In Death 26 - Strangers in Death

at Roarke. “She doesn’t go far—just far enough. But she’s not as fucking smart as she thinks she is. Doesn’t know people as well as she believes.”
    “I’m sure you’re right.” He sat on the corner of her desk. “A moment?”
    “I don’t have much of a moment. Suzanne copped to it all. Jesus, it was like flipping a switch on a dike or a dam, whatever, and having it all gush out. Ava went for the weak, the runt of the litter you could say. Miscalculated. Makes Suzanne easy to manipulate.”
    “And that was the miscalculation,” he said with a nod. “Because you’re very good at manipulating.”
    “She counted on the power of her personality, of the pecking order to push Suzanne into doing the job. But she read her partner wrong. Way wrong. My take? She believed Suzanne would be flattered and happy to hook up with her, believed Suzanne would be grateful to be rid of her lousy husband, and do exactly what she was told. She had contingency plans, sure—she’s always got herself a Plan B, C, or D, but she didn’t see that under it, Suzanne’s a major fuckup.”
    “That’s harsh.”
    “She deserves harsh.” The anger roiled inside her. “At any point, any fucking point, she could’ve stopped. Back in August when Ava proposed the plan, she could’ve stopped. When Ava told her how she’d killed her husband, she could’ve stopped. Any time over the last two months, she could’ve stopped. In the hour she was in the house with Anders, she could’ve stopped. And now it’s all, gee, I’m sorry? Boo-hoo? I feel sick? Screw that.”
    “Does she enrage you for what she did, or that she was weak enough to do it?”
    “Both. And I’m happy to be a part of making her pay. Making both of them pay. Ava got what she wanted, but she had to push too hard. And she used the wrong sort of manipulation in the end. Smarter, much smarter to have appealed to Suzanne’s soft side. ‘Please help me. You’re the only one I trust, the only one I can depend on. I’ve done this for you, just as I promised. Please don’t turn your back on me now.’ Instead, she was so revved from the murder she played hardball, and cracked her tool. All I had to do was give it a few good knocks.”
    She pushed away from the desk, crossed over to stare out the window.
    Roarke gave her a moment of silence for her own thoughts. “What troubles you about it, Eve? Under your anger?”
    “It’s personal. I can deal with that, but the way it’s personal gnaws a little. Mira’s already poking at me about it, and that’s irritating.”
    “Because she sees that you look at Suzanne and think of yourself. The child you were. Battered, trapped, helpless. And the choice you made to save yourself.”
    Eve glanced back. “It shows? That’s irritating, too.”
    “To me, and to Mira. But you wear your armor well, Lieutenant.”
    “She wasn’t a child, Roarke. She wasn’t helpless, or didn’t have to be. She chose to kill, to obey another bidding to kill, rather than deal.”
    That, he knew, would eat at her. The uselessness of it. “And it pisses you off. She lay down and took it, when there were so many options. She took the life of a man she didn’t know because someone told her to. Her husband’s dead because she stayed with him rather than walk away. And now her children are, essentially, orphaned.”
    “She said she thought her children should have their father. That it was her responsibility to stay.”
    “Ah.”
    Having said it, Eve realized some of the knots in her belly had slackened. “Yeah, I thought of your mother, and how she’d thought the same. How she’d died for that. But goddamn it, Roarke, your mother was so young, and I can’t believe she’d have stayed for years. I can’t look at you and believe that. Can’t think of the family you found and believe that. She’d have taken you and walked, if she’d had another chance.”
    “I think of that. Aye, sometimes I think of that. And that’s what I believe as well. But in God’s truth, I don’t know if it’s a comfort or a curse to believe it.”
    “It’s a comfort to me,” she said, and watched his eyes warm.
    “Then it will be to me as well. Thanks.”
    “Suzanne Custer sat and made a bargain over wine and cheese. Some part of her knew it was real, however much she denies it. However much she can’t face it. She agreed to Ava’s terms. She didn’t try to back out until after her own husband’s throat was slit. She didn’t go to Ava