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Anne swallowed and looked at Evie with oatmeal smeared on her face. “It’s complicated. But I’ll think about it when this case is over, okay? I really don’t want him involved.”
“I get that. Do you want me to finish up with Evie so you can get ready for work?”
“I have time.” Anne wiped Evie’s mouth. “I kind of would just like to spend the morning with my daughter.”
Michelle dropped a kiss on Evie’s head and gave Anne’s hand a squeeze before heading out. Anne rubbed her thumb along Evie’s hand. What would her daughter think her role was in life when she was a teenager? What would she think about guys, living the way they did? Anne sighed and tried to live in the moment, just for now, and enjoy the happy sounds Evie made as she smacked her spoon into the oatmeal.
***
William smoothed his hand down his suit and checked his tie in the mirror before he left his car and headed up to Harrold Egerton’s penthouse. He wasn’t sure how long he would have to record for the police, but if this was the last favor he did Anne, at least he’d made it a big one.
Unfortunately, when he and Egerton sat around and talked business, they never talked murders or the dirtying of hands. They talked systems, smuggling, supply and demand. They sipped whiskey, neat, while Egerton told William old stories about his bastard father. They talked about the nuts and bolts of business that William had and would do. For that reason, William was glad that he had enacted a promise from the captain that whatever they uncovered wouldn’t result in William’s arrest. He was putting a lot on the line to get them a direct feed into Egerton’s circle, and it had been very clear what happened to anyone who crossed this man.
“What happened to that lovely girl on your arm from the gala?” Egerton asked. He prodded William’s shoe with his own.
William shrugged. “I had her a couple of times.”
“And then?” Egerton leaned over with a grin.
“I sent her on
her way.” It was only partially a lie, but Egerton didn’t need to know about any part of it. Nor did Anne’s wormy little partner who was listening. He wasn’t sure Jeffers and Lopez would come through on their end of things, to be honest, but considering how much they believed they knew about Anne and him, it was simply easier to go along with things.
That had been William’s strategy going in. His father was much like Egerton, so he knew how to play the man. He would play along with almost everything, then take a stand on one thing, something he doesn’t care too much about to prove himself a “proper man,” and then go back to being his little buddy. Men like this didn’t really want someone self-possessed in their employ. Someone who had his own ideas was a potential threat. However, Egerton had always wanted William by his side. It would surely irritate his father, as a bonus.
Anne had been right. Who could be so selfish as to bring a little girl into all of this? William wondered why his mother ever had the poor sense to give his own father a child. As the inheritor of that dysfunction, William believed less and less that he would be that much better. At least he never would’ve had Evie stabbed. And, of course, she would’ve wanted for nothing…
William cut off the thought and laughed at Egerton’s joke. There was no point dwelling on it. William had his suspicions, given how old Evie was, but if Anne wanted nothing to do with him, he couldn’t force their relationship now. He could be a patient man, if he tried.
Just now, he was exercising all the patience he had in him to deal with Egerton.
“Hullo, Daddy,” Clary said as she walked in. She touched her father’s shoulder and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
***
Anne sat in the evidence room looking carefully through each piece they’d found related to the case so far. It was tedious, but after a truly mediocre effort at being a secondary, Jeffers seemed to have fallen off the Earth. She didn’t trust his eye, anyway. She’d called DeWinters to head down here and go over it with her. They needed something that would definitively connect Egerton to the murders, or they’d be back to trying to find a hit man who had managed to stay hidden for the better part of a decade.
Opening up the sleeve with the ring in it one more time, Anne looked over it carefully. Having seen William’s ring again up close, she could tell the difference. William’s had been worn much more often. The gem was brighter. With a frown, Anne rose to check the evidence out and headed upstairs to look something up on her computer.
“Sorry!” DeWinters spotted her returning to her desk. “I had to finish up with the mugging from last night.”
“The world continues to turn, even in the face of a case that won’t crack.” Anne sat at her desk, and DeWinters came up behind her.
“What do you have there?”
“The ring we found at the crime scene. Spencer has one almost exactly like it, which is what led us to him from the beginning.”
“Ah.” DeWinters pulled up Jeffers chair. “What are you looking for?”
“The night of the gala, Wil-Spencer said that maybe his mother had given a ring, similar to his, to someone she mentored. I thought at the time that might be the case, but the worn spots on the original got me thinking. Even if his mother had given her own ring to a protégée, it wouldn’t look this new. Natural oils of the hand would have broken down some part of it.” Anne started searching. “I need a picture of Mrs. Spencer’s hands.”
DeWinters nodded and rolled back over to Jeffers’ computer to help search. A few minutes later, he called, “Got one.”
“I thought my generation was supposed to be the digital natives.” Anne walked over to look.
There she was. Pamela Spencer. Tall, blonde, and strong. Her features were softer, so it was clear that William gained much from his father, but those axe blade cheekbones of his seemed to be a maternal trait. Anne wouldn’t have wanted to cross Mrs. Spencer. Not as an MI6 agent, and not as a mother.
This picture had a clear view of her left hand. As Anne suspected, the ring wasn’t worn on her index or ring finger, but on her thumb. The fading on the right side was from when she had worn it on her thumb, the fading on the left was from when William wore it on his index finger and rubbed it compulsively. The evidence they had wasn’t connected to Pamela Spencer because she had given her ring directly to William as a family heirloom.
