Nora Roberts - Remember When

"She's dead? Murdered? Like Andrea?"

"Did you know her? Personally?"

Without thinking, Samantha picked up Eve's bottle of water, drank. "I don't know what to think. I was just talking about her ten minutes ago, just talking about her with Nadine."

"You told Nadine about Tina Cobb?"

"I mentioned her. Not by name. Just the cleaning service and how I remembered-just when we were talking, I remembered-that I hadn't canceled the service for this week."

No wonder Nadine had given up so easily. She'd already had another line to tug. "Did you know her?"

"Not really. Oh God, I'm sorry," she said, staring at the bottle of water in her hand. She passed it back to Eve.

"No problem. You didn't know Tina Cobb?"

"I met her. I mean, she was in my house, cleaning my house," she added as she rubbed her forehead. "Can I have a minute?"

"Sure."

Samantha got up, walked around the room once, started around it again.

"Pulling it together," Peabody murmured. "Calming herself down."

"Yeah. She's got spine. Makes it easier from our end."

After the second circuit, Samantha ordered her own bottle of water, stood patiently until the machine had finished its recital and spat the selection into the slot.

She walked back, opening the bottle as she sat. After one long pull, she nodded at Eve. "Okay. I had to settle down."

"You need more time, it's not a problem."

"No. She always seemed like such a little thing to me. Tina. Young and little, though I guess she wasn't that much younger or smaller than me. I always wondered how she handled all that heavy cleaning. Usually, I'd hole up in my office when she was there, or schedule outside meetings or errands."

She stopped, cleared her throat. "I sort of come from money. Not big mountains of it, but nice comfortable hills. We always had household help. But my place here? It's my first place all my own, and it felt weird having somebody around, even a couple times a month, picking up after me."

She brushed her hands over her hair. "And that is completely beside the point."

"Not completely." Peabody nudged the bottle of water toward Samantha because it seemed she'd forgotten it was there. "It gives us an idea of the dynamics between you."

"We didn't have much of one." She drank again. "I just stayed out of her way.

She was very pleasant, very efficient. We might have a brief conversation, but both of us would usually just get to work. Is it because she was in my house?

Is she dead because she was in my house?"

"We're looking into that," Eve said. "You told us in your earlier statement that the cleaning service had your access and security codes."

"Yes. They're bonded. They have a top-level reputation. Their employees all go through intense screening. Actually, it's a little scary and nothing I'd want to go through. But for someone like me, who can't always be at home to let a cleaning service into the house, it was ideal. She knew how to get in,"

Samantha stated. "Someone killed her because she knew how to get in."

"I believe that's true. Did she ever mention a friend-a boyfriend?"

"No. We didn't talk about personal matters. We were polite and easy with each other but not personal."

"Did she ever bring anyone with her? To help her with her work?"

"No. I have a team every three months. The company sets that up. Otherwise, it was just one maid, twice a month. I live alone, and I have what my mother says is my grandmother's obsession with order. I don't need more help than that, domestically."

"You never noticed, when she came or went, if anyone dropped her off, picked her up?"

"No. I think she took the bus. Once she was late, and she apologized and said her bus got caught in a jam. You haven't told me how she was killed. Was it like Andrea?"

"No."

"But you still think it's a connection. It's too much of a coincidence not to be."

"We're looking carefully at the connection."

"I always wanted to write this book. Always. I'd beg my grandparents to tell me the story, again and again. Until I could play it backwards in my mind. I loved picturing how my grandparents met, seeing them sitting at her kitchen table with a pool of diamonds. And how they'd won. It was so satisfying for me to know they'd beaten the odds and won. Lived their lives as they chose to live. That's a real victory, don't you think, living as you choose to live?"

"Yeah." She thought of her badge. She thought of Roarke's empire. "It is."

"The villain of the piece, I suppose you could call him, Alex Crew, he killed.

He killed for those shiny stones and, I think, because he could. As much because he could as for the diamonds. He would have killed my grandmother if she hadn't been strong enough, smart enough to best him. That's always been a matter of pride for me, and I wanted to tell that story. Now I have, and two people I know are dead."

"You're not responsible for that."

"I'm telling myself that. Intellectually, I know that. And still, there's a part of me that's separating, and observing. That part that wants very much to tell this story. To write down what's happening now. I wonder what that makes me."

"A writer, I'd say," Peabody answered.

Samantha let out a half laugh. "Well, I guess so. I've made a list, everyone I could think of. People I've talked with about the book. Odd communications I've had from readers or people claiming to have known my great-grandfather."

She drew a disk out of her bag. The enormous one Eve had noted the day before.

"I don't know if it'll help."

"Everything helps. Did Tina Cobb know you'd be out of town?"

"I let the service know, yes. In fact, I remember telling Tina I'd be away and asking her to check the houseplants and my fish. I wasn't sure Andrea would be able to stay, not until just a couple days before I left."

"Did you let the service know you'd have a house-sitter?"

"No. That slipped by me. The last few days in New York were insane. I was doing media and appearances here, packing, doing holographic interviews. And it didn't seem important."

Eve rose, extended a hand. "Thanks for coming in. Detective Peabody will arrange for you to be taken back to your hotel."

"Lieutenant. You didn't tell me how Tina Cobb was killed."

"No, I didn't. We'll be in touch."

Samantha watched her walk out, drew a long breath. "I bet she wins, doesn't she? I bet she almost always wins."

"She won't give up. That comes to the same thing."

***

Eve sat at her desk, input the data from the Cobb case into a sub file, then updated her files on the Jacobs homicide.

"Computer, analyze data on two current case files and run probability. What is the probability that Andrea Jacobs and Tina Cobb were killed by the same person?"

Beginning analysis...

She pushed away from the desk as the computer worked and walked to her skinny window. Sky traffic was relatively light. Tourists looked for cooler spots than stewing Manhattan, she imagined, this time of year. Office drones were busy in their hives. She saw a sky-tram stream by with more than half its seats empty.

Tina Cobb had taken the bus. The sky-tram would've been faster, but that convenience cost. Tina'd been careful with her money then. Saving for a life she'd never have.

Analysis and probability run complete. Probability that Andrea Jacobs and Tina Cobb were murdered by the same person or persons is seventy-eight point eight.

High enough, Eve thought, given the computer's limitations. It would factor in the difference in victim types, the different methodology, geographic location of the murders.

A computer couldn't see what she saw, or feel what she felt.

She turned back as a beep signaled an incoming transmission. The sweepers had been quick, she noted, and sat to read the report.