Down the Rabbit Hole

“She wanted this, and she had the person who wanted to give it to her. Why end everything? Gotta look deeper.”


“All right.” He kissed the brow she’d furrowed.

She laid her hand on his cheek. “Sometimes you don’t have to look very hard.”

“For what?”

“For what’s good. You’re right here.” She tipped her face up, touched her mouth gently to his. “And when things aren’t so good, you’re still right here.”

“Always.”

She eased over so her heart lay on his, so her mouth lay on his. The only bridge she needed, she thought, was the one that led to him.

Her body, warm, smooth, fit so perfectly with his. His lanky, leggy cop. They could fill each other with love, with light, a kind of awakening after the long, dark night.

It touched him, the tenderness of her hand on his cheek, the sweetness of her fingers sliding through his hair. As much a lifting of the heart as arousal. He gave her the same; soft and easy, slow, dreamy kisses as desire roused.

He shifted. When he covered her she opened. She welcomed. She enfolded.

With their mouths meeting again, again, their bodies moved together, a rise and fall, rise and fall until that final peak.

And the quiet, sighing slide that followed.


*

She thought of it later when she stood in her home office, studying the murder board she’d set up.

Darlene had wanted that—not just the sex; the connection, the continuity. And Eve had seen that connection in photographs in the townhouse.

Eve glanced over to a photograph of her and Roarke, taken by some enterprising paparazzo. They’d taken down the bad guy, and were both a bit bruised and bloody—a contrast to the glittery evening clothes. And they grinned at each other.

The connection was there, clear to see.

Who’d give that up and jump off a building? You’d have to be crazy—and that might be the answer. If she was sane, the logical answer was Darlene had been pushed. One way or the other.

She texted Peabody with a change of plans and told her partner to meet her at the morgue at oh-nine-hundred. Meanwhile she split the list of reputed psychics, gave Peabody half to run.

She’d start on the others, but first she wanted a look at Darlene’s financials. That might tell its own tale.


*

Ten minutes later she was up and crossing to Roarke’s adjoining office.

“I know you’re busy.”

He glanced over from his wall screen and the schematics on it. “I’ve been busier.”

“It’s a money question.”

“I’m never too busy for that.”

“I’m looking into Darlene’s financials. For the past eighteen weeks—including the morning she died—she withdrew nine thousand, nine hundred and nine-nine dollars from her personal account. I’m reading it as cash.”

Roarke sat back. “Isn’t that interesting.”

“There’s other activity. Deposits, transfers, other withdrawals—one every month for five or six thousand. But eighteen weekly for that amount’s a flag for me.”

“One dollar more, you hit ten thousand and the IRS might do a sniff. Blackmail springs to mind, but with what you found last night, another idea leapfrogs over it.”

“Somebody’s been taking her for a ride for four and a half months. Parents died seven months ago. I need to find out when she started hunting for psychics, but that’s what rings. She has another personal account—years old. This one? She opened it about five months ago, and not at her usual bank. I think she was hiding this, just like she was hiding the business cards and pamphlets.”