“Did you get me a face?”
“We got one. Sorry for the delay. First, I was delayed, then when you’ve got two people, they tend to remember things differently. I can tell you right off, the picture you sent—Delaney—that’s a no. Some similarities, but both wits said too young right off. But they both also agreed on the final sketch. Do you want me to run it through face rec for you?”
He was walking, she noted, on a nice fall evening, and after putting in extra time for her case.
“No, I’ll do it. Send it to me, then go have a beer.”
“I hear that. I’ve got a pizza date coming up.”
“Funny, so do I. Thanks, Yancy.”
“Not every day I get to work on a case with a secret vault full of themega-dollar fancy. I want to say, Dallas, they’re a really nice family, including the staff. Divine offered to make me dinner, and when I told her I had a date, told me to come back when I didn’t. She meant it.”
“I liked them, too. Go have that pizza and beer.”
So not Delaney, but she could have been the thief, the murderer. Just not what Eve thought might be the conduit.
So she’d look for two blondes.
She switched over from her report to take Yancy’s incoming, and waited for the face to come on-screen.
When it did, she felt the blood drain out of her own.
Coincidences, she thought. How many times had she said they were bollocks? Should she have seen this coming? Should she have put it together?
Hard to say. Really hard to say.
And hard right now, she admitted, to think.
She pushed up, walked over to her balcony doors, threw them open. And let the cool evening air wash over her.
She didn’t hear Roarke come in—he moved like the air itself—but he spoke from behind her.
“The bell rings more clearly. I’ve been out of the game awhile now, so had to refresh a bit. Jenna Lynn Delaney has a reputation in certain circles for being a clever and discerning thief. Started young—and not so successfully. But got considerably better.”
“The blonde’s not Delaney.”
“No?”
“No. Yancy sent the face.”
She turned then, and seeing her stand so pale, so stiff, he lowered the glass he’d brought to his lips.
“What is it?”
“Look for yourself. The sketch is on my desk screen.”
He went over, and when he saw the sketch, stood very still.
Regret came first so when he turned to Eve his eyes were full of apology. “Magdelana. I’m sorry, Eve.”
“I don’t need ‘I’m sorry.’ Did you tell her? Did she know you took the emeralds?”
“I don’t… I might have done.”
“Yes or no?”
“Don’t interrogate me, Lieutenant. Let me think. I might have done. It would’ve been some years after, as I hadn’t met her when I took them. But I trusted her, which was my very big mistake.”
