Faithless in Death (In Death #52) - J.D. Robb Page 0,57
is like waking the dead or something. I never cheated on her. I never used an LC. I loved her. When you love somebody, you’re faithful. It was the worst time in my life. I knew I hadn’t done it, but it was right there, all over the fucking Internet. She wouldn’t even talk to me, and ran home. My friends believed me, and my family, but there were plenty … I’m like barely twenty, heart busted, life over.”
He shook it off, literally. “Anyway, my uncle—well, great-uncle—he’s a cop.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, my mom’s uncle Stu. And he believed me, and did some cop stuff and tracked down the LC. She told him Gwen paid her two thousand dollars to come into my dorm room, get naked, do the recording. How I’d be zonked out, how it was just a prank.”
“Must’ve pissed you off.”
“Yeah, it pissed me off, but more it just cut.” He blew out a long breath. “Man, it cut.”
“Your uncle must have told you that you could have charged Gwen on several counts.”
“Yeah, and he wanted me to. But I wanted it over. It didn’t just piss me off, cut me, but I had to ask myself what kind of person does that? Nobody I want to be with. I loved her, and I thought she loved me. If she didn’t, and didn’t want to get married, she could’ve said that. It would’ve cut, sure, but it wouldn’t have humiliated me and screwed with my head.
“Anyway, I got through it, and graduated, took a gap year to get some work experience. Now it’s grad school, and I met Holly. Gwen’s yesterday. But she taught me a lesson.”
“What lesson’s that?”
He smiled again, and the dimples popped back. “It’s engineering, man. Something might look bright and shiny on the outside, but the structure’s what counts.”
A good lesson, Eve thought, and added the conversation to her murder book.
She scanned her search results. Two matches in her initial twenty. She’d run those names, and remove the violent offenses from the filter.
Impulsive, Mira said. And maybe a first act of violence.
While that ran, she contacted a valuable source.
Nadine Furst came onto her screen. Her normally sharp green eyes looked teary.
“Jesus, what?” Eve demanded.
“I’ve just finished a tour of Mavis and Leonardo’s—and Peabody and McNab’s—house. Mavis is in there now with an architect, an engineer. They’re starting demo tomorrow.”
“Already?”
“They’re Roarke’s guys, already had the plans, expedited permits. She’s so stupidly happy, she’s dancing one minute, crying the next. It got me. It really got me.”
She dabbed at her eyes. “As it happens I was about to come your way.”
“Why?”
“Why’d you tag me?”
“Natural Order. What do you know?”
“I might know some of this, some of that.” Now those cat’s eyes turned sharp. “Was the artist who was murdered a member?”
“No.”
“The killer then.”
“If I knew the identity of the killer, I’d be making an arrest instead of talking to you.”
“Digging then. I’d be happy to have a little tête-à-tête with some tit for tat included.”
“You’ve already got tits, and I don’t have a tat.”
“Then we’ll quid some quo,” Nadine said breezily. “Why don’t you meet me in that sweet little park between Central and Mavis’s new place? That’s a nice little walk for both of us.”
“You said you were coming here, now you want me to meet you in the park?”
“Neutral ground, Dallas. And since I’m going to be in the studio all afternoon, I’d like to soak up a little spring. See you there.”
She clicked off before Eve could argue.
Annoyed, but reminding herself what Nadine didn’t know she could usually find out, she left the search running. Since, knowing Nadine, she already had the tat for the tit, or the quo for the quid, she went to Peabody in the bullpen.
“I’m going out to meet Nadine, see what she knows or can find out about Natural Order. I’ll fill you in on that, on the Mira consult, and on my conversation with Billingsly when I get back. Keep running the cross-matches.”
“Where are you meeting her?”
“That dinky little park a couple blocks from the new house.”
“Oh, that’s such a sweet one, pretty green space and the playground. McNab and I can walk right by it on the way to work once the house is finished. Mavis buzzed me that demo’s starting tomorrow. I can’t believe it. We’re going to—”
“Run the matches,” Eve finished, firmly. “Full run on any. I’ll be back.”
She escaped from what she knew would be a daily spewing of bubbly and, rejecting the