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“Very personal.” He put a hand on her back, rubbed it gently up and down. “Sleeping children were no threat to them.” There were demons in this house now, he thought. Brutal ghosts of them with children’s blood staining their hands. Lurking ones in him, and in her, that muttered, constantly muttered, of the horrors they’d survived.
“Maybe the kids were the targets. Or there’s the possibility one or more of the household had some information that was a threat, so they all had to go in case that information had been shared.”
“No.”
“No.” She sighed, shook her head. “If the killers were afraid of information or knowledge, they would need to ascertain, by intimidation, threat, or torture, that the information hadn’t been passed outside of the household. They would need to check the data centers, the whole fricking house, to be certain such information wasn’t logged somewhere. The tight timing—entrance, murders, exit, doesn’t leave room for them to have searched for anything. It’s made to look like business. But it’s personal.”
“Not as smart as they think,” Roarke commented.
“Because?”
“Smarter to have taken the valuables, to have torn the house up a bit. The entire horror would point more to burglary. Or to have hacked away at the victims, to make it seem like a psychopath, or a burglary gone very wrong.”
She let out a half laugh. “You know, you’re right. You’re damn right. And why didn’t they? Pride. Pride in the work. That’s good, that’s good, because it’s something, and I’ve got nothing. Fucking bupkus. I knew there was a reason I liked having you around.”
“Any little thing I can do.” He took her hand as they started downstairs. “And it’s not true you have nothing. You have your instincts, your skill, your determination. And a witness.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She didn’t want to think about her witness quite yet. “Why would you wipe out an entire family? Not you you, but hypothetically.”
“I appreciate the qualification. Because they’d messed with mine, had been or were a threat to what’s mine.”
“Swisher was a lawyer. Family law.”
Roarke tilted his head as they went out the front door. “That’s interesting, isn’t it?”
“And she was a nutritionist, did a lot of families, or had clients with families. So maybe Swisher lost a case—or won one—that pissed one of his clients or opposings off. Or she pushed the wrong buttons on somebody’s fat kid, or had a client die. And the kids went to private schools. Maybe one of the kids screwed with somebody else’s kid.”
“A lot of avenues.”
“Just have to find the right one.”
“One of the adults might have had an affair with someone else’s spouse. It’s been known to annoy.”
“Looking there.” She slid behind the wheel of her vehicle. “But it’s not solidifying. These two, they had what looks like a pretty solid marriage, and a lot of focus on family. Took trips together, went out together. Like a group. The picture I’m getting doesn’t leave much time for extramarital. And sex takes time.”
“Done well, certainly.”
“I haven’t found anything in their data, their possessions, their schedules that points to an affair. Not yet, anyway. Neighborhood canvass didn’t shake out anything,” she added as she pulled away from the curb. “Nobody saw anything. I figure one of them lives in the area, or they had a bogus permit, or—Jesus—they took the goddamn subway, hailed a cab a couple of blocks away. I can’t pin any of it down.”
“Eve, it’s been less than twenty-four hours.”
She glanced in the rearview, thought of the quiet house on the quiet street. “Feels longer.”
It was always weird, in Eve’s opinion, to have Summerset materialize in the foyer like a recurring nightmare the minute she walked in the door, but it was weirder yet to see him there, with a small blonde girl at his side.
The kid’s hair was shiny, wavy blonde, as if it had been freshly washed and brushed. Who did that? Eve wondered. Did the kid deal with her own hair, or had Summerset done it? And the thought of that gave her the heebies.
But the kid looked comfortable enough with him, even had her hand in his, and the cat at her feet.
“Isn’t this a fine welcome?” Roarke shrugged out of his coat. “How are you, Nixie?”
She looked at him—all blue eyes—and nearly smiled. “Okay. We made apple pie.”
“Did you now?” Roarke bent to pick up the cat when Galahad slithered over to rub against his legs. “That’s a favorite of mine.”
“You can make a little one with the leftovers. That’s what I did.” Then those eyes, big and blue, lasered into Eve’s. “Did you catch them yet?”
“No.” Eve tossed her jacket over the newel post, and for once Summerset didn’t snark or sneer at the habit. “Investigations like this take some time.”
