The Death Dealer

And he had been poisoned. Poisoned with a bottle of thousand-dollar wine.



He loved wine, perhaps even to excess. And he had died of it.



À la Poe.



“The Black Cat.”



Or perhaps “The Cask of Amontillado.”



The killer didn’t seem to have been too precise about which story he meant Bigelow’s death to parallel. He had made his intentions clear in the note he’d left at the scene, though.



Quoth the raven: die.



The police were pretty much at a standstill, though why the media were harassing them so strongly about the case, Genevieve wasn’t certain. Thorne Bigelow had only been dead a week. She knew from personal experience that bad things could go on for a very long time before a situation was resolved. If it hadn’t been for her family’s wealth and her own disappearance, the sad deaths of many of the city’s less fortunate might have gone unsolved for a very long time.



But Bigelow was big news.



“My darling, there you are!”



Genevieve looked up. Her mother—it was still strange to call Eileen Mother, when she had grown up believing that she was her aunt—was standing before her. Eileen, only in her early forties now, was stunning. Her love for Genevieve was so strong—not to mention that without her persistence, Genevieve would surely be dead now—that it was easy to forgive the lies of the past. Especially since Genevieve knew what family pressure was like, and that her mother had been far too young to speak up for herself when Gen had been born.



But Eileen Brideswell had finally decided that a New York that embraced reruns of Sex and the City would surely forgive her a teenage, unwed birth. What she might once have been damned for now passed without notice by most in the city.



And after all, Genevieve had loved Eileen all her life.



“Here I am,” Genevieve said cheerfully.



“He didn’t show,” Eileen said.



“No.”



Eileen hesitated. She was very slim, and had classic features, the kind that would make her just as beautiful when she turned eighty as she was now. But at the moment, her expression was strained.



“What?” Genevieve asked, suddenly worried by what she saw in her mother’s eyes.



“There was a terrible accident on the FDR.”



Genevieve leapt up. “When? Joe uses—”



“About an hour ago. The reports are just coming out now. One man was killed—don’t panic, it wasn’t Joe—and a number of other people were injured.”



Genevieve sat back down and fumbled in the pocket of her black silk skirt for her cell phone. “That bastard better answer me,” she muttered.



“Joe Connolly,” came his voice, after three rings.



She could hear music in the background. An Irish melody. He was at O’Malley’s, she thought.



“Joe, it’s Genevieve.”



“Hey. You still at your big soiree?” he asked.



“Yes. I thought you were coming.”



“I couldn’t make it past the traffic.”



She let out a sigh. All right. That might be a legitimate excuse.



“Ah.”



“I’m at O’Malley’s.”



“Yes, it sounded like O’Malley’s.”



He was silent. It felt like an awkward silence. Was she being too clingy? Good God, did she sound disapproving, as if she were his wife or something?



Stop, she warned herself. She had to be careful of expecting too much from him. It had seemed, after she was rescued, after Leslie had…died, that they were destined to be close. The best of friends, needing one another.



But then it was as if he had put up a wall.



She gritted her teeth. She needed him now. Cut and dried. Needed his professional help. He was a private investigator. Finding people, finding facts, finding the truth. That was what he did. And she needed to hire him. She wasn’t asking any favors.



“Well, have fun,” she said.



She clicked the phone closed before he could reply.



Eileen looked at her. “Don’t worry, dear.” Her mother sat down beside her and patted her knee. “It’s all going to come out fine.”



“Mom…” The word seemed a bit strange, but Genevieve loved to use it. “Mom, I’m worried about you now. You’re a Raven, and…”



Eileen sighed. “Oh, darling, don’t worry. I’m a fringe member, at best. Poor Thorne. I like being a member, I love all the reading and discussing we do, but…honestly, I’m just not worried.”



“Mom, he was murdered.”



“Yes.”



“By someone who apparently wasn’t impressed with his work on Poe.”



“And I’ve never written a book,” Eileen assured her.



Genevieve sighed, rising. “But you are a Raven.”



“Along with many other things.”



“Can’t help it. I’m worried about you. Henry is driving you home, right?”



Eileen frowned. “Yes, of course. What about you? Are you leaving, too?”



“I’m going to drop by O’Malley’s.”



“Oh.” Eileen frowned worriedly.



“I’ll be all right,” Genevieve assured her. “I’m in my own car, but I know where to park. I’ll let security see me out and I won’t leave O’Malley’s without someone to walk me to my car. Okay? I’ll be safe, I promise. Hell, I think they ask your approval before they hire anyone at O’Malley’s.”



Eileen laughed, but there was a slight edge to it. “I do not tell them who they can and can’t hire. I’ve simply always enjoyed the place, and I’m a friend of the owners.”



“And I’m safe there,” Genevieve said very softly.



Eileen still appeared worried, Gen thought. Then again, these days she was worried every time Genevieve was out of her sight.



But Genevieve had gone back to living in her own apartment. Not that she didn’t adore Eileen or love the mansion. She just loved simplicity—and her independence.



It was sadly ironic that they both seemed to be frightened for each other these days, just when they had become so close.



She couldn’t help worrying about Eileen in the wake of Thorne’s murder, though. Eileen was a Raven, and though the police discounted the idea, it seemed to Gen that Thorne had been killed specifically because he was a Raven, not just because he was a published Poe scholar.



Admittedly, it was quite likely the book that had brought him to the killers attention, and it was true that Eileen had never written a book. She had way too many charities and women’s clubs to worry about to devote much time to being a Poe fan.



Still, the connection made Genevieve uneasy, and she wanted Joe involved.



That was it, cut and dried.



Or was it so cut and dried?



Maybe she was lying to herself; maybe she wanted to see Joe for personal reasons, too. God knew there was enough about him that was easy to see. He was intelligent, funny, generous and a little bit rough around the edges. Sexy and compassionate. A hard combination to resist.



And he was in love with a dead woman.



She tried to dismiss the thought. She and Joe were just friends precisely because of what had happened. They had seen one another through the hard times and come away good friends.



Yes, she had a multitude of emotions raging within her where Joe was concerned. But what was becoming a growing fear for her mother’s safety was the driving force in her desire to see him now.



She rose, kissing her mother’s cheek. “I’ll be at O’Malley’s. I’ll call when I’m leaving, and I’ll call when I get home, all right?”



Eileen flushed, then nodded. “Did you enjoy the exhibit?”



Genevieve nodded. “I think we raised a lot of money. I think Leslie would have been happy.” Leslie, who had been either gifted or cursed with extraordinary powers, had been an archeologist. She had loved history; she had revered it. Tonight had been planned in her honor, and they were going to use some of the funds raised this evening to respectfully reinter some of the bones Leslie had dug up on her last dig, the one that had ended up costing her life.



Genevieve dropped another quick kiss on her mother’s cheek, then hurried out.



The night was a little cool, making her glad she had chosen a jacket rather than a dressier stole. Not so much because it was warmer, but because it would fit in a hell of a lot better at O’Malley’s.



The attendant brought her car, and in minutes, she was taking the streets downtown. As she drove, she turned on her radio.



She was in time to catch the news, and the topic was that evening’s accident on the FDR, which was still being sorted out. There were brief interview snippets with several of the survivors, and Gen sat up straighter, alarmed, at the sound of one name.



Sam Latham.



CHAPTER 2



Sam Latham.



Another Raven.



Coincidence?



How many millions of people were there in the city?



Gen frowned as the newscaster went on to talk a bit about the man that had been killed, though she was relieved to hear that his young niece had been saved by a man who had left the scene after rescuing the little girl and pulling her uncle’s body from the car moments before the explosion that had destroyed it.



Joe?



How many millions of people in the city? she taunted herself.



No way.



That would be too much of a coincidence.



But Joe should have been on the FDR right around that time, on his way to the Met.



As she neared O’Malley’s, she noticed a number of people on the streets and was grateful to see that the lights in the area were bright. Maybe she was more spooked by what had happened to her than she’d thought. She parked, pleased to find a spot right outside the bar.



At the door, she hesitated.



She’d been coming here what felt like all her life. It was an authentic Irish pub, and her family was authentic New World Irish. This was pretty much the first place she had come after she was rescued, and it was one of the few places where she had felt truly comfortable, one of the few places where people hadn’t stared, where she hadn’t felt as if she needed to describe her ordeal in detail, so that people would save their pity for the dead women and not waste it on her.