In Death 22 - Memory in Death

compensation in mind?”
    “This has taken me by surprise, I have to admit.” Her fingers fussed with her hair, red against red.
    “I don’t know how you can put a price on what I gave that child, or what it’s costing me to turn away from her now.”
    “But you’ll manage to do so, I’m sure.”
    It was temper he saw deepen the color in her cheeks, not embarrassment. He merely kept that mildly interested look on his face.
    “I’d think a man in your position can afford to be generous with someone in mine. That girl would likely be in jail instead of putting people in one if it wasn’t for me. And she wouldn’t evenspeakto me when
    I went to see her yesterday.”
    She looked away, blinking at tears he noted she could call up at will.
    “I think we’re past that now.” He allowed a sliver of impatience to come into his voice. “What’s your price?”
    “I think two million dollars wouldn’t be unreasonable.”
    “And for two million dollars … that’s U.S. dollars?”
    “Of course it is.” Faint irritation took the place of tears. “What would I want with foreign money?”
    “For that, you and your Bobby will happily go back to where you came from and leave my wife alone.”
    “She doesn’t want to see us?” She raised her hands as if in defeat. “We won’t be seen.”
    “And if I find that measure of compensation a bit too dear?”
    “For a man of your means, I can’t imagine, but… I’d be forced to mention the possibility of mybeing upset by all thisdiscussing the situation with someone. Maybe a reporter.”
    He swiveled lazily again. “And that would concern me, because …”
    “Being a sentimental woman, I kept files on every one of the children I was in charge of. I have histories, detailsand some of those might be difficult, even embarrassing for you and for Eve. Did you know, for instance, that she’d had sexual relations repeatedly, and all before she was nine years old?”
    “And do you equate rape with sexual relations?” His tone was mild as milk, even as his blood boiled. “That’s quite unenlightened of you, Ms. Lombard.”
    “Regardless of what you call it, I think some people might feel a woman with that kind of thing in her makeup isn’t the sort who should be a lieutenant of the police department. I’m not sure of that myself,” she added. “Maybe it’s my civic duty to talk to the media, maybe her superiors at the police station.”
    “But two millionthat’s USDwould outweigh your civic duty.”
    “I just want what’s coming to me. Did you know she had blood on her when she was found? She …
    or someone else … washed most of it off, but they did tests.”
    Her eyes were brighter now, as bold and as sharp as her long red nails. “And not all the blood was hers.
    “She used to have nightmares,” Trudy continued. “And it seemed to me that she was stabbing somebody to death in those nightmares. I wonder what people would make of that, if I was upset and said something. I bet people’d pay good money for a story like that, considering who she is now. And who she’s married to.”
    “They might,” Roarke agreed. “People often enjoy wallowing in another’s pain and misery.”
    “So I don’t think the compensation I mentioned is too dear. I’ll just I take it and go back to Texas. Eve won’t have to think about me again, even after all I did for her.”
    “You’ve misspoken. It wastoher, notforher. Now then, what you don’t understand, Ms. Lombard, is I’m compensating you right now.”
    “You’d better think before”
    “I’m compensating you,” he interrupted, “by not getting up, coming over there, and twisting your head
    off your neck with my bare hands.”
    She gasped, theatrically. “You’re threatening me?”
    “Indeed, I’m not,” he continued in the same easy tone. “I’m explaining to you how you’re being compensated for walking away from this. I’m telling you what’s not happening to you, and believe me,
    it’s costing me dearly not to put my hands on you for what you did to my wife when she was defenseless.”
    He rose, slowly. There wasn’t a gasp this time, and no theatrics. She simply froze as all the blood drained out of her face. Finally, he decided, she saw what was under his own shell, under the sophistication, the style, the manners money had bought him. Even a viper hadn’t a prayer against it.
    With his eyes on hers, he came around the desk, then leaned back against it. Close enough that