ones on your hands once you lose those.”

“And when I lose those?”

“Back to square one. Now, should we go out to dinner, or go back to work?”

“We could eat dinner while we work.”

“How strangely that sort of thing suits us.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll drive.”

Since she’d picked the place for takeout, she let him pick the meal. She should’ve known it would be fish. Maybe it came from being born on an island, though she knew it was more likely he picked it because it was good for her.

Still, it was tasty, as was the bed of spicy rice that almost disguised the vegetables mixed in it. Besides, it washed down just fine with a crisp glass of white.

She told him about the search at the Straffos’ penthouse. This was what she wanted from him now, impressions, comments, insights. Telling him what she knew, what she’d seen, heard, observed. And for now, leaving out the seed of certainty planted dead center of her gut.

“Sad,” he said.

“What is?”

“Who. Straffo’s wife. That’s how she strikes me. Keeping everyone’s records and schedules with her own-needs to know, doesn’t she, where everyone is, what they’re doing. Wouldn’t want to have her own schedule, interests, impulses conflict with theirs. Then there’s her memorial box.”

“Memorial. I thought memory.”

“It’s both, isn’t it? To keep his memory fresh for her, and to memorialize him. For herself. Just for her. That’s sad. It must be a terrible thing for a mother. Then you said she hid some of her meds. Doesn’t want her husband to know she’s taking them. Doesn’t want to-what, upset, disappoint, worry him? So she keeps her little secrets.”

“Yeah, she does,” Eve agreed. “She’s got secrets.”

“And you think they apply to these murders? How?”

“Keeping the status quo is vital to her.” Because visuals helped, Eve brought Allika’s photo ID onto the wall screen. “She broke it off with Williams. Betrayed her husband, sure.” Split-screened Allika’s image with Oliver Straffo’s. “But in addition she rocked her own boat. That spooked her. She needs those waters calm again. Still, I don’t think they ever are. Not inside her anyway. It’s pretense. So she needs her chemical boosts.”

“I don’t see how that connects to your investigation.”

“Everything connects. She loses a kid.” Now, Eve added a third image, the innocent and doomed little boy.

“He’s charming, isn’t he?” Roarke commented.

“Yeah. He’s got a look. So does Allika. Hers is like before and after, and that’s how it strikes me in that house. You can see it in the pictures. In their eyes. They’re wounded, walking wounded, but they get through it. His way, her way. Now she stumbles, has this affair. He knows it, or close enough. I think he knew she ended it, and he doesn’t confront her. Keep up the pretense, the status quo. Already lost a kid, can’t put themselves or their surviving child through a divorce.”

She added Rayleen’s photo so the screen held four images. “Now there are two murders, slapped back to back and right in their faces. She’s shaking and scared. He’s closed up and angry.”

“And the girl?”

Eve looked at the screen. “She’s fascinated.”

“Ah. Children can be cold-blooded. Death’s other for them. They’re so far from it. Innocent enough to believe it can’t touch them, so it’s compelling.”

“Is it innocence?”

“It’s childhood, I suppose.” He topped off her wine, then his own. “So very different from yours or mine.”

“Yeah. Different by a long shot. Roarke?”

“Hmm.”

She started to speak, then changed her mind. “I wonder if either of us can really be objective about a family unit like that.” She gestured toward the screen. “But I know there are answers in that house. I’m going to find them. Each one of them, each segment of that square that became a triangle. Mother, father, daughter.” She drew a triangle in the air. “Each knows something. Something that connects them and keeps them separate at the same time. I’m going to have to take each segment separately to figure it out.”

AFTER DINNER, EVE BEGAN TO SEARCH AND CROSSREFERENCE every name in the address books she’d taken during the search of the Straffo penthouse. While it ran, she started a chart of schedules.

Intersections, she thought again. Parallel lines. But a triangle here, not a circle.

Idly, she doodled a triangle on a pad, drew a horizontal line through its center. “What would you call this?”

Roarke glanced over her shoulder. “What you have there is a midpoint proportionality, a segment whose endpoints are the midpoints of two sides of a triangle. A segment that is parallel to the third side-its length half the length of that third side.”

“Jeez, über-geek. I see a kind of box inside a triangle. A connect from another source.”

“That as well.”

“Huh.” While he wandered off to the kitchen, she rose and updated her murder board. Her computer signaled the assigned task was completed before she was finished.

“Display results.” She started to turn just as Roarke came out of the kitchen with a tray. “We already ate.”

“We did indeed.” He crossed, set the tray on the table, then took off a small plate. And turning, offered it. “And this is a homemade fudge brownie.”

Her heart, she was embarrassed to realize, just melted. “Man, you never miss a trick.”

“You can thank Summerset later.”

“Uh-uh.”

“I asked if he’d bake a batch. So you can thank me as well.” Roarke held the plate just out of reach, tapped his lips with the index finger of his free hand.