managed to brace myself, I caught someone’s hand as those bloody waves heeled us up, caught it as he was sliding by me. I saw his face in a sheet of lightning. Little Jim they called him as he was small and slight. Tough one though, Little Jim. I’d taken fifty from him the night before the storm in a poker game. I’d had a heart flush over his full house. I had him, I thought, I had him, but the water slammed us again, and he slipped out of my hold, and went over the side.”
He paused, lifted his beer, sipped it, like a toast. “And that was all of Little Jim from Liverpool.”
“How old were you?”
“Hmm? Ah, eighteen. Maybe younger, maybe a bit younger than that. We lost five men that night. You wouldn’t have called them good men, I suppose, but it was a hard death for them just the same. And still, we got the cargo in. So …”
He shrugged, bit into his pizza. “I’ve no yearning to travel about on a boat. But I can pilot one well enough if you get a sudden yen.”
“I think we’re both safe from that.” She laid a hand over his. “Was it worth it?” she wondered. “All the risks you took?”
“I am where I am, and you’re with me. So it was, yes, worth it all just for this.” He turned his hand over under hers, linked fingers. “For this.”
She thought about it on the drive home. She rarely asked specifics about the life he’d led before they’d met. She knew about the misery of his childhood, the poverty, the hunger, the violent abuse at the hands of his father.
Neither of them had cheerful, happy Christmas memories from what people called the formative years.
She knew he’d been a Dublin street rat, a thief, pickpocket, an operator, and one who’d used those street skills and more to build the foundation for what was, essentially, a business empire.
She understood that while he’d been moving toward full legitimacy when they’d met, he’d still had his fingers in a few messy pies—more for amusement than need. He’d pulled his fingers out, plugged up those holes for her. For them.
She knew bits and pieces of the time between, but there were large chunks, like a storm at sea, she didn’t know.
When she wondered—and cops always wondered—she usually just let it be. Because he was right. Whatever he’d done, wherever he’d gone, it had all brought him to her.
But there were times she wondered why, and how.
“What do you think hooks people together? Besides the physical. I mean, sex hooks all sorts of people together that don’t work.”
“Other than chemistry? I suppose recognition plays a part.”
She rolled her eyes toward him. “That wifty Irish woo-woo.”
“Wifty?”
“You know.” She shook her hands in the air. “I see how Matthew hooked up initially with K.T. Harris. Same business, same place, both attractive. I even see, to a point, why when he shook her off she dug in. That can be pride, stubbornness, or just obstinacy. But this is—was—more. Obsession’s more than pride and obstinacy. She followed him, spied on him, hired a PI at considerable expense to perform illegal acts, and hoped to blackmail him with the results. She was so dug in on it she planned their holiday vacation together. It didn’t matter to her he didn’t want her, or that if he caved and went along with her it would be under duress. It’s a kind of rape.
“So I just answered my own question.”
“Power, control, and careless violence. Everything you’ve told me about her speaks to her wanting power, over people, her image, her career.”
“You know more about power—getting it, keeping it—than anyone I know. When you want something, you find a way to get it. You wanted me.”
Reaching over, he danced his fingers over the back of her hand. “And I’ve got you, don’t I?”
“Because I wanted you back. I mean, think of the coffee alone. I’d’ve been a fool to say no.”
“And you’re no fool.”
“But if I’d been one, if I’d said no—”
“You did, initially.”
“Yeah, and you walked away. That was pride, but it was also strategy. You cut me off, and because I was stupid in love with you, I came to you.”
“Came to your senses.”
“I needed the coffee. But if I hadn’t. If I’d found another means to feed my need for coffee, what would you have done?”
“I’d have done anything I could to persuade you you’d never be happy without my coffee.” Including groveling, he thought. But why bring that up?
“Not everything,” she corrected. “A man in your position
“I love you.” His eyes met hers briefly, and it was there. The simplicity of it. The enormity of it. “Hurting you wasn’t the goal—or an option.”
“Exactly. For K.T. hurting was just a means, because possession was the goal. And in fact, hurting was a bonus, I think. She wouldn’t have stopped.”
“What does that tell you?”
“Killing her was the means to stop her. Not personal in the intimate sense, but like closing and locking a door when what’s inside the room is dangerous or just really unpleasant. The lack of real violence in the killing’s part of that. She falls—or gets pushed. The killer doesn’t keep at her, doesn’t strike, hit, choke. What he does is drag her into the water, tidy up a little. There now. All better.”
“You’ve eliminated Matthew.”
“The recording covers him, and Marlo, though we could argue they staged it. It’s what they do. But you add the lack of physical payback. Her intentions were to force him into a sexual relationship he didn’t want. That’s personal, it’s intimate—but the murder wasn’t. So yeah, Matthew’s low on the list. Marlo now …”
“Really?”
“Not as low. I’d expect more physical from her—punch, slap, scratch—something. But I can see them intending to confront her as they stated. I can also see Marlo facing off with her first, giving her a shove, then either panicked or just really pissed off, finishing it off with the pool. Matthew would cover for her. He loves her. It doesn’t play real pretty for me, but it makes a tune.”
She let it simmer while he turned in the long, winding driveway toward home. The setting sun washed the stones in gold, flashed spears of red against the many windows. Leaves, still green from summer, took on that light and hinted of the creeping autumn.
When she got out of the car, the air held that same hint—fresh, she thought, rather than chilly.
“Summer’s toast,” she said.
“Well, it had a long, hot stretch of it. It’s cool enough we could have a fire in the bedroom tonight.”
The idea appealed so much she continued to smile even when she walked in and saw Summerset looming in the foyer.
“Halloween’s weeks off yet, but I see you’ve got your costume. It’s good to be prepared.”
He merely cocked an eyebrow. “I have a box of your clothes that came with you into the household and haven’t been used as rags, as yet. In the event you want to trick-or-treat as a sidewalk sleeper.”
“A predictable home,” Roarke put in as he took Eve’s arm to pull her upstairs, “is a comfort to a man.”
“Did he mean that?” she demanded as the cat streaked up after them. “Or was he yanking my chain?”
“I have no idea.”
She shot a dark look behind her. “My clothes weren’t that bad.”
“No comment,” Roarke said when she turned the look on him. “Whatsoever.”
“All he wears is mortician black anyway. What does he know? Hey,” she objected when he continued to pilot her toward the bedroom. “I’ve got work.”
“Yes, and I’d be interested in helping with that. But I want to show you something first.”
