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“I’m working on some.” She poured two glasses of wine, then carried them to the AutoChef. She programmed an assortment of cheeses, breads, crackers, fruit. She brought the wine over, handed a glass to Roarke, put hers on the night table before going back for the food. When she laid the tray on the bed, both the cat—who’d propped his head on Roarke’s thigh—and her husband studied her.
“Well now, isn’t this homey?”
“Some . . .” She reached over him for her wine, brushed her lips over his on the way back. “Might consider it groveling.”
“It might be a start.”
She spread cheese on a small round of crusty bread, offered it. “Alex and Sandy hooked up in college. Father and son weren’t on the best of terms at that point. So it could be Ricker enlisted Sandy to get close, to develop a friendship.” She spread another round for herself. “The thing is, from what I’ve got at this point, Grady went to college. Not the same college, but she did six months in Europe. Some sort of exchange deal.”
“You’re wondering if she was Ricker’s even then, and she recruited Sandy for him.”
“It’s a thought. She’d have been pretty young. But then so were you when you had business with Ricker. You don’t remember her? She might’ve used a different name when she came around, maybe had a different look.”
“There were women, certainly. Young women. He enjoyed them. Used them. Sexually or for whatever purpose best suited. I saw her ID shot, and got a look at her at the memorial. She didn’t look familiar.”
Eve brooded over it. “It doesn’t fit that she’s new to him. He couldn’t know Coltraine would transfer to New York before she knew it herself. Grady’s been in that squad for three years, and a cop for more than eight. And he’d never trust someone that new with an assignment like this. Plus, he’s been in a cage longer than Coltraine’s been in New York, so how would he select and convince Grady to kill her? Hunter. That was his term for her in the transmission. She’s done this before.”
“So she was in place, and it happened to be the right place and the right time for this purpose.”
“Yeah. If not her, he’d have someone else. But it was her, so how, why, and when did she turn, did she sign up? She didn’t join the force right out of college. She took another couple years. I’ve got no employment on record for that period.”
“It’s not unusual to take a few months or a year between graduation and the start of a career. In this case, it would’ve been time for more specific training and education.”
“Detective third grade, small squad—not much notice there. She lives alone, nobody to wonder where she is, what she’s doing. She takes every day—always has—of her vacation and sick leave.”
“Unlike someone we know,” Roarke said to Galahad as he offered the cat a small cracker and a smudge of cheese.
“Flexing time regularly,” Eve added. “Not enough to raise eyebrows, but considerable. Enough time, when you add it up, for her to take other assignments. I need to know where she was during that period between college and going on the job. If she crossed with Sandy during that six months in Europe. Where she goes during her off time. I only need one connection, one time paths crossed. Reo can get me a search warrant on that.”
“I take it we’re working tonight.”
Eve popped a grape into her mouth before she carried the tray over to her dresser. “It’s not night yet.” She crawled back onto the bed, and onto her man. “And I have to finish groveling.”
“That’s right, you do.” In a quick move he reversed their positions. He lowered his head, caught her bottom lip in his teeth. Tugged. “There’s quite a bit of groveling to be done here. So this might take a while.”
“What choice do I have? My word is my bond.”
Sleep, sex, a little food—it was, Eve thought, the trifecta of energy boosts. And since she was going to use that energy to work, she deserved her most comfortable clothes. In ancient jeans and an even more ancient Police Academy T-shirt, she brought coffee out of her office kitchen. And found Roarke studying her board.
“Because she’s a woman?”
Eve passed him one of the mugs. “I know it sounds shaky. I guess you had to be here. It could be any one of them, but she’s the best fit. And fitting her . . . it’s all head and gut. That’s the problem. Without more, without some bump along the way, I can’t get the search. And the search may be the only way to find the bumps.”
“If bumps are there, we’d find them with the unregistered.”
“Can’t do it. Before, that was for Morris.” She shook her head, knowing as logic it was again shaky. “I’m going after another cop. I have to do it straight. Every step I take has to be by and on the book for the investigation. And for me. She made a mistake somewhere, overlooked something, sometime. She made one by sending Coltraine’s weapon and badge back. By botching the ambush on me.”
“Assuming it’s Grady. This one.” Roarke tapped Clifton’s photo. “He’s trouble. I know his type.”
“Yeah, and I won’t be surprised to hear at some point he’s ordered to hand over his pieces and badge. And if Coltraine had been knocked around, he’d be top of my list. That was a mistake,” Eve considered. “Grady did it too clean. It just wasn’t physical enough, either of the hits. That’s pride. She’s proud of her work. She does well on the job, she gets kudos from her LT. She does well on her mission, she gets them from Ricker. She covers both.”
“ ‘Don’t disappoint me, dear,’ ” Roarke remembered. “It does strike as a warning to a female. One that puts her in a subordinate position, and one that implies a relationship.”
“Do you ever call your subordinates ‘dear?’ ”
“Good Christ, I hope not. It’s a kind of backhanded slap, isn’t it? If I need to slap an employee, I do it face-to-face.”
“Exactly. Ricker can’t, being all busy in a cage off-planet. The whole phrase is an insult, and a warning. His history with women, it just fits again. So where did she catch his eye? I figure I’ll start with that six months in Europe, the college stint. I might find some intersect with Sandy, then I can work back, and forward from there.”
