If it was an act, Eve mused, it was damn good. The eyes were glazed, the lips and fingers trembled. "It's not only possible, it's fact. How did it get there?"
"I don't know. I tell you, I don't know." In a sudden spurt of energy, Areena leaped to her feet. Her eyes weren't glazed now, but wild and wheeling. "Someone put it there. Whoever switched the knives put it there. They want me to be blamed for Richard. They want me to suffer for it. Wasn't it enough, God, wasn't it enough that I killed him?"
She held out her hand, a Lady Macbeth, staring at blood already washed away.
"Why?" Eve's voice was cold and flat. "Why not just toss the prop away, into a corner, a recycling bin. Why would anyone hide it in your dressing room?"
"I can't think… who would hate me so much. And Richard…" Tears shimmered, fell gorgeously as she turned. "Roarke. You know me. Please, help me. Tell her I couldn't do this terrible thing."
"Whatever the answers are, she'll find them." He rose, letting her come into his arms to weep as he watched his wife over her head. "You can be sure of it. Can't she, Lieutenant?"
"Are you her representative?" Eve snapped back and earned a lifted brow.
"Who, other than yourself, has access to your dressing room, Miss Mansfield?"
"I don't know. Anyone, really, in the cast and crew. I don't keep it locked. It's inconvenient." With her head still resting on Roarke's shoulder, she drew steadying breaths.
"Who sent you the red roses? And who brought them into the room?"
"I don't know. There were so many flowers. My dresser took the cards. She would have marked the type on each. One of the gofers brought some of the deliveries in. People were in and out up till thirty minutes before curtain. That's when I cut off visitors so I could prepare myself."
"You were back in your dressing room after your initial scene and again for costume changes throughout the play."
"That's right." Calmer, Areena drew back from Roarke, faced Eve. "I have five costume changes. My dresser was with me. She was in the dressing room with me each time."
Eve drew out her memo. "Your dresser's name?"
"Tricia. Tricia Beets. She'll tell you I didn't hide the prop. She'll tell you. Ask her."
"I'll do that. My aide will see you back to your penthouse."
"I can go?"
"For the moment. I'll be in touch. Record off, Peabody. See Miss Mansfield back to her home."
"Yes, sir."
Areena grabbed the coat she'd draped over the arm of the sofa, passed it to Roarke in a way Eve had to appreciate. So female, so smoothly confident a man would be right there to wrap her up warm.
"I want you to catch who did this, Lieutenant Dallas. I want that very much. And even then, even when whoever arranged for this to happen is punished, I'll always know it was my hand that caused it. I'll always know that."
She reached back, touched the back of Roarke's hand with her fingers. "Thank you, Roarke. I couldn't have gotten through tonight without you."
"Get some rest, Areena."
"I hope I can." Head bowed, she walked out with Peabody trailing sturdily behind.
Frowning, Eve picked up the evidence bag, put it in her field kit. "She'd like to rectify the fact that you didn't sleep with her."
"Do you think so?"
The faint trace of amusement in his voice was just enough to put her back up. "And you just lap that up, don't you?"
"Men are pigs." He stepped forward, brushed his fingers over her cheek. "Jealous, darling Eve?"
"If I was jealous of every woman you've had sex with, compounded by every woman who wishes you did or would, I'd spend my life green."
She started to turn, shoved at his hand when he grabbed her arm. "Hands off."
"I don't think so." To prove it, he took her other arm, pulled her firmly against him. The humor was in his face and so, damn him, was a tenderness she had no defense against. "I love you, Eve."
"Yeah, yeah."
He laughed, leaned down, and bit her bottom lip gently. "You romantic fool."
"You know your trouble, ace?"
"Why don't you tell me?"
"You're a walking orgasm." She had the pleasure of seeing his eyes widen.
"I don't believe that's entirely flattering."
"It wasn't meant to be." It was very rare to sneak under that slick polish and hit a nerve, she thought. Which was why she enjoyed it so much. "I'm going to talk to Mansfield 's dresser, see if she confirms the story. Then I'm done here for tonight. I can start some background runs on the way home."
He retrieved his coat and hers, and his equilibrium. "I believe you're going to be too busy to do background runs on the way home."
"Doing what?"
He held her coat up before she could take it and shrug into it herself. Rolling her eyes, she turned, stuck her arms in the sleeves. Then let out a choked sound when he whispered a particularly imaginative suggestion in her ear.
"You can't do that in the back of a limo."
"Want to bet?"
"Twenty."
He took her hand to lead her out. "Done."
She lost, but it was money well spent.
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly."
Well, it is done, done well and done quickly. And I dare quote from the Scottish play as I sit alone. A murderer. Or, as Christine Vole was in our clever play, am I but an executioner?
It's foolish of me to record my thoughts. But those thoughts are so loud, so huge, so brilliantly colored I wonder the world can't see them bursting out of my head. I think this speaking aloud where no one can hear might quiet them. Those thoughts must be silenced, must be buried. This is a precarious time. I must steel my nerve.
The risks were weighed before the deed was done, but how was I to know, how could I have imagined what it would be like to see him dead and bleeding center stage? So still. He lay so still in the white wash of lights.
It's best not to think of it.
It's time now to think of myself. To be cautious, to be clever. To be calm. There were no mistakes made. There must be none now. I will keep my thoughts quiet, tucked deep inside my heart.
Though they want to scream out in jubilation.
Richard Draco is dead.
CHAPTER THREE
Given the state of the equipment at her disposal at Cop Central, Eve saved herself considerable frustration and ran her initial background checks at home. Roarke loved his toys, and the computer and communications systems in her home office made the junk at Central look like something out of the second millennium.
Which it very nearly was.
Pacing her office with her second cup of coffee, she listened while her computer listed the official details of Areena Mansfield's life.
Areena Mansfield, born Jane Stoops, eight November, 2018, Wichita, Kansas. Parents, Adalaide Munch and Joseph Stoops, cohabitation union dissolved 2027. One sibling, male, Donald Stoops, bom twelve August, 2022.
She let it run through education data for form – all standard stuff as far as Eve could tell right through her enrollment in New York 's Institute of Dramatic Arts at the age of fifteen.
Got the hell out of Kansas first chance, Eve mused, and couldn't blame her. What did people do out there with all that wheat and corn, anyway?
Areena's professional credits started young. Teen model, a scatter of plays, a brief stint in Hollywood before a return to live theater.
"Yeah, yeah, blah blah." Eve wandered back to her machine. "Computer, search and list any criminal record, all arrests."
Working…
The computer hummed with quiet efficiency. Comparing it to the useless pile of chips she was cursed with at Central made her sneer.
"Gotta marry a billionaire to get a decent tool these days."
Search complete…
Possession of illegals, New Los Angeles, 2040.
"Now we're talking." Intrigued, Eve sat behind the desk. "Keep going."