Loyalty in Death Read Online Free PDF

before you get to her apartment.” Eve added a smile to soften it, though she’d already decided the guy had M for mark all over his face. “Things are slow here, anyway.”
    “The Cooke case.”
    “I think I can handle it solo,” Eve said mildly. “Anything pops, I’ll tag you. Go show Zeke the wonders of New York.”
    “Thanks, Dallas.” Peabody took her brother’s hand, vowing that she’d make sure he didn’t see the seamier side of those wonders.
    “Nice to’ve met you, Lieutenant.”
    “You, too.” She watched them go off, Zeke bending his body slightly toward Peabody as she bubbled with sisterly affection.
    Families, Eve mused. They continued to baffle her. But it was nice to see that, occasionally, they worked.
    “Everyone loved J.C.” Chris Tipple, Branson’s executive assistant, was a man of about thirty with hair approximately the same shade as the swollen red rims of his eyes. Even now he wept unashamedly, tears trickling down his chubby, pleasant face. “Everyone.”
    Which might have been the problem, Eve mused, and waited once again while Chris scrubbed his cheeks with his crumpled handkerchief. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
    “It’s just impossible to believe he won’t come through that door.” His breath hitched as he stared at the closed door of the big, bright office suite. “Ever again. Everyone’s in shock. When B. D. made the announcement this morning, no one could speak.”
    He pressed the handkerchief to his mouth as if his voice had failed him again.
    B. Donald Branson, the victim’s brother and partner, Eve knew, and waited for Chris to finish.
    “You want some water, Chris? A soother?”
    “I’ve taken a soother. It doesn’t seem to help. We were very close.” Mopping his streaming eyes, Chris didn’t notice Eve’s look of consideration. “You had a personal relationship?”
    “Oh yes. I’d been with J. C. for nearly eight years. He was much more than my employer. He was… he was like a father to me. Pardon me.”
    Obviously overcome, he buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. J. C. wouldn’t want me to fall apart this way. It doesn’t help. But I can’t — I don’t think any of us can take it in. We’re closing down for a week. The whole operation. Offices, factories, everything. The memorial…” He trailed off, struggling. “The memorial service is scheduled for tomorrow.”
    “Quick.”
    “J. C. wouldn’t have wanted it to be drawn out. How could she have done it?” He fisted the damp cloth in his hand, staring blindly at Eve. “How could she have done it, Lieutenant? J. C. adored her.”
    “You know Lisbeth Cooke?”
    “Of course.”
    He rose to pace, and Eve could only be grateful. It was difficult to watch a grown man grieve while he was sitting in a chair shaped like a pink elephant. Then again, she was sitting in a purple kangaroo.
    It was obvious, with one look at the late J. Clarence Branson’s office, that he’d enjoyed indulging in his own toys. The shelves lining one wall were loaded with them, from the simple remote-control space station to the series of multitask minidroids.
    Eve did her best not to look at their lifeless eyes and small-scale bodies. It was too easy to imagine them popping to life and… well, God knew what.
    “Tell me about her, Chris.”
    “Lisbeth.” He sighed heavily, then in an absent gesture adjusted the sunshade tint on the wide window behind the desk. “She’s a beautiful woman. You’d have seen that for yourself. Smart, capable, ambitious. Demanding, but J. C. didn’t mind that. He told me once if he didn’t have a demanding woman, he’d end up puttering and playing his life away.”
    “They spent a lot of time together?”
    “Two evenings a week, sometimes three. Wednesdays and Saturdays were standard — dinner with theater or a concert. Any social event that required his presence or hers, and Monday lunch — twelve-thirty to two. A three-week vacation every August wherever Lisbeth