AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How’d he pay?”
“That I remember. Straight E-transfer. The whole shot. Didn’t want to finance. The transfer was ordered, received, and confirmed, and he drove off a happy man.”
“I need all the vehicle information, including temp license and registration number. Full description.”
“All right. Gee, what’d he do? Kill somebody?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“Wow.” Lana busily copied the data disc. “You just can’t trust a pretty face,” she said and slipped her business card into the disc pack.
SEVEN
Peter Nolan didn’t live at the Sixty-eighth Street address. The Kowaskis, an elderly couple, and their creaky schnauzer had lived there for fifteen years.
A check of the bank showed that the Nolan account had been opened, in person, on December 20 of that year and closed on December 22.
Just long enough to do the deal, Eve thought. But where had he gotten the money?
Taking Roarke’s advice, she rounded out a very long day by starting searches on accounts under the name of Palmer. It would, she thought, rubbing her eyes, take a big slice of time.
How much time did Carl have? she wondered. Another day, by her guess. If Palmer was running true to form, he would begin to enjoy his work too much to rush through it. But sometime within the next twenty-four hours, she believed he’d try for Justine Polinsky.
While her machine worked, she leaned back and closed her eyes. Nearly midnight, she thought. Another day. Feeney was working his end. She was confident they’d have a line on the equipment soon, then there were the houses to check. They had the make, model, and license of his vehicle.
He’d left a trail, she thought. He wanted her to follow it, wanted her close. The son of a bitch.
It’s you and me, isn’t it, Dave? she thought as her mind started to drift. How fast can I be, and how clever? You figure it’ll make it all the sweeter when you’ve got me in that cage. It’s because you want that so bad that you’re making mistakes. Little mistakes.
I’m going to hang you with them.
She slid into sleep while her computer hummed and woke only when she felt herself being lifted.
“What?” Reflexively she reached for the weapon she’d already unharnessed.
“You need to be in bed.” Roarke held her close as he left the office.
“I was just resting my eyes. I’ve got data coming in. Don’t carry me.”
“You were dead out, the data will be there in the morning, and I’m already carrying you.”
“I’m getting closer, but not close enough.”
He’d seen the financial data on her screen. “I’ll take a look through the accounts in the morning,” he told her as he laid her on the bed.
“I’ve got it covered.”
He unpinned her badge, set it aside. “Yes, Sheriff, but money is my business. Close it down a while.”
“He’ll be sleeping now.” She let Roarke undress her. “In a big, soft bed with clean sheets. Dave likes to be clean and comfortable. He’ll have a monitor in the bedroom so he can watch Neissan. He likes to watch before he goes to sleep. He told me.”
“Don’t think.” Roarke slipped into bed beside her, gathered her close.
“He wants me.”
“Yes, I know.” Roarke pressed his lips to her hair as much to comfort himself as her. “But he can’t have you.”
Sleep helped. She’d dropped into it like a stone and had lain on the bottom of the dreaming pool for six hours. There’d been no call in the middle of the night to tell her Carl Neissan’s body had been found.
