Fantasy in Death (29 page)

“Oh, easy. If you did the steamy pretzel with my honey bear, I’d stick the first sharp implement I could find in your heart, and in his balls. I’d probably be sorry after, but too late.”

“That’s it? Sex with Leonardo is the only reason you’d want me dead? Think about it,” Eve insisted. “What if I stole from you, or insulted you, made fun of you on a regular basis.”

“Okay.” Mavis tipped her head side-to-side in thinking mode. “If you stole from me you’d need whatever you took really bad. If you insulted me you’d piss me off and I’d insult you back. If you made fun of me you’d hurt my feelings and I’d tell you to knock it off.”

“So the only reason you’d stick a knife in me—”

“Or a really sharp nail file. Maybe a kebab skewer. That would be, like, inventive. See, you were doing the steamy with my cuddle-up in the kitchen, so I just grabbed what was there. Murder by kebab skewer, and I’d get off on the temporary whacked.”

Fixing rage on her face, Mavis demonstrated by pumping a fist toward Eve’s heart.

“It’s a good one. Anyway, the only reason you’d plunge that kebab skewer in me is the blind passion of the moment?”

“Yeah, so remember that if you ever get ideas about my baby doll, ’cause I’d kebab your ass.”

“So warned.”

Mavis grinned her sparkling grin. “Speaking of babies. You’ve got to see this mini vid of Bellamia.” Mavis opened a tiny bag the same pink as her hair and the shape of a tulip.

Eve laid a hand on hers. “You wouldn’t do it even then. You might want to, even think it, and you’d hate me, but you wouldn’t kill me.”

“I’d
really
want to, but no. But you’d never go after my man because you’d never hurt me that way, ever, much less cheat on Roarke. Real friends, real lovers don’t do that shit to each other. Not the reals.”

“Exactly. You’re exactly right. Okay. Let’s see the vid.”

17

E
ve didn’t know if Bella was the baby girl of all baby girls as she didn’t have much experience with babies of either variety. But the kid was ridiculously pretty, especially if you overlooked the drool.

Still, she was happy to be spared watching Bella clap her hands, blow kisses, and babble a second time as the men came back with drinks. She cornered McNab while Roarke was treated to Bella’s goos and giggles and baby-spit kisses.

“What’s the status on the journal?”

“She’s tricky. I got through the first level, but she put another layer on. Paranoid—and really good.”

“I could probably get a court order for her to open it.”

“And suck out my fun? Give me a couple more hours.”

“If you don’t have it by eleven hundred, I’m going to see what Reo can do. A woman who lives alone in a secured apartment who keeps a journal with that kind of protection has something to hide.”

“Everything in her place is locked down double, even her house ’link. Again, can you say paranoid? Callendar and Feeney said the other two were over covered, but this one? It’s like Global Security.”

“We’ll brief at eleven hundred,” Eve decided. “That gives you and the rest of EDD time to comb through what we have while Peabody and I go over what the rest of the team brought in.”

“Then we’d better party now, because we’re going to kick it early tomorrow. There’s Baxter. Looking tight.”

“Baxter?” Glancing around, she spotted Baxter and a scatter of other cop faces. “What, did Nadine invite the entire NYPSD?”

“Looks like it. I spotted Tibble over at the bar. I guess you got to do the invite to the commissioner. He looked like he was in a good mood.”

“Let’s close this case and keep him that way.”

“Cop talk? This is a party.” Nadine hooked arms around McNab’s and Eve’s waists. “With all my favorite people.”

“From the looks of it,” Eve observed, “you have a lot of favorites. And a good chunk of them are cops.”

“You work the crime beat, you make friends with cops—or you don’t work it long.”

“It’s a total bash,” McNab told her. “The music slays. I’m going to get Peabody out there and show them how it’s done. Cha.”

“He’s a cutie.” Nadine beamed after McNab. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a man in an orange tux.”

“It’s the glow-in-the-dark bow tie that makes it.”

“It does add a flare. Well, look at him go!” Nadine added with a laugh. “He’s got some moves. They look so happy.” She sighed. “I’m so happy. All those nerves are gone now. I guess it takes a party, and a few hundred of my closest friends, to flip them over to happy.”

“Congratulations.” Roarke stepped over, gave Nadine a kiss. “It’s a wonderful party, and the centerpiece is stunning.”

“Thank you. Both of you. I’m just so...”

“Happy,” Eve finished. “She’s very happy.”

“Perilously close to giddy.” After lifting her glass in toast, Nadine drank deep. “And buckets of this adds to it. I need to steal Dallas for a minute.” She laid a hand on Roarke’s arm. “I won’t keep her long.”

“You’re not going to introduce me to a bunch of people I have to make conversation with—because that’s the problem with parties. You have to get dressed up then talk to a bunch of people you’ll probably never see again and you don’t care about their opinions or life stories anyway.”

“You’re such a social butterfly, Dallas. I don’t know how you get any work done.” Nadine kept a hand on Eve’s arm, steering her through.

Like a dance, Eve thought. Not like whatever Peabody and McNab were doing, which looked more like sexual calisthenics, but a kind of gliding ballet. A pause here for a word, a gesture there to acknowledge someone, a turn, a laugh, all while moving without any visible hurry.

They passed an enormous display of the cover of the book. On a background of icy blue, interlocking faces stared out. The same face over and over—female and striking, with a small, secret smile.

They shimmered against the ice, while those eyes seemed to glow with some inner life.

“It’s creepy, and compelling,” Eve decided.

“Exactly.”

“You didn’t use Avril, or any of the others we identified as clones.”

“No. It didn’t seem fair. Some of them were still children. They deserve a chance at some sort of normal life. Or at least a private one. You let Diana, the one from the school, go.”

“She escaped during the confusion.”

“That’s the way I wrote it. But that’s not what happened. I hope I would’ve done the same.” She slid her hand down Eve’s arm to link their fingers in a kind of silent solidarity. “In writing the book... I hope I would’ve done the human thing when given the choice. There’s a room for me inside here,” she continued, going through the glass doors. “For interviews, and in case I want to catch my breath.”

She opened the door of a small lounge, filled with flowers. A bottle of champagne sat waiting in a silver bucket beside a tray of glossy fruit.

“Nice,” Eve observed.

“Louise and Charles sent champagne, and flowers. And the publisher... They’re treating me like a star. I hope I don’t disappoint them.”

“Knock it off.”

Nadine waved a hand. “The book’s good. Damn good—you’re right about that. And I know what I’m doing when it comes to promotion. But you can never be sure what the public’s going to like, or not. So, we’ll see. Whatever, I accomplished something I’m proud of. So...”

Nadine walked over to a counter and picked up a copy of the book. “I want you to have this. You have an actual library, so I wanted you to have a print copy rather than the e.”

“I’m pretty sick of all things e at the moment.”

“I imagine you are. Anyway, seeing as Roarke has a liking for physical books, I thought I might find my way into your library.”

“Guaranteed. Thanks. Really.”

“You don’t have to cart it around all night. I’ll have it sent, but I wanted to give it to you personally.”

Eve turned it over, studied the photo of Nadine in one of her sharp suits with the New York skyline behind her.

“Sexy and capable. It says ‘I cover New York, and nothing gets by me.’”

Nadine laughed. “That was the general idea. There’s another addition to the version you read.” Nadine took the book back, opened it to the dedication page. “Here.”

Eve read:

For Lieutenant Eve Dallas,

courageous, relentless, insightful,

who honors her badge every day as

she stands for the living and the dead.

“Well. Wow.” Flustered, touched, and mildly embarrassed, Eve looked up at Nadine. “I’m... thanks. I’m just doing my job.”

“Me, too. We’re damn good at what we do, Dallas, you and me. And we’re damn good not just because we have the chops, but because it matters. It matters to us, every day. What the Icoves did was obscene, and that story needs to be told. The book matters to me, and what’s in it mattered to you. You risked your life for it.”

“So did others. I didn’t stop them alone.”

“There’s a lengthy acknowledgments page. Read it at your leisure,” Nadine added with a smile. “Take the book, and the sentiment.”

“I will. I do.” Eve narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t like a box of cookies, is it?”

On another laugh, Nadine fluttered her lashes. “A bribe? From me? What a thing to say. Here.” She poured two glasses of champagne, passed one to Eve. “To two capable, sexy women who cover New York, and are damn good at what they do.”

“I can get behind that.”

They clinked glasses, sipped. “I’ll have the book sent to you.” Nadine set it back on the counter.

“Signed.”

A new smile bloomed. “Yes, signed. And now we’d better get back out there. My assignment is to mingle, and yours is to have a good time, so I won’t drag you around introducing you to a bunch of people.”

“Now that’s better than a box of cookies.”

Lightning flashed, a lance of light across the sky as they stepped back onto the roof. Thunder chortled in its wake.

“Hell, we’ll have to close the dome.”

“Yeah.” Eve looked up. “But it’ll still be a hell of a show.”

As the first bolt of lightning stuck, Cill let herself into her apartment. She almost hadn’t come home. Knowing the police had been through her things, poked and turned over her personal possessions, invaded her private space had her dragging her feet every step.

Her mother and stepfather had done the same. Always looking for something that could incite a lecture, shame, blame, punishment. Nothing had ever been private, nothing had ever been
hers
, until she’d walked out of that house for the last time.

Now what was private, what was hers had been searched and studied, again.

But where else could she go but home? She couldn’t make herself stay at the office either, not with all those flowers, all the faded echoes of the people who’d come for Bart.

He was too much there, she thought, and now, she felt exposed in her own home.

Maybe she’d move, she considered. Or just get the hell over it. Var and Benny were right. It was routine, nothing personal. But it
was
personal to her—that was the problem.

They’d taken some of her things, she could see that immediately. Felicity had counseled them that the warrant allowed the police to confiscate and examine. But why did their rights have to smother hers? Wasn’t there enough to be miserable about without adding this?

She wandered into the kitchen, finally settled on a power drink. She hadn’t been able to eat at the memorial, and she couldn’t find the desire or the energy to bother with food now.

She took the tube with her to the window to watch the dance of lightning. But she set it down again after the first sip. It was too cold. Everything seemed too cold.

She wanted heat and sun, not cold and rain. She wanted to sweat. A good fight, until she was exhausted enough to sleep without thinking about Bart, without imagining the strangers who’d walked through her bedroom, touching her things, judging them. Judging her.

In any case, she’d agreed to work on the program. She didn’t know if the push was because she needed to be shaken out of her funk or if the game needed more tweaks. Either way, she’d do what she promised and accomplish both.

She drew the disc she’d logged out of U-Play from the right cup of her bra. Probably a silly and overly girly place to keep it, she thought, but she’d figured nobody could steal it unless they killed her first.

She kicked off the new shoes that hurt her feet, then walked barefoot to her holo-room.

She loved holo. She could go anywhere. She’d seen the world with holo—not to mention worlds that only existed there and in the imagination. Benny’s research was so thorough. She’d wandered Piccadilly Circus, shivered by a loch in Scotland, explored the Amazon jungles.

She didn’t need a crowded transport, the hassle of customs, the inconvenience of hotels where countless others had slept on the bed before you. She only needed holo.

Even as she slid the disc in, her mood lifted. She set the program, then took a long, calming breath.

The heat enveloped her, the heavy, wet heat of a tropical jungle. Instead of the black suit she never intended to wear again, she was clad in the thin, buff-colored cotton, the sturdy boots, the cocky, rolled brimmed hat of a treasure hunter.

She loved this game for the puzzle, the strategy, the twists and turns—and yes, especially now—for the upcoming battles—fists, weapons, and wits—with any who opposed her on her search for the Dragon’s Egg.

She opted to start at the beginning of the first level, and her arrival at the ancient village of Mozana. It would take hours to run the entire game, but that was all good, she decided. She wanted nothing outside of this, wanted to think of nothing else, maybe forever.

She went through the steps and stages, the meets, the bartering, the purchase of supplies.

In one part of her mind she was Cill the treasure hunter—ruthless, brave, and cunning. In the other she remained Cill the programmer, observing the tiny details of the images, the movements, the audio, searching for any flaws.

She hiked through the heat, watched a snake coil itself on a limb and hiss. She waded through rivers, and raced to the mouth of a cave as the ground shook with an earthquake.

And there, by the light of a torch she found the cave drawings. Carefully, as she had countless times before in development, she copied them in her notebook by hand, and took photographs with her camera.