“And I take it this applies to last straws.”
“Looks like it.”
“The bench by the pond is likely still wet. Let’s fetch a waterproof blanket and some wine.”
The sun sparkled now, and the grass, the leaves sparkled with it. The air felt light, felt clean, yet they’d talk of murder, deception, betrayal.
“For starters, he cheated on all of them. The first, and we’re talkingabout events from last century, is still bitter. Admits it. The second claims they had a fiery passion, but the flame died, blah blah. The third—”
“The victim’s mother.”
“So to speak. She said her maid was packing for her to go home—after she cut her spiritual retreat short—then the trip to New York. She couldn’t even remember her son’s wife’s name. It was all about her. The first mentioned a redheaded slut.”
“Ah.” As they came to the pond, he spread the blanket over the bench. “That’s where that came from.”
“Yeah, she’s the dancing-at-his-funeral ex. The second tossed out a ‘blond bitch,’ which may or may not have been wife number three. Number three lasted the longest, by the way. Almost a decade. He bought her a penthouse in the settlement, which she sold right after Nathan, the youngest, hit eighteen. She remarried that year, moved to Europe.”
“I suspect something in the settlement discouraged her from doing either until both children reached legal age.”
“You think?” Her snicker held no humor. “Yeah, me, too. Anyway, she’s lazing around in Corfu at the moment while somebody packs her black outfit for her son’s funeral. She termed wife number four as a gold digger.”
“And is or was she?”
“Not in the traditional sense, no.”
She took the wine Roarke poured for her, and ran it through for him in detail.
“She sounds like an interesting and practical woman, and one who appears to have been genuinely fond of her first husband.”
“Came across that way to me. She credits him for giving her the opportunity to have the life she has. When she says they liked each other, I buy it. She says they talked a few times a year, and he sent gifts to her kids on birthdays, for Christmas.
“It’s easy enough to check that. But some other things rang bells.”
He tapped his glass to hers. “Ring them for me.”
“She said in the last couple years, when they talked, she could tell his mind was shaky. And he told her he had some things put away he wished he’d shown her, given her.”
“Yes, that’s a bell.”
“More, he was going to arrange to send her something. She says he didn’t, and I’m believing that, as the log on the tablet and the items in the vault check out. Unless EDD finds something taken off instead of added, I’ll buy that. Plus, she comes off truthful. He told her she’d been his only true friend who’d been a lover, and he wanted to give her something he had put away.”
“Some part of him might have known he approached the end of his life.”
“Maybe. The third called him a man of secrets, and that’s clearly true. I believe her when she says she didn’t know about the vault, but she also said she wasn’t surprised. The second said this was all some mix-up, which is bullshit. But the last? She said that he had a need to possess things, and she thought… This is the Mira territory I was already going into. She thought the things in the vault were like the women. He needed to have what he didn’t.”
“I understand that. I certainly needed to have what I didn’t. But there comes a time, when you’ve more than even you could once imagine, it has to stop. The need should be satisfied. I think, Eve, he was never happy. Sporadically, yes, in the moment, perhaps. But if you’re never content with what is, if you have no real balance in life, if you can’t love in a way that fills you, how can you be happy?”
She looked over the little pond to the tree they’d planted together.
“So he looked for those moments in other women, younger and younger, in possessing shiny things that weren’t his to have.”
“I find it sad. And I wonder: Would I have ended up somewhat like that without you?”
“Not a chance. You stole—you didn’t pay somebody else to do it. You did it yourself.”
“And suddenly that’s a mark in my favor?” With a laugh, he put an arm around her shoulders. “I do adore you.”
“Also a mark in your favor. You don’t cheat.”
