Vendetta in Death (In Death #49) - J. D. Robb Page 0,23
the personal ’link to order it. Have McNab look.”
“Will do. Ms. McEnroy’s due back in about an hour. I contacted her, or mostly the tutor. She’s—the widow—willing to talk to us as soon as possible, but won’t leave the children and doesn’t want them exposed to the conversation. She asks that we come to her this evening after nine when the children are in bed.”
“All right. I’ll handle that.” With, she thought, her expert consultant, civilian. “I need to set up the board and book. You can get the discs and memo book from McEnroy’s desk drawer out of Evidence. Start cross-checking those first names with staff and clients. And we’ll split interviewing the partners.”
“I’ll get on it.”
As Eve sat to pull up Peabody’s report, the sweepers’ and Morris’s preliminaries, she shot off a text to Roarke.
Need to interview vic’s widow after 2100—at her request. Could use a slick rich guy. Interested?
She scanned the reports, pulled up her own notes, added more, and started her murder book. When she rose to set up her board, her ’link signaled a return text.
Meet me at half-seven at Nally’s Pub, West 84 between Columbus and Amsterdam. A slick rich guy will buy you dinner first.
Nally’s Pub, she thought. Well, at least it didn’t sound fancy.
She answered: Solid.
She finished the board, started to program more coffee for study and thinking time. Peabody clomped back in with an evidence box.
“Points for McNab,” she said. “He found a contact tagged multiple times on the desk drawer personal. Tagged last at seventeen-twelve yesterday. Two-minute conversation with one Oliver Printz re limo pickup at McEnroy’s residence at eleven-fifteen.
“And points for me,” Peabody added as she put the box on Eve’s desk, then swiped a check mark in the air. “Because I recognized Printz as McEnroy’s usual driver through Urban Ride.”
“So Printz worked off the books.” She’d print out his ID shot, add it to her board. “We need to talk to him. Have him brought in. Use the potential witness to a crime deal, but get him in.”
She unsealed the box. “And shut the door.”
“You’re going to review the discs.”
“I’m going to look at a sample, yeah, so shut the door.”
With a nod, Peabody backed out, shut the door.
Eve slid one of the discs into her unit, ordered play.
The McEnroy bedroom flashed on-screen, the bed neatly turned down. She heard voices, a man’s, a woman’s.
“No, in here,” it said as McEnroy came on-screen. The woman—redhead, late twenties—wrapped around him, rubbed against him.
“Anywhere. Everywhere.”
He took her wrists, turned her more toward the camera. “What do you want, Jessica?”
“You. I want you.”
“More than anything?”
“Yes, yes! Nigel, please. I can’t wait.”
“More than the position at Broadmoore?”
“More than anything.”
“Show me. Strip for me.”
She wore a simple black dress jazzed up with a thick silver belt, silver needle-thin heels. Her body quivered, her hands shook as she stripped down to bra and panties.
“Hold there.”
He stepped out of camera range while she shuddered, ran those shaking hands over her own body, begged him to touch her.
He came into range holding two glasses of wine. “A drink.”
“I don’t need wine, just you. Oh God, Nigel, please.”
“Drink.”
Dosed it with more, Eve thought as the redhead obeyed.
“That’s enough for now.” He set her glass aside. “On your knees, Jessica. Me first. You want to pleasure me, don’t you?”
She dropped down, dragged his pants down. And while she fellated him, he sipped his wine.
She watched for thirty minutes, through to him taking her to the bed while she all but wept with need. Where he asked—oh so polite—if she was adventurous, if he could tie her to the bedposts. She agreed to everything he asked, begged for more.
Then she skipped to the end where he stood in a robe, obviously freshly showered, and she sprawled, pale and heavy-eyed, on the bed.
“Get dressed and go.”
“What? I don’t feel very well. I feel…”
“I’m done with you. You can catch a cab at the corner or walk to the subway.”
“I don’t know where I am.” She looked around, a woman still caught in a dream. But she got up, swaying, stumbling, put on her clothes. “At the corner.”
“That’s right.” He took her arm. “You’ll take the elevator straight down to the garage—you understand.”
“Garage.”
“Walk out, turn left, walk to the corner for a cab. You’ll do very well at Broadmoore, Jessica. You have talent.”
“Broadmoore.”
The vid stopped. After a few seconds, another started. Same bedroom, same setup. Another redhead.
Eve stopped the play.
So he had a type.
Rising, she started to program coffee, then changed