Shadows in Death (In Death #51) - J.D. Robb Page 0,1
hers. Eyes, boldly blue with lashes as silky as the black hair that fell nearly to his shoulders, looked into hers. He had a mouth creative angels sculpted on a particularly generous day. The planes, the angles combined in a result somewhere between the romance of a poet and the sexuality of one of those angels defiantly taking the fall.
Add the music of Ireland in his voice, and you had an exceptional package.
“Always handy.”
And that perfect mouth curved. “We all do our part. I’ll just stay handy until the transpo gets here.” Absently, he scanned the crowd behind the barricades. “McNab should be back shortly with the security feed so …”
She saw his eyes narrow, saw something dark come into them.
“What?” She shifted instantly to look in the same direction. “What did you see?”
“Someone I used to know.”
Before she could speak again, he walked away, quick and smooth.
“Well, shit.” She gestured a uniform over to stay with the body, started to go after him when Peabody hurried back.
“We’ve got a few witnesses who saw her go down, and we have one who didn’t but claims she was coming here to meet him. He’s wrecked, so I’m thinking there might have been some hanky in the panky.”
“Let’s take him first.”
What the hell was Roarke doing? she wondered.
He cut through the crowd. He knew how to move fast, sliding through. Once upon a time he’d have come out the other side with pockets full from pockets he’d picked.
But though he moved fast, eyes scanning, instincts alert, he didn’t see the face again.
That bloody shadow from his past, Roarke thought as he looked beyond the lights, the crowds, the sparkle of the fountain, the empty benches, had shown himself deliberately.
A taunt. A kind of flipped middle finger, as he’d been—again deliberately—far enough away to easily melt out of sight and vanish again.
Well then, if the fecking bastard wanted to come out and play, he’d be more than willing for the game.
“We’re a long way from the alleys of Dublin now, boyo,” he muttered, and made his way back again.
Since the wit, Marlon Stowe, was shaking, with tears streaming, Eve took him to one of the benches.
Mid-thirties, she judged, about five-ten, a lot of thick, sandy hair, brown eyes, and a stubbly goatee.
“You were meeting Ms. Modesto here?”
“By the fountain. She said she’d try to be here about ten-fifteen, no later than ten-thirty.”
Since he wore black pants, a thin black sweater, black boots, she understood they hadn’t planned to take a run together.
“Why were you meeting?”
He swiped at his face. He had a smear of blue paint on the side of his thumb. “We were involved. We met last summer. Galla bought one of my paintings. I had a sidewalk display, and she liked one I’d done in Tuscany. She—her family—they’re from Tuscany, and she said it reminded her. And she came by a few times, and to this gallery, and … we fell in love.”
“You had a romantic and intimate relationship with Ms. Modesto.”
“We fell in love,” he repeated. “Sometimes we’d meet here, and just sit and talk. Sometimes we’d go to my loft. I knew she was married, she told me. We never lied to each other. She has a little boy. She wanted to leave her husband, but she has a little boy. She wanted to leave him, even talked to her lawyer. But …”
Now he covered his face with his hands. “She told me, the last time we were together had to be the last time. We both knew … Right from the start we both knew it couldn’t last. She had to think of her son first. She had to try to fix her marriage, fix her family.”
“But she agreed to meet you here tonight.”
“I asked if she would. Not to be together. Just to really say goodbye. I had something I wanted to give her.”
“What’s that?”
He opened the bag he carried, took out a package wrapped in thick brown paper. “It’s a painting. Like a companion piece to the one she first bought. I thought, it’s the first and it’s the last.”
“You must’ve been hurt and angry.”
As he shook his head, his eyes welled again. “I loved her. I knew she was married, had a child. She never lied. She never promised. And …” He drew a long breath. “I knew she loved me. She couldn’t be with me, but she loved me. If I hadn’t asked her to come here tonight …”