She was, Eve noted, bowed back in either passion or terror, the long gleaming tendrils of her hair streaming back.
They were faceless, just form and feeling. And after a moment she decided that feeling wasn't romantic, or even sexual. It was violent.
"I'd say he was probably talented, and even talent can be sick."
Because it made her uncomfortable, she turned away from the figures and approached the door. Even with the codes and clearance Reva had provided, it took some time and some trouble to access entry.
The door opened into a kind of atrium with tinted sky windows three floors up, and slick ocean blue tiles for the floor.
There was a fountain in the center of the space, burbling as the half man, half fish figures that circled it vomited violently into the pool.
The walls were mirrored, tossing back their reflections dozens of times. Rooms fanned off from this center, through wide, doorless rectangles.
"This doesn't fit her," Eve said. "I'd say he picked the place and the decor, and she went along."
Peabody looked up, studied the nightmarish bird sculptures hanging high in the air. They looked like they were circling over a meal. "Would you?"
"I don't fit where I live either."
"That's not true."
Eve shrugged, cautiously circled the fountain. "I didn't when I moved into it. Okay, it's not like this. It's beautiful, and it's livable, and it's, well, it's warm. But it was Roarke's place. It's still more his than mine, and that's okay."
"She really loved him." The place gave Peabody the creeps, which she didn't bother to hide. "If she could live here because he wanted it, she had to really love him."
"That's my take," Eve agreed.
"I'll find the kitchen, verify the murder weapon was taken from here."
Eve nodded, and using the blueprint Reva had drawn for her, started upstairs.
She'd been sleeping, Eve thought. Heard the gate bell. Got up, checked the security screen. Saw the package.
She paused by a sheer window that looked down over a stone and metal garden. Nothing living, she mused. Nothing real.
Got up, she continued, went down and out to retrieve the package. Took a scanner, checked the contents for explosives. Careful, cautious woman.
Brought the package back inside.
Eve entered the master bedroom and saw the first signs of life in the house. There were more mirrors, silvery panels of them on one wall, more forming a double door. The bed, wide as a canyon, was unmade, with a nightshirt tossed into a tangle over in one corner. One closet door was open-Reva's closet, Eve noted after a glance.
She'd opened the package, sat on the bed when her legs gave out from under her, Eve imagined. Looked at the photographs again and again while her brain tried to compute the meaning. Studied the receipts. Went to the data center across the room, loaded the discs.
Some pacing, Eve was sure. That's what she'd've done. Paced, cursed, shed a few tears of rage. Tossed something breakable.
And she noted, with some satisfaction, the shards of glass in the far corner.
Okay, then it's time for action. Dress, gather the tools. Work out the plan in your head in between rages and more curses.
It took, what, an hour, an hour tops, from the time she opened the package until she headed out.
Eve turned to the bedroom 'link, and replayed the transmissions for the last twenty-four hours.
There was one from Felicity that was timed in at fourteen hundred.
Hi, Reev. I know you're at work, but I hate to bother you there. Just wanted to let you know I've got a hot date tonight. Hoping we can get together Friday or Saturday. I'll spill all the dirty deets. Be a good girl while Blair's away. Or if you're not, tell me everything. Ciao!
Eve froze the visual and took a hard look at Felicity Kade. The wealthy, stylish bombshell type, Eve mused. Blonde and rosy, with ice-edged cheekbones and a full, seductive mouth. Eyes so deeply blue they were nearly purple, with a tiny black mole at the outside tip of the left.
Eve was willing to bet she'd paid plenty for the face.
She'd been covering herself with the transmission. Don't call me tonight, I've got a hot one. It just happens to be your husband, but what you don't know won't hurt me.
Or so she'd believed when she'd placed the bubbling call.
And there was a look in those eyes, a kind of live-wire excitement that told Eve Blair Bissel had likely been with her already, just out of range of the 'link.
And when he'd called home, at seventeen-twenty, Eve noted, he'd been very careful to have nothing but his own face on screen. His eyes, cat green, were heavy. The smile, curve of that handsome mouth, was weary, like his voice.
She could see why Reva had fallen for him, more so on the transmission than in the ID still Eve had studied. You added that lazy animation to the face, that slow, sexy voice, and you got a powerful punch.
Hey, baby. I was hoping you'd be home by now. Should've called your pocket 'link. Pretty fuzzy with the travel and time change. I'm going to shut down, so you won't be able to reach me. I've just got to catch some serious zee's. I'll try you again as soon as I surface.
Miss me, baby. You know I'm missing you.
Covered his ass, too, and gave himself a clear night to play with his bed pal.
Still, it was careless. Reckless. At least it would've been if she'd trusted him less. What if she'd tracked the transmission as Eve would do. What if she'd gotten a wild hare and decided to transport herself to where he'd said he'd be?
What if... a dozen things that often happened to blow up the secret affair and leave the cheating spouse with his or her ass in the sling.
Instead he'd ended up dead. Because someone else had been tracking, someone else had been watching and waiting for the right time and place.
But why?
"Matching set of cooking tools," Peabody reported as she walked in. "Missing the bread knife."
"Would that be a bread knife in our evidence bag?"
"Yes, sir, it would. I also checked the log on the AutoChef. It looks like Reva Ewing had a single serving of chicken piccata and a garden salad at nineteen-thirty last night. Prior to that, there was a double serving of wheat waffles and a pot of coffee at seven-thirty yesterday morning."
"So they had breakfast together before he left on his fake business trip and she went to work."
"Security logs also show Reva Ewing entering, alone, at eighteen-twelve. And the gate bell sounding, as per her statement just after twenty-three hundred. Her leaving to retrieve the package and returning with it to the house after a scan also checks."
"You've been busy,"
Peabody grinned. "We detectives do what we can."
"You're not going to be able to milk that much longer."
"I figure I've got at least a month to mention my detective status at least three times a day. After that, I'm weaning myself."
"So noted. I want to take the security discs and the 'links to EDD. If Reva's being set up, whoever's doing it knows as much about security as she does."
"You said if. Do you have doubts?"
"There's always room for doubts."
"Okay, so I was thinking-and it doesn't really gel for me, but since there's room... What if she set it up to look like a setup? It'd be cold, and it'd be risky. But it'd be smart, too."
"Yeah, it would." Eve began to go through the desk drawers methodically.
"You already thought of it."
"Peabody, we lieutenants are always thinking."
"But you don't buy it."
"Look at it this way. If she did it, it's a dunk. The case fell whole into our laps. Nothing to do but file the reports and wait for it to come to trial. But if she's telling the truth, we've got a real, live mystery on our hands. I just fucking love a mystery."
She took all the discs into evidence for viewing at Central, added memo cubes, a PPC and what appeared to be a broken address book.
"Pick a dresser," Eve invited.
They searched the bedroom, moving from the contents of the dressers to the contents of the closet. They turned up nothing of interest but for what Peabody referred to as monkey sex underwear.
They split up on the home offices, with Eve taking Blair's.
He had, she noted, the better end of the deal there. His was twice the size of hers, and with a view of the stone garden-the garden she assumed he'd wanted. There was also a long leather couch, the color of light coffee, with a mirrored wall behind it, and an entertainment center loaded with the latest toys.
It was, she thought, more a man-as-boy playroom than workspace. And when she called up his data unit, she found it wasn't working at all.
She gave it a quick slap with the heel of her hand, which was her usual way of dealing with recalcitrant machines. "I said, 'Computer, on,'" she repeated and once again read in her name, rank, and badge number for override of standard passcodes.
The screen stayed blank, the unit silent.
Interesting, she thought as she circled around it as she might a sleeping animal. What did he have in there he didn't want his wife to see?
Still watching the unit, she pulled out her communicator and tagged Feeney at EDD.
His hound dog face had been sun-kissed by his recent vacation in Bimini. He'd only been back a couple of days, and Eve was hoping it would fade soon. It was... disconcerting to see Feeney with a tan.
She wanted his hair to grow back, too. He'd shorn his wiry ginger-and-gray mop painfully short while he'd been gone. It looked like he was wearing a snug, fuzzy helmet.
When you added the post-holiday sparkle to his droopy brown eyes, it was a study in mixed signals, and made her head hurt.
"Hey, kid."
"Hey. Did you get my request?"
"First thing. Already cleared the time and manpower for you."
"I got more. Dead guy's home unit. He must have it seriously pass-coded. I can't get it on."
"Dallas, there are times you can't get your AutoChef on."
"That's a dirty lie." She poked the data unit with a finger. "I need a pickup for this, and for a houseful of 'links and data centers. A boatload of security discs I need studied and analyzed."
"I'll send out a team for pickup."
She waited a beat. "Just like that? I don't even get a token bitch?"
"I'm in too good a mood to bitch. The wife made me pancakes this morning. Can't do enough for me. I'm a fricking hero with my whole family. You flipped me that Bimini deal, Dallas, and I figure I'm going to reap the rewards for the next six months. I owe you."
"Feeney, you look sort of scary when you smile like that. So cut it out."
His grin only widened. "Can't help it. I'm a happy man."
"I've got enough EDD work on this one to keep you and a full team buried for days."
"Sounds good." He almost sang it. "I'm ready for a real challenge. Guy gets soft sitting on the beach sucking coconut juice all day."
This had to stop, was all she could think. And now. "Case is a slam," she said and showed her teeth. "And I've already booked the suspect on two counts in the first. I'm using departmental time and money to pick the case apart from the inside out."
"Sounds like fun," he said with a lilt in his voice. "Glad you called me in."
"I could learn to hate you like this, Feeney." She rattled off the address, and cut transmission as he began to hum.
"Do a favor for a friend," she muttered, "and it bites you on the ass. Peabody!" She shouted it. "Tag all electronics for EDD pickup. Arrange for two droids to guard the premises and seal it after EDD has come and gone. And move it. We need to go check Bissel's gallery and studio."
"If we're partners now, how come I have to do all the tagging?" Peabody shouted back. "And are we ever going to eat? We've already been on the clock six hours, and my blood sugar's dropping. I can feel it."
"Just move your ass," Eve shot back, but she smiled. At least she still worked with somebody who knew how to bitch.
***
Because she appreciated it, and she remembered she hadn't eaten since the night before herself, she double-parked in front of a 24/7 and let Peabody make the dash in for some to-go food.
They were both going to need to go off the clock for a couple of hours, get some sleep. But she wanted to get a look at Blair's workspace and get all the electronics and security discs in evidence first.
