When she told him about feeling the punch in the back, he turned her around, pulled up the sweater.
“You’ve the faintest of bruises, nothing more.”
“I told you I wasn’t hurt. He ran, I ran after him. I nearly had him. He kept looking behind, and he tried a jump toward the street. Lost his footing, went flying out. A cab ran over him—driver couldn’t have stopped. I couldn’t get a pulse. I knew he was gone, but I had to try.”
“And ended up with his blood all over you.”
“Yeah. Someone hired him, Roarke.”
“That’s more than possible, and probably connected to the emeralds and Barrister’s murder.”
“Not possible. It’s a fact. He borrowed a car this morning, said he had a job. He tailed me and I fucking missed the tail.” She drank again. “After, I tossed his place. He’s got a drawer—locked. I picked it—”
“Congratulations.”
“Right. It was loaded with weapons. Knives, stunners, handguns, garrotes, poisons, name it. He was a pro, maybe still a little green, but a pro. It threw him when I didn’t go down, and it scared him when he saw I was going to catch him. But I really don’t think this was his first time out. Somebody hired him.”
“What time was your media conference? This afternoon, wasn’t it? I wasn’t able to watch.”
“After the hire, so that didn’t set this off. Unless somebody got wind. Abernathy’s talking to people. They’ve got a task force looking into the original thefts.”
“Is that so?”
“Don’t brush it off.”
But she saw, in his eyes, he did just that.
“Darling Eve, I’ve been looked at for that and more over the years. Yet here I stand with you. But this has you worried, distracted, and you missed a tail. So I’m telling you to put the worry aside. I’d be the one in the nick, after all, and I’ve no worries about it.”
“Abernathy and I had a discussion.”
Now he smiled. “Did you really?”
“They think the emerald heist was a group.”
“Correct, and they always have.”
“He thinks maybe you were involved as a kind of apprentice.”
This got a laugh, easy and delighted. “Sometimes it pays to be underestimated. And all that should reassure you.”
“It should.” Maybe it would. Eventually. “He also gave me a name, a possibility for Fancy Blonde, a thief. Jenna Lynn Delaney.”
He frowned over his wine. “The one who rang a faint and distant bell for me, in my hunt. That name wasn’t on the list he gave us.”
“No. He’s ambitious, tried to skirt around us with this task force. But he gave it to me after our discussion. She needs a deeper look, and so does Timothy Kruger. Because—”
“Whoever hired the thief hired the failed assassin. That clicks nicely.”
“I have to update, write up the attempted stabbing.”
“I’ll see if I can make that distant bell ring louder. Then we’ll have a meal.” He touched his lips to hers. “Considering the stab in the back, bloody coward, it can be pizza.”
She’d never argue with pizza.
She updated her board first, then took the rest of her wine—why the hell not—to her command center.
She wrote up the interview with the lawyer first. And just as she thought about tagging Yancy before she started the rest, he tagged her.
