Calculated in Death

valuable evidence. Evidence that might have led you to Marta’s killer.”
    “Your Honor, you know I can’t discuss the particulars of the case with you, but I will tell you we’re analyzing and processing considerable data, following all possible leads, interviewing those we feel may connect to her death in some way.”
    “You sent a unit to my brother’s home.”
    “As a precaution after the break-in at your sister-in-law’s office.”
    “Yes. All right. It’s easy to become accustomed to being in charge, to having the authority. It’s difficult to find yourself in a situation where you’re not in charge, you don’t have the authority. You have to leave that in the hands of someone else. It doesn’t matter if you know those hands are capable. They’re not your hands.”
    She held hers out, looked at them, closed them.
    “I went with my brother to see his wife this morning. To see Marta. Of all the things I’ve seen, of all the things that have come through my courtroom, nothing has been as horrible.” She cleared her throat.
    “My brother and his family will stay with me and mine for the time being. He thought it would be easier for the children to be at home, with their own things around them. But it’s too painful for them, for all of us. He’ll be with me if you need to reach him.”
    “Again, I’m sorry, sincerely sorry, Your Honor, for your loss. When I have something I can share, I’ll let you all know at the first possible opportunity.”
    She nodded, then looked back at the board. “Do you think her killer is up there?”
    “I don’t know. But I think the reason for her murder is up there. The reason leads to the person or persons.”
    “I’ll take that away with me, and let you get back to work.”
    As the door shut behind Yung, Eve dragged a hand through her hair. Grief, she thought, always left a weight on the air.
    She grabbed the jacket she’d tossed off when she’d come in, and left that weight behind to keep her appointment with Mira.
    She put some speed on, unwilling to face a spanking by Mira’s admin if she was so much as a minute late. She zipped up to the dragon’s desk with—according to her calculations—thirty-three seconds to spare.
    And still earned a scolding scowl.
    “The doctor has a very busy schedule today.”
    “That’s going around.”
    The admin folded her lips, tapped inter-office comm. “Lieutenant Dallas is here to see you.”
    She sniffed. “Go right in.”
    Mira stood, drawing pretty teacups from her office AutoChef. She wore a suit in a smoky sort of lavender with plum-colored heels and a trio of silver chains. Her soft brown hair swept back from her face, and her soft blue eyes warmed when they met Eve’s.
    “Yes, I’ve made you tea, which you’re not very fond of, but can use. You’ve had a long, difficult couple of days.”
    “That’s the job.”
    “It is. And still, it’s good to see you look reasonably rested, and very smart today.”
    “Roarke put the outfit together. I had to face off with a lot of business moguls.”
    “An excellent choice. Powerful but not hard, fashionable but not flashy, authoritative but not threatening.”
    “Clothes talk to you, too.”
    “They do, and too often say: Buy me. Have a seat.” She chose one of her cozy scoop chairs, passed one of the pretty cups to Eve. “How is Judge Yung?”
    “Hanging tough.”
    “I like her very much, personally and professionally. I actually met Marta a few times. She struck me as a lovely and loving woman.”
    “She’s coming off that way. She’s dead because she drew the short straw.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Everything points to it. Two auditors get banged up, put out of commission. She inherits some of their files. Hours later, she’s dead in what the killers hope we’ll see as a violent mugging. Hours after that, the offices where she works are compromised, her computer messed with, and the files—and the master copies—go missing.
    “Short straw.”
    “Yes, I see. I agree, insofar as her murder was impersonal and poorly masked. You call it semi-pro in your report. I think that’s very accurate.”
    “I’ve got these honchos, okay? Companies I’m taking a hard look at. I’ve got Roarke doing his thing—who knows business and numbers and money better—so he may give me more to take a hard look at, or eliminate some I’m looking at now. But the honchos all have, let’s say, attributes that could have them order the murder of an