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“Don’t. Please, please. I’ve been sticking up for you, Jerry. The cops, the cops are all over you, and I’m the only one taking your side. Mal and Dave, they’re blabbing to that cop bitch, and hunkered down with their mothers. But I’ve been on your side. You can ask anybody. Please.”
“Is that so?” Reinhold slapped the sap against his open palm.
“I swear to God. Look, look, you can check my ’link. She’s been trying to tag me—that cop, that Dallas. I don’t even talk to her. Because I’m on your side.”
As if interested, Reinhold took Joe’s ’link from the counter where he’d put it, scrolled through. “You’ve been busy. Talking to Mal, to Dave, getting tagged by the cops, and who’s this one—Marjorie Mansfield? A new whore?”
“No, a reporter. She’s looking to do a story on you, on what’s … what’s been happening. She tracked me down.”
“Is that right?” Reinhold smiled broadly. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing! I wouldn’t rat you, man. Never.” His chest trembled in pain and fear as he struggled to speak. “I told her you were innocent, you’d never have killed anybody. You were framed, that’s what I said. Somebody—”
Reinhold swung the sap, and delight spilled through him at the snap and crunch of teeth and bone. “Wrong answer,” he said, and swung again.
In a direct about-face from her usual position on it, Eve blessed the time difference that had most of the Irish contingent heading off to bed at a reasonable, if not early, hour. Babies and kids were hauled off first, many of them limp in sleep as a parent tossed them over a shoulder or scooped them into arms.
Others followed, bit by bit—though she suspected some of the older kids—age or attitude—were all but camped out in the game room.
But the minute it seemed reasonable, she snuck off and up to her office.
Not that she hadn’t enjoyed the long, noisy dinner, and the people. Roarke’s family was so damn likable, so funny, and so full of the bullshit they liked to call blarney it just wasn’t possible to resent the time.
Very much.
She went straight to her comp to check on any further incomings and reports. She found plenty of both, but not much in them to add any real weight or introduce new angles.
Still, she studied Peabody’s refinement of the map, and found some good work there.
She looked up from it when Roarke stepped in.
“I owe you a very big solid for the evening,” he began.
“No, you don’t. Not only because visiting relatives are in the Marriage Rules, but because I just like them. And maybe it gave me some rest-the-brain-cells time. We’ll see.”
“I’ll thank you anyway.” He walked over to kiss the top of her head. “I’ll be putting some time in the lab yet tonight, see if something shakes loose.”
“Even if it’s a crumb, tell me.”
“I’ll do that very thing. And give it as much time as I can possibly spare tomorrow. Meanwhile”—as he turned to go, he stopped to study the map on screen—“you’ve made some changes.”
“Peabody. I need to go through it all, but my sense is they’re good changes. Hopefully the right changes.”
“Taken down like this …” With his head angled, he stepped a bit closer to the screen. “I believe I own some of those properties.”
“You—of course you do,” she said on a frustrated sigh. “Stupid brain cells. You can probably get through to the managers, the supervisors, whoever has a tenant list.”
“I could, yes, but even that would take some time. Holiday, darling. Offices are closed at this hour, and will be tomorrow. Some of those managers will be out of town, and accessing the data will take time. I can do it myself, but unless you have a name, I wouldn’t know who I’m to look for.”
“New tenant. The first kill wasn’t planned. He wouldn’t have starting looking for a place, this kind of place, sooner than last Friday, probably later than that, but we can work it from last Friday. New, single male tenant, that cuts it down.”
“It would. I’ll start something, but first I’ll need a copy of the revised map—in the lab,” he added, “so I can work the other program as well. I don’t know how many I have in a sector that large, but it’s easy enough to find out. And in a sector that large, they won’t all be mine. I could, with a bit of finesse, access other tenant lists with the same criteria.”
She bumped against her own line, slid a toe across. “Go ahead. I’ll push for a warrant. Start with your own, okay? I’ll push hard and get it. I’ll damn well get the warrant.”
“All right then. I’ll see what I can do. With or without the warrant, it’ll take time. I’ll wager there’s easily a hundred properties highlighted there.”
“A hundred and twenty-four buildings,” she confirmed. “Whatever you can do to cut that down’s a plus. And it’s time we had luck swing our way. Maybe you’ll hit.”
