Page 16 of Fury In Death

“Do you know anything about biotech, biomedicine, blah biowhatever?”

He had to smile. “Bits and pieces, and enough to hire those who know a great deal more.”

“Are you and Banner-Wyst competitors?”

“There’s plenty of room for all. They’re innovative, well established. Since, ah, I think the later years of the last century. I began testing those waters fifteen or sixteen years ago.”

“And now?”

“Swimming along quite well, thank you.”

“But there’s competition, right? To get those innovations. The bigger tomato or the better heart replacement.”

“There is, of course, and Banner-Wyst, in my opinion, has a ruthless way coated with humanitarian efforts. You’re toying with the victim hitting an innovation or pushing to beat someone else to it, or trying to undermine someone else’s work. Bribing them, perhaps, and somehow ruining their career or life or squeezing them out.”

“His son called him a negotiator, and his wife said he looked for compromise. Bribes and blackmail can be a kind of negotiation or compromise.”

She sat back with a shrug. “Or he banged someone else’s wife, fired someone, found out something that threatened the wrong person. Lots of ors. One solid? He seriously pissed someone off. Somebody strong, somebody smart, and someone who couldn’t stop killing him even after he was dead.”

She let out a breath when he turned into the gates of home and she saw the castle Roarke built silhouetted against the night sky. Lights glowed in windows, and inside there would be quiet.

There’d be work, but quiet as well, and relief and the warmth that came from belonging.

“He thought he was safe in his nice house in the nice neighborhood, with excellent security. Someone destroyed that, and him. What did he do, what did he know?” she muttered.

Then shook her head. “The killer knew him. They knew each other. If this was some kind of corporate hit, a science deal? You’re-not-beating-me-to-the-finish-line thing? You go cleaner. An accident, a mugging. Because it’s not personal.”

“And this was, I agree.”

“Very personal.” She got out of the car. “I think the killer has a family. Maybe kids. Young ones.”

“And why is that?”

“That photo on the desk, the one of the victim and his family, down to the grandkids. It was facedown. Others are smashed, tossed around, but that one is lying, undamaged, facedown on the desk.”

“Where it could have fallen during the melee.”

“Yeah, could’ve. But it’s giving me an itch.”

“I for one trust your itches. What does it tell you?”

“Maybe Chu threatened his family somehow. Their safety or security. A guy gets fired, his family pays, too. Maybe little Herbie needs a medical treatment, and now they can’t afford it. Or sweet young Ernestine has to give up her dream of being a concert pianist because you can’t pay for the lessons.”

Roarke waited a beat, then reached for the door. “If we ever have children, I’m in charge of names.”

“Right, but you follow me?”

“I do, yes.”

They went inside. No Summerset loomed in the foyer, no cat sat at his feet. And peace ruled throughout the land.

“Where’s the Ghoul of Roarke Manor?”

“Adorable. As it’s near to ten, I expect he’s in his quarters.”

Later than she’d realized, she thought, and sent Roarke an apologetic look. “I have to give this a couple hours. I need to write it up, send it to Peabody. And—”

“Understood,” he told her as they started up the stairs. “But inside that couple of hours, you’ll have a meal.”