Page 101 of Concealed in Death

Those wild blue eyes lit with interest. “Now you’re following the money?”

“Kind of. Both Nashville and Philadelphia Jones got the training and degrees for the social work and counseling aspects. The older sister—the Aussie now—she got some of it, too. Philadelphia some business management, so you have to figure she was the one with the budget headaches.”

“I wouldn’t say she did a stellar job of it.”

Eve pointed her finger at him. “That’s exactly right. They pretty consistently swam in the red, right up until they were swamped by it before Bittmore built them a big, shiny boat. Now, many people like that run on good intentions and the hope that a higher power—one with deep pockets—is going to come to the rescue. But Philadelphia strikes me as more realistic than that. When you’re the one trying to add up the columns and stretch the numbers, you have to be.”

“All right. What does that tell you?”

“You sound like Mira,” she commented. “Anyway, it makes me look at the whole production, and the parts of it. Philadelphia’s pulling a lot of weight; the older brother, he looks to be pulling pretty hefty, too—even did some outside work, part-time teaching, part-time preaching—to bring in a little more here and there.”

“And the younger? Not pulling weight.”

“It looks like he was weight. Didn’t get the certifications, so he can’t officially run any of the sessions or counsel or teach. Treatment for depression, and meds to deal with it. No specific training I can find. From my shuffling around in the financials, it looks like he had a little stipend from the mother at her death—just him, not the others—a portion of insurance there, but no stipend—which is also telling.”

“She left what she could to the one she felt needed it most.”

“Yeah. And for the rest, his siblings covered him. Even the Aussie sister sent them some money now and then,” Eve added. “They paid baby brother out of the budget for general labor, and that’s mostly a bullshit term to get around specifics when there just aren’t any.

“That goes on for years. Then boom, they get that big, shiny boat. They’re barely on board when they send him to Africa—and it wasn’t first-class travel, but it cost them. They finally have a little breathing room in the budget, and instead of absorbing him into the new place, they ship him off.”

“And you wonder, was it to just divest themselves of the weight, was it a sudden opportunity they believed would serve him, or did they get him as far away as they could because his mission wasn’t to help young girls, but to kill them.”

“That’s just what I’m wondering. He’s the one with all the loose time.”

“And it would take time to lure, to kill, to construct the walls.”

“Yeah, and where does somebody with a full schedule, with an armload of stuff to do, get that time? But he’s got plenty on his hands. What do you do with that? Maybe you hang around the neighborhood, and you see where some of the kids—like Shelby—go when they get out and around.”

“A kind of stalking,” Roarke suggested.

“Maybe. Or maybe envying. Some people kill what they envy. If you’re Montclair Jones, you know what they’re doing, the girls, and maybe you let them know you know and you’re okay with it. You build up that trust—we’re all pulling something over on the do-gooders.”

“Why kill them?”

“Don’t know. Maybe you’ve got a stresser that breaks in. Moving to a new place, have this huge opportunity to do more good, and do it right. But the sibs lay it on the line for him. You have to straighten up, bro. We can’t keep floating you the way we have. We can’t squander this gift from the old higher power. So that’s a pisser. Now he has to actually work? Have real responsibilities, and they’re going to be on his ass. And who’s fault is that?”

“The children.”

“He could think so. And those girls—they sneak around doing what they want, but he’s going to have to toe the line.”

“And back to envy.”

“Yeah, so screw that, screw them. Something like that,” she said, not quite satisfied. “Because I’m not buying all the coincidence in timing, in cross-relationships. It all has a center. If Shelby’s a key, maybe he’s a lock. Put them together and it could open the center.”

“You’re going to have a busy day.”

She cocked her head. “Am I?”

“You’ll want to consult with Mira because talking it out with her will help you refine the theory. You’ll want to talk to both Joneses—separately. You’ll hope to get this DeLonna’s contact information from Sebastian, otherwise you’re going to squeeze me to find his HQ so you can put your boot on his neck until he does. And I imagine you’ll be talking to someone in Africa.”

He rose as he spoke, came to her, laid his hands on her shoulders. “My meetings pale beside your meetings.”

“I don’t have meetings,” she insisted. “They’re interviews, interrogations, consults. Meetings are for suits.” She gave his tie a tug.

“You may not wear one, Lieutenant, but you’re a suit with a badge.”

“Insulting me so soon after we’ve had sex could mean it’s the last sex you have for the foreseeable future.”

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