parties.” A lesser man would have shrunk under her withering stare. “Okay, maybe not.”
“Keep them wrapped,” Eve ordered as she started out. “If it starts to unravel, I want to hear about it.”
“Yeah, yeah. I bet this sucker has a working siren.”
Eve heard the high-pitched scream of it as she passed into the foyer. “Excuse my idiot associate, Mr. Whittier. We appreciate your cooperation.”
“It’s fine. I want this straightened out.” He managed a smile. “I’ll just go and . . . ” He gestured toward his den. “I’ll just make sure the detective doesn’t . . . ”
“Go right ahead. You’re waiting for the wife,” Eve said in an undertone to Trueheart. “If the son happens by, keep him here, contact me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Peabody, with me.”
“No place I’d rather be.” Peabody glanced at Roarke. “You coming with us?”
“I doubt the lieutenant has use for me at the moment.”
“I’ll probably get around to you.”
“My hope eternally springs.”
She paused on the sidewalk. “If you want to stay available, I’ll let you know when we have Trevor in custody.”
“I appreciate it. Meanwhile, I could do a little search among known collectors and see if a piece fitting the description has been on the market in the last few months.”
“That’d cover some bases. Appreciate it. Let’s get the commander to wheedle a warrant for us. I want to talk to Chad Dix. Proving a connection there adds a couple of bars to the cage.”
Roarke lifted Eve’s chin with his hand—a gesture that had her wincing, and Peabody wandering discreetly away. “You’re very steely-minded on this one, Lieutenant.”
“No touching on the job,” she muttered and nudged his hand aside. “And I’m always steely-minded.”
“No. There are times you run on guts and wear yourself out emotionally, physically.”
“Every case is different. This one’s by the stages. Unless Trevor’s figured it all out by now, he’s not a particular threat to anyone. We’ll have his parents under wraps, and I’m sending a couple of uniforms to keep tabs on the grandmother’s place. We’ve got Gannon protected. Those are his most obvious targets. I’m not dealing with wondering who some psycho’s going to kill next. Puts a little more air in my lungs, you know?”
“I do.” Despite her earlier warning, he touched her again, rubbing a thumb along the shadows under her eyes. “But you could still use a good night’s sleep.”
“Then I’ll have to close this down so I can get one.” She hooked her thumbs in her front pockets, sighed heavily because she knew it would amuse him. “Go ahead, get it over with. Just make it quick and no tongues allowed.”
He laughed, as she’d expected, then leaned down to give her a very chaste kiss. “Acceptable?”
“Hardly even worth it.” And the quick gleam in his eye had her slapping a hand on his chest. “Save it, pal. Go back to work. Buy a large metropolitan area or something.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
At Eve’s signal, Peabody stepped up to the car. “It must really set you up, having a man like that look at you the way he does every day.”
“At least it doesn’t keep me off the streets.” She slid in, slammed her door. “Let’s cook this bastard and maybe we can both get home on time for a change.”
Trevor detested visiting his grandmother. The concept of age and illness disgusted him. There were ways, after all, to beat back the worst symptoms of the aging process. Face and body sculpting, youth treatments, organ transplants.
Looking old was, to his mind, a product of laziness or poverty. Either was unacceptable.
Illness was something to be avoided at all costs. Most physical ailments were temporary and easily rectified. One simply had to take proper care. Mental illness was nothing but an embarrassment to anyone associated with the patient.
He considered his grandmother a self-indulgent lunatic, overly pampered by his father. If so much time and money wasn’t wasted making her comfortable in her mad little world, she’d straighten up quickly enough. He knew very well it cost enormous amounts of money—his inheritance—to keep her in the gilt-edged loony bin, to pay for her housing, her food, her care, her meds, her attendants.
Pissed away, he thought, as he drove his new two-seater Jetstream 3000 into the underground parking facility at the rest home. The crazy old bat could easily live another forty years, drooling his inheritance, what was rightfully his, away.
It was infuriating.
His father’s sentimental attachment to her was equally so. She could have been seen to, decently enough, in a