Miz Dallas, but he turned my sister into something she wasn’t. He does that to people.”
“That he does, Mr. Charles.”
“Is my sister … is she in trouble, too?”
“I don’t think she’s involved in the matter I’m investigating. I appreciate, very much, your taking the time to answer my questions.”
“If you have any more, would you come back to me, and not my parents? They’re feisty enough, but they’re getting up there. And this is a hole in their heart. Their girl gone, grandkids they’ve never met. It’s a hole.”
“If there’s anything else, I’ll come to you. I won’t contact them.”
“Thanks for that. I gotta get on. But hey, do you know that New York cop they made that clone vid about?”
“Actually, I … Yes.”
“Sure hope you’re as good as she was in the vid and nail that son of a bitch’s ass to a splintery wall.”
Peabody stopped working when Eve clicked off. “You let him get away with calling you Miz, not just because you didn’t want to interrupt the flow, but because, jeez, who wouldn’t feel for that guy? For his family.”
“Just another reason I want to nail Wilkey’s ass to a splintery wall. She was pregnant, and there’s no offspring on record of that year or the next. Or until Mirium Wilkey in March of ’37. So either she miscarried or had a stillbirth, or the child died. And I’m betting that happened with her more than once.”
“Kids guarantee the future.”
“And he’d want a lot of guarantees.”
She turned back to her screen.
“Why isn’t the daughter married to some rich dude by now?” Eve wondered.
The click that Yancy’s arrival interrupted clicked again.
She started her next run.
16
Money, Eve thought as she began looking more deeply into Mir-ium Wilkey’s background and data. Was it all about money? Always a core motive for murder.
She’d lived most of her life without it, or with just enough to get through. She’d gone hungry as a child, yes, but that had been a result of cruelty and neglect. She’d never developed a thirst for wealth.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t understand it, and its sometimes lethal power.
Roarke had the thirst, and most of it a result of the cruelty and neglect in his own childhood. He’d stolen to survive, then to quench the thirst. But rather than being driven by that lethal power, he’d held the wheel.
He’d never killed for gain.
Had Wilkey? Every instinct said yes, oh yes, he had. Maybe, just maybe, not with his own hands. But with words, with his deliberate, calculated, decades-long spread of intolerance, distrust, cool-blooded prejudice delivered behind the mask of faith.
He’d raised his flock by giving them not just excuses to hate the other, but the right. He’d certainly raised his children by the same methods.
Three sons, one daughter.
The daughter received her primary education in Natural Order schools—no surprise there. She’d earned an MBA from Unity University, Natural Order’s online college. Another degree, same place, in hospitality and a third in computer science.
Were those directives from the father, Eve wondered, or Mirium’s own interests and ambitions?
And even with those three degrees, she’d been relegated to serving her father and running his household.
According to her data, she owned no property in her own name, earned a salary considerably less than even her younger brother. Her job title: domestic manager.
“I bet that grates,” Eve muttered.
Would it grate to know she’d be expected to marry a man approved—maybe selected—by her father? Then produce a child every year or two?
Or would that suit her own ambitions?
After another thirty minutes of searching, scanning, absorbing, Eve got more coffee. She put her boots up on her command center and studied the board.
Studied Mirium Wilkey’s ID shot.
A young, not unattractive woman who presented herself as plain, wore clothes even Eve recognized as dowdy and unfashionable. An educated woman with three degrees and a substantial income, who owned nothing.
Her older brothers owned homes, vehicles, held important-sounding titles.
But not the daughter.
“It’s got to fucking grate. Peabody.”
“Yeah, I’m about to send you the highlights.”
“Tell me this. Where did Wilkey’s sons go to college?”
“Stanton Wilkey University.”
Eve turned her head from the board to look at Peabody. “Where?”
“He built a small, private college on Utopia Island. All three went there. The youngest just graduated. I took a closer look at it. It’s males only, and only accepts students who’ve graduated from approved schools.”
“They can do that?”
“Private island, private school. Ninety-six percent of the graduates go on to work in what they call the Natural Order Network.”
“Huh. Computer, search for any