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“Fitzhugh’s clients had better start looking for another lawyer. That’s all I’ve got to give you.”
“Come on. Accident, homicide, what?”
“We’re investigating,” Eve said shortly and coded open her locks.
“Peabody?” But Peabody just grinned and shrugged her shoulders. “You know, Dallas, it’s common knowledge that you and the dearly departed weren’t fans of each other. The top sound bite after court yesterday was him referring to you as a violent cop who used her badge as a blunt instrument.”
“It’s a shame he won’t be able to give you and your associates such catchy quotes anymore.”
As Eve slammed the car door, Nadine leaned doggedly in the window. “So you give me one.”
“S. T. Fitzhugh is dead. Police are investigating. Back off.” Eve started the engine, torpedoed out of the slot so that Nadine had to dance back to save her toes. At Peabody’s chuckle, Eve slid a stony glance in her direction. “Something funny?”
“I like her.” Peabody couldn’t resist looking back, and she noted that Nadine was grinning. “So do you.”
Eve smothered a chuckle. “There’s no accounting for taste,” she said and drove out into the rainy morning.
It had gone perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. It was an exciting, powerful feeling to know that you had the controls. The reports coming from various news agencies were all duly logged and recorded. Such matters required careful organization and were added to the small but satisfactorily growing pile of data discs.
It was such fun, and that was a surprise. Fun had certainly not been the prime motivator of the operation. But it was a delightful side effect.
Who would succumb next?
At the flick of a switch, Eve’s face flashed onto a monitor, all pertinent data split-screened beside her. A fascinating woman. Birthplace and parents unknown. The abused child discovered hiding in an alley in Dallas, Texas, body battered, mind blanked. A woman who couldn’t remember the early years of her own life. The years that formed the soul. Years when she had been beaten and raped and tormented.
What did that sort of life do to the mind? To the heart? To the person?
It had made the girl a social worker and had made Eve Dallas into a woman who had become a cop. The cop with the reputation for digging deep, and who had come into some notoriety the previous winter during the investigation of a sensitive and ugly case.
That was when she had met Roarke.
The computer hummed, sliced Roarke’s face onto the screen. Such an intriguing couple. His background was no prettier than the cop’s had been. But he’d chosen, at least initially, the other side of the law to make his mark. And his fortune.
Now they were a set. A set that could be destroyed on a whim.
But not yet. Not for some little time yet.
After all, the game had just begun.
chapter five
“I just don’t buy it,” Eve muttered as she called up data on Fitzhugh. She studied his bold, striking face as it flashed onto her monitor, shook her head. “I just don’t buy it,” she repeated.
She scanned his date and place of birth, saw that he’d been born in Philadelphia during the last decade of the previous century. He’d been married to a Milicent Barrows from 2033 to 2036. Divorced, no children.
He’d moved to New York the same year as his divorce, established his criminal law practice, and as far as she could see, had never looked back.
“Annual income,” she requested.
Subject Fitzhugh, annual income for last tax year. Two million, seven hundred USD.
“Bloodsucker,” she murmured. “Computer, list and detail any arrests.”
Searching. No police record on file.
“Okay, so he’s clean. How about this? List all civil suits filed against subject.”
She got a hit on that, a short list of names, and she ordered a hard copy. She requested a list of cases Fitzhugh had lost over the last ten years, noted the names that mirrored the suits filed against him. It made her sigh. It was typical litigation of the era. Your lawyer doesn’t get you off, you sue the lawyer. It gave another jab to her hopeful theory of blackmail.
