In Death 28 - Promises in Death

smuggling and art forgery. Lissa Grady—or Lissa Neil at the time—could’ve caught his eye.”
    “And if she turned up pregnant? He’d get rid of her?”
    “Unless she was carrying a son, I imagine so. She’s tested, it’s a female. He might—if he was feeling generous—give the young woman some form of payment. If not, he’d issue a warning.”
    “And Lissa took either the payment or the warning, moved back home to New Jersey. Gave up her chance at her graduate degree, her job, had the kid. Married some guy.”
    “The some guy’s stuck, more than thirty years. So I’d say Lissa found someone and made something.”
    “Would he have kept tabs on her?” Eve wondered. “Looked up the kid?”
    “I wouldn’t think so, no. The woman and the child wouldn’t have existed for him.”
    “Okay. Okay.” She pushed up to pace. “So, at some point, they tell her. Or maybe they’ve been up front about it all along. Maybe she always knew the guy raising her wasn’t her biological. She gets curious, she starts digging.”
    “And finds Max Ricker.”
    “Most people, they’re going to be sick if they’re looking for a biological and turn up a criminal kingpin, one suspected of being responsible for more deaths than a lot of small wars. If this is right, if this”—she pointed at Lissa’s image on the wall screen—“is the connection, Grady went to him. She made the contact. I’m your kid, asshole, what are you going to do about it? What would he have done?”
    “Depends on his mood again,” Roarke said. “But he might have been entertained by a direct approach. And as he and Alex weren’t on the best of terms at that point, it might’ve intrigued him. The idea of having a chance to mold an offspring.”
    “Educate her, train her. Use her.” She knew all about that, Eve thought, all about the methods a father might use to mold. She blocked it out, focused on Grady. “And God, wouldn’t it be sweet to use her to screw with the son who disappointed him?”
    “And for her, wouldn’t you think?” Roarke walked back to the board. “For her, also sweet to have a part in undermining the son—the prince, as he’d appear to be from the outside. The one who had all she didn’t. The wealth, the advantages, the attention. The name. It all falls into place with this single element. But then you have to prove this single element is fact.”
    “I can do that.” Eve grinned fiercely. “DNA doesn’t lie. I’m going to write this all up, toss it to Mira to add to the stew for the profile. I still need something that puts her and Sandy together, even just the same general place, same general time.”
    “That would be my assignment.”
    “It would, but you have to play it straight.”
    “You’re always spoiling my fun.”
    “You already had fun. I groveled.”
    “True.” He walked over, laid his hands on her shoulders, laid his lips on hers. “I know you.” He rubbed her shoulders, lightly. “The part of you who isn’t working the case in your head is wondering if all this is true, is she what she is, did she do what she did because of that DNA.”
    Yes, she thought, he knew her. “It’s a question.”
    “And the mirror turns so you wonder next about your own blood. What passes from father to daughter.”
    “I know I’m not like her. But it’s another question.”
    “Here’s an answer. Three fathers—hers, mine, yours—and three products of that blood, so to speak. And all of us have done what we’ve done with it. Maybe because of it. You know you’re not like her, you’re sure of that much. I know you. I’m sure you never could have been.”
    He kissed her again before he left her.
    She put it away, put away that part of her that wasn’t working the case in her head. That was for later.
    She stitched the theory together for Mira, and thought it was a shame Grady’s DNA wasn’t on record. She’d have her warrants in a fingersnap if she proved Grady was Max Ricker’s daughter. Still, it wouldn’t take much. A little spit, skin, hair, blood—whatever came handiest—was all she needed.
    She sent messages to her commander, to Reo, to Peabody, and after a brief hesitation, to Morris.
    Sitting back, Eve calculated the best, legal, and most satisfying method of collecting Cleo Grady’s DNA.
    “Here’s an interesting bit of trivia,” Roarke commented as he came back in. “The football team representing the university where Alex and Sandy became mates happens to play