Page 147 of Passions in Death
“So I remember Erin Albright is. It’s small, annoying steps instead of a big takedown. But she’s worth it.”
She lifted her head, looked at him. “I forgot. I bought that painting—or will.”
“Your first slice of New York.”
“Yeah. I’ll like having it for that. And to remind me that sometimes it takes a lot of small, annoying steps. I need to go in, take some more of them.”
“All right.”
“In a minute.” She lowered her head to his shoulder again. “Just one more minute. I feel sorry for people who don’t have a spot like this—not the big grand scope of all this. Just a quiet spot where they can sit, with someone who matters or alone, and smooth out the edges of the day.”
She slid her hand into his, linked fingers. “I never imagined this, any more than eating a peach off the tree.”
“We planted that one there.”
“Sure as hell did. It’s growing, right? It looks like it is to me.”
“It’s growing.” He kissed the top of her head. “I suppose so are we.”
They went back in, and up to Eve’s office, where the cat lay sprawled in her sleep chair. He eyed them both as if to determine the need to retreat again.
Sensing the crisis had passed, he stretched, rolled, and sprawled in a different direction.
“Do you really have work to deal with?” Eve asked Roarke.
“Not really, no. I can get quite a bit done when pissed off, and did.”
“Do you want an assignment?”
He slid a hand into his pocket, fingered the gray button. “Will I enjoy it?”
“You tell me. The first is to take a good look at Becca DiNuzio’s family. I want to see how they fit in Barney’s narrow worldview. The next is to check and see if Barney’s insured any paintings since the murder. He’d have had time now if he thought to. And last, to look at his finances again.”
“There now, we’re getting to the enjoyment.”
“Can you dig down into purchases, gift-type things, specifically for women? Girlfriend gift–type things, in the last three years.”
“Ah, you want to see what he might buy for DiNuzio, as it may lead you to what he might have bought back in the day for Hunnicut. And taken back.”
“Yeah. I want to see if he considers Becca—and her family—worthy enough, and if so, what he buys his girlfriend.”
“All right. I’ll enjoy that. Not such a small step, I’m thinking, as it may save you several others.”
“That’s the goal.”
While he went into his office, she updated her board. Then set it aside to read over the paperwork from her other detectives, signed off. Good work there, she thought, all around.
Now it was her turn, so she programmed coffee and settled into it.
When Roarke came back, she frowned at him. “That didn’t take long. No luck?”
“How easily you doubt me. First.” He sat on the edge of her command center, drank what was left of her second cup of coffee. “DiNuzio’s parents have been married thirty-one years. To each other. She’s the oldest of three—I assume you ran her before so know the basics. Her mother’s a mathematician, and took parental leave for each offspring. The father, an engineer, coached her younger brother’s softball team. They’ve lived in the same house, the same neighborhood, for twenty-six years.”
“Potentially worthy then, on his scale.”
“And your instinct continues. He insured a painting, an Albright, only this morning, valued at forty-eight hundred. As for gifts, he strikes me as, again, very stagnant and very ordinary. Cross-reference DiNuzio’s birthday, his mother’s, his sisters’ and it’s easy to find. His mother, his sisters, a sweater, a scarf, that sort of thing. A girlfriend gets jewelry. The same holds for what I’d assume is Christmas, and as the date range matches for the last three years, what would likely be an anniversary. Add Valentine’s Day.”
“Jewelry.”
