Worse, it made her wonder if the tropical color extended to other areas of that skeletal frame. And the wondering made her fear a brain bleed.
“Nearly on time,” he said in that snooty voice, “and together.” His brows arched up. “And with no visible injuries.”
“The day’s young.” Eve pulled off her coat, tossed it over the newel post as the cat padded over to wind through her legs. “You’re not.”
She sailed upstairs as Roarke lingered to exchange some pleasantries. The cat trotted after her.
8
She went straight to her home office to begin setting up her board. By the time Roarke came in, tie and suit coat discarded, she’d made some progress.
He turned on the fire—a nice touch she often forgot.
“I’ve a bit of work to see to,” he told her. “We’ll say twenty minutes till dinner?”
“Thirty’s better.”
“That’ll do.”
With Roarke doing what Roarke did in his adjoining office, she finished the board, programmed coffee, created her book.
Then she put her boots on the desk, sat back with her coffee. Galahad leaped into her lap, and that was fine. She stroked him absently while she drank coffee. And gave herself thinking time.
No suspects. A gut-hunch that potentially tied a wanker—an excellent word—as a conduit of information or a suspect. An innocent man weaponized and his family shattered. Twelve people dead, two successful companies damaged.
She closed her eyes.
Gambling, stock market, profit.
“Explosives,” she muttered, opening her eyes when she sensed Roarke come into the room. “You use explosives for impact, for creating not just loss of life, destruction of property, but panic.”
“And so?” He stood a moment, studying her board.
“There’ve got to be other ways to manipulate the market, less destructive and murderous ways. They weren’t worried about the cops figuring out it wasn’t Rogan—not willingly Rogan. But they wanted that initial impact, and the panic—and the results of both. Who died, how many? Just luck of the draw. One, a dozen, two dozen, that’s not important, not really. Result-oriented, right? Risk takers, gamblers, but focused on results. Blast the window open, grab what you can while the time’s ripe, then sell it at maximum profit.”
When she shifted, Galahad leaped down, sauntered over to her sleep chair, jumped up.
“It could be just a game, the gambling game,” she continued, and rose to join Roarke at the board. “But I put that low on the list. They put too much into it—the time, the effort, the risk, and were too willing to kill an undetermined number of people—even after beating up a woman, terrifying a kid—not to reap a solid reward. But . . . that’s relative, isn’t it? What might be a good profit for you, it’s a different level than say one for Peabody.”
“Ten times an investment—likely more if they played the margins—is, regardless of the outlay, a very solid reward. If Peabody, for instance, bought five thousand of Econo this morning, she’d sell off now, if she chose, at more than fifty.”
“I get that. And they may be more Peabody’s level, or they might be yours. They’re probably something between. Peabody told me she and McNab are going to give you ten k to invest.”
“When they’ve put it together, and are comfortable with it.” He glanced over. “Does that concern you?”
“No. Maybe. No.” She paced away, paced back. “No,” she said more definitely. “It’s their money, or will be, and you’ll be careful. Probably more careful than with your own.”
She stopped, frowned again, paced again. “That’s a thing.”
“Is it?” He strolled over, opened the wall panel for a bottle of wine.
“They could save up the money, invest it themselves, but they don’t know squat about the stock market or trading or investments. They could go to some brokerage house and get somebody to advise them, but why do that when there’s you?”
Still frowning, she took the wine Roarke offered. “So it’s smart on their part. It’s a smart way to invest, to—what do they say—spend to make?”
“They do say that.”
“Trusting you with it, that’s as close to a sure thing as it gets. And this?” She gestured to the board. “That’s what they put together. It’s not so much a gamble if you stack the deck. Yeah, it can still go south, but you’ve skewed the odds in your favor. You’ve loaded the dice,” she murmured.