by J. D. Robb
“There’s nothing like free enterprise,” Roarke said from behind her. She turned, eyed him up and down.
“Why are you here?”
“Lieutenant, have you forgotten? The deceased met his end while starring in a play in my theater. How could I stay away? Besides…” He patted the pocket of his elegant suit. “I got an invitation.”
“I thought you had meetings all day.”
“The advantage of being in charge…is being in charge. I took an hour.” With his hand lightly on her shoulder, he scanned the crowd, the lights, the screens. “Appalling, isn’t it?”
“And then some. Feeney, let’s split up, see what we see. I’ll meet you at the main entrance, one hour.”
“You got it.” He spotted several faces he knew from on-screen and a banquet table. No reason he couldn’t see what he saw with his mouth full.
“Roarke, if I ditched you twenty-five years ago, would you still be hung up about it?”
He smiled, caressed her hair. “Difficult to say, as I’d have spent that time hounding you and making your life a living hell.”
“No, seriously.”
“Who said I wasn’t?” He took her arm, led her through the crowd.
“Let’s pretend you’re someone less annoying.”
“Ah. All right. If you’d broken my heart, I’d attempt to pick up the shattered pieces and rebuild my life. But I’d never forget you. What have you got?”
“Peabody’s got a theory about love, the love of your life. I’m playing with it.”
“I can tell you, you’re mine.”
“No kissing,” she hissed, seeing the intent in his eyes. “I’m on duty here. There’s Michael Proctor. Smiling. I went over his financials, and he paid over ten K for that dental work, while he lives in a sty. He’s chatting with that slick-looking woman over there. He doesn’t look so shook up or bumbling now.”
“He’s talking with Marcina, one of the top screen producers in the business. Could be your boy is hoping for a career shift.”
“Less than a week ago, the stage was his life. Interesting. Let’s see how he holds up.”
She worked her way over, noted the instant Proctor saw her. His eyes widened, his head drooped, and his shoulders hunched in. Presto-chango, Eve thought, from debonair leading man to fumbling second lead in a blink. The magic of theater.
“Proctor.”
“Ah, ah, Lieutenant Dallas. I didn’t realize you’d be attending.”
“I get around.” Deliberately, she scanned the theater. “I guess Quim can’t expect this kind of send-off.”
“Quim? Oh.” He had the grace, or the skill, to flush. “No, no, I suppose not. Richard was…he was known and respected by so many people.”
“A lot of them sure are toasting him.” She leaned over, studied the pretty bubbles in the glass he held. “With premium champagne.”
“He would have expected no less.” This from the woman Roarke had identified as Marcina. “This event suits him perfectly.” She shifted her gaze over Eve’s shoulder, then beamed. “Roarke! I wondered if I’d see you here.”
“Marcina.” He stepped up, lightly kissed her cheek. “You’re looking well.”
“I’m very well. Dallas,” she said after a moment, and pinned Eve with her sharp gaze. “Of course. This must be your wife. I’ve heard a great deal about you, Lieutenant.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Proctor said.
“Don’t run off on my account,” Eve told Proctor, but he was already edging away.
“I see a friend.” He dived into the crowd like a man leaping overboard.
“I assume you’re on duty?” Marcina skimmed a glance over Eve’s trousers and serviceable jacket. “You’re investigating Richard’s death.”
“That’s right. Would you mind telling me what you and Proctor were talking about?”
“Is he a suspect?” Lips pursed, Marcina looked over to where Proctor had disappeared. “Fascinating. Actually, it was shop talk. Michael has the right look for a screen project I’m putting together. We were discussing the possibility of him coming out to New L.A. for a few days.”
“And is he?”
“Perhaps. But he’s committed to his current play. He’s quite looking forward to taking Richard’s place onstage. Not that he put it quite so tactlessly. My people will be talking to his people, as it were, over the next week or two to see if we can work something out. He hoped that the theater will reopen very soon.”
• • •
The minute Eve stepped outside, she took a deep gulp of air thick with the stink of smoke from glide-carts, screaming with the noise of street and air traffic. She preferred it over the sweetly perfumed air inside.
“Proctor isn’t letting Draco get cold before he steps into his shoes.”
“He sees an opportunity,” Roarke commented.
“Yeah. So did the killer.”
“Point taken.” He traced a fingertip over the dent in her chin. “I might be a little late tonight. I should be home by eight.”
“Okay.”
“I have something for you.”
“Oh, come on.” When he reached in his pocket, she stuffed her hands in hers. “This isn’t the time or place for presents.”
“I see. Then I guess I’ll just keep this for myself.”
Instead of the jewelry case she’d expected, he pulled out a jumbo chocolate bar. Her hand whipped out of her pocket, snatched it.
“Then again,” Roarke murmured.
“You bought me a candy bar.”
“I know the way to your heart, Lieutenant.”
She tore off the wrapping, bit in. “I guess you do. Thanks.”
“It’s not dinner,” he said with a narrowed eye. “But if you can hold off, we’ll have some together when I get home.”
“Sure. You got transpo?”
“I’ll walk. It’s a nice day.” He caught her face, kissed her before she could tell him not to.
Chewing her candy, she watched him walk away. And thought she understood exactly what Peabody meant by the love of a lifetime.
*** CHAPTER FOURTEEN ***
Mira studied the record of the interview with Kenneth Stiles. She sipped her tea while Eve paced. In another five minutes, she would have been on her way home. Eve had caught her as she’d been locking up.
Now she would be late. That thought shifted through the back of her mind as she focused on the interview. Her husband would understand, particularly if she made a quick detour on the way and picked up a carton of his favorite ice cream.
She’d learned long ago the tricks and balances of blending a demanding career and a successful marriage.
“You and Feeney are an excellent interview team,” she commented. “You read each other well.”
“We’ve been doing it awhile.” Eve wanted to hurry Mira along but knew better. “I think he’s been practicing that hard-ass look in the mirror.”
That brought out a smile. “I imagine so. Given his comfortable face, it’s surprisingly effective. Am I correct in assuming you don’t believe Stiles told the whole truth?”
“Are you ever wrong?”
“Now and again. You’re looking for this Anja Carvell?”
“Peabody’s tracking her.”
“He had, and has, strong feelings for her. I’d say she was a turning point for him. If it had been a storybook, the woman would have come to him after he defended her. Happily ever after. But—”
“She didn’t want him.”
“Or didn’t love him enough, felt unworthy, humiliated, scarred.” Mira lifted a hand. “There are countless reasons why she and Stiles didn’t match. Without observing her, I couldn’t say. Still, it’s Stiles’s emotional and mental state that interests you.”
“Peabody’s idea is that this woman was the love of his life, and because of that, he’d never have completely lost touch with her.”
“I think Peabody has good instincts. He protected her, defended her. A man with his sense of theater
or drama would tend to put himself in the role of hero, and she his damsel in distress. He may very well still be doing so.”
“She’s key,” Eve murmured. “Maybe not the key, but a key.” With her hands in her pockets, she wandered to Mira’s window. She was feeling closed in today and couldn’t say why. “I don’t get it,” she said at length. “The woman shrugs him off, sleeps with another guy, folds herself into this other guy so completely that when he tosses her away, she tries to self-terminate. And still Stiles is hung up on her. He beats hell out of Draco, gets himself arrested, gets skinned in a civil suit. And when he talks about her twenty-five years later, he goes soft. Why isn’t he bitter? Why isn’t he pissed? Is he jamming me here?”
“I can’t say with absolute certainty. He’s a talented actor. But my evaluation at this point is no, as far as his feelings for the woman, he’s not jamming you. Eve, the human heart is a mystery we’ll never completely solve. You’re putting yourself in this man’s place. That’s one of the skills you have, what makes you so good at what you do. But you can’t quite get into his heart. You would look at this woman and see weakness.”
Mira sipped more tea as Eve turned. “She was weak. Weak and careless.”
“And quite young, I imagine, but that’s beside the point. You look at love differently because you’re strong and because of where and in whom you found it. The love of your life, Eve, would never betray you or hurt you or, where it matters most, ever let you down. He accepts who you are, absolutely. As much as you love him, I don’t think you fully understand how rare and how precious that is. Stiles loved, and perhaps still loves, a fantasy. You have the reality.”
“People kill for both.”
“Yes.” Mira ejected the disc, held it out to Eve. “They do.”
• • •
All the talk about love and lifetimes got under Eve’s skin and made her feel uncomfortably guilty. She played back what others had said and realized everyone who had mentioned her relationship with Roarke as an example had spoken of what he would do for her or wouldn’t do to her.
It wasn’t, she decided, a very pretty picture of her participation in the whole love and marriage deal.
She never really did anything, she thought. She still had a miserable time finding the right words, the right gesture, the right moment. Roarke seemed to pluck them out of the air as easily, as smoothly, as he plucked his fortune.
So she’d make an effort. She’d push the case onto the back burner, okay, the side burner, she admitted, and do something, Jesus, romantic.
In her current state of mind, she wanted to avoid Summerset at all costs, so she actually put her car in the garage. Then, like a thief, she snuck in the house through one of the side doors.
She was about to plan her first intimate dinner.
How hard could it be? she asked herself as she jumped into the shower. She’d led tactical teams in hostage situations, tracked psychopaths, outwitted the deranged.
She was smart enough to put a fancy meal on a fancy table. Probably.
She zipped out of the shower and into the drying tube. Not in the bedroom, she decided, because that was, well, obvious, and she thought, most likely, romance should be subtle.
She’d use one of the lounging rooms.
As the hot air whirled around her, she began to plot.
Thirty minutes later, she was feeling both satisfied and frazzled. There were so many damn rooms in the house, she still didn’t believe she’d been in all of them. And all the damn rooms had stuff, enormous amounts of stuff. How was she supposed to figure out what was needed?
Candles, she got that, but when she ran an inventory scan, she discovered a veritable forest of candles in several areas. Still, the satisfaction came from skulking through the house, evading the ever-watchful Summerset.
She decided on white, because color meant she’d most likely have to match it with more colors, and that was just more than she could handle. She spent another twenty minutes dealing with the menu, then had to face the frightening ordeal of selecting plates, flatware, crystal.
It had been a shock to run an inventory on something as basic as dinner plates and find her husband had over fifty types of varying material and patterns.
What kind of maniac needed over five thousand plates?
Her maniac, she reminded herself, then nearly choked when she ran the crystal.
“Okay, that’s got to be wrong.” She was at the point of choosing at random because her time was running short.
“Might I ask precisely what you’re doing?”
A lesser woman would have yelped. Eve managed, just barely, to bite it back. “Get lost. I’m busy.”
Summerset simply strode over, the cat at his heels. “So I observe. If you wish to know the contents of the house, I suggest you discuss it with Roarke.”
“I can’t because I’ve killed him, disposed of his body, and now I’m going to hold the biggest auction, on or off planet, in the history of civilization.”
She jabbed a finger against something called Waterford, Dublin pattern, only because she recognized it as the city where Roarke had been born. Then she looked up with a scowl toward the hovering Summerset. “Go away.”
But his attention had shifted from her to the table under the glass dome of the observation balcony. She’d used the Irish linen, he noted. An excellent choice, which was probably blind luck. The Georgian candlesticks, white tapers. There were dozens of other candles, all white, scattered around the lounging room, as yet unlighted.
Galahad the cat pranced over and leaped onto the satin pillows on the love seat.
“Jesus Christ, they’re just forks and knives!”
The combination of horror and frustration in her tone had Summerset’s lips twitching. “Which china pattern have you selected?”
“I don’t know. Will you get out of here? This is a private party.”
He tapped her hand aside before she could select, scanned her other choices, and ordered the proper flatware. “You’ve neglected to order napkins.”
“I was getting to them.”
He turned a pitying eye on her. She was wearing a cotton robe, had yet to enhance her face. Her hair was standing in spikes from the constant swipe of her fingers.
But he gave her points for the attempt. In fact, he was pleasantly surprised by her taste. Though some of her selections were unconventional in combinations, they managed to blend into a rather charming ambiance.
“When one plans a special meal,” he said, taking care to look down the long line of his nose at her, “One requires the proper accompaniments.”
“What am I doing here? Playing Space Attack? Now, if you’d just go slither under the door again, I could finish up.”
“Flowers are necessary.”
“Flowers?” Her stomach pitched to her feet. “I knew that.” She wasn’t going to ask. She’d saw her tongue off with her teeth before she asked.
For a humming ten seconds they simply stared at each other. He took pity on her, though he told himself he was simply maintaining his authority as majordomo. “I would suggest roses, the Royal Silver.”
“I guess we’ve got those.”
“Yes, they can be accessed. You’ll also require music.”
Her palms started to sweat. Annoyed, she rubbed them on the robe. “I was going to program something.” Or other.
“I assume you intend to dress for the evening.”
“Shit.” She heaved out a breath, stared hard at the cat who was staring hard back at her. She suspected he was grinning.
“It’s part of my duties to organize matters such as this. If you’ll go put on something… more, I’ll arrange the rest.”
She opened her mouth to agree. Already the knots in her stomach loosened. Then she shook her head and felt them tighten right back up again. “No, I have to do it myself. That’s the point.” She massaged her forehead. She was getting a headache. Perfect.
His face remained stern, cold, but inside, he softened l
ike jelly. “Then you’d better hurry. Roarke will be home within the hour.”
She would, Summerset concluded as he left her alone, need every minute of it.
• • •
His mind was on business when he got home. His last meeting of the day had involved a textile conglomerate looking for a buyout. He had to decide if he was looking to buy.
The company, and most of its subsidiaries, had been sloppily run. Roarke had no sympathy for sloppy business practices. As a result, his initial offer had been insultingly low.
The fact that their negotiator hadn’t been nearly as insulted as he should have been sent up red flags. He would have to do more research before he took the next step.
The problem would be on one of their two off-planet sites, he calculated. It might be worth a trip to study them firsthand.
There had been a time he would have simply arranged his schedule and done so. But in the past year it had become increasingly less appealing to leave home, even for the short term.
He had, he thought with some amusement at himself, become rooted.
He stopped by Eve’s office on the way to his own, was mildly surprised not to find her there, neck deep in her current case. Curiosity had him setting his own work aside and moving to the house scanner.
“Where is Eve?”
Eve is currently in Lounging Room Four, third level, south wing.
“What the hell is she doing in there?”
Would you like to engage monitor?
“No, I’ll go see for myself.”
He’d never known her to loiter in that area of the house. The fact was, he’d never known her to lounge unless he nagged, seduced, or conned her into it.
It occurred to him it might be pleasant to have their meal there, relax together with a bottle of wine, and shake their respective days from their minds.
He’d have to talk her into it.
Thinking this, he walked into the room. If she’d been looking in his direction, she would have caught one of the rare moments when her husband was completely flabbergasted.
The room was lit with dozens of white candles, and the fragrance of them waltzed with the tender perfume of dozens of silver roses. Crystal glinted, silver gleamed, and the romance of harp strings wept in the air.