Loyalty in Death

"Kiss my ass." Eve slammed into the car, giving Peabody just enough time to snort out the laugh that had been burning in her chest.

"I do," she murmured. "Constantly." She let out a long breath, shook off the grin, and climbed in the passenger seat.

"We'll finish out the shift at my home office. I'll be damned if I'm going to park this thing in the garage and have the precinct snickering."

"That works for me. You've got better food." And there'd be no chance of McNab swinging through to do one of his tap dances.

"Have you got Lisbeth Cooke's address? We can swing by and see if we can catch her before we take the rest of this home."

"Yes, sir, I believe it's on the way." Peabody called it up. "That's just off Madison at Eighty-third. Should I call and set up an interview?"

"No, let's surprise her."

It was obvious they did, and that Lisbeth didn't care for surprises. "I don't have to speak to you," she said when she opened the door. "Not without my attorney present."

"Call him," Eve suggested. "Since you've got something to hide."

"I've got nothing to hide. I've given you my statement, I've interviewed with the prosecuting attorney's office. I've taken the plea, and that's it."

"Since it's all neat and tidy, it shouldn't bother you to talk to me. Unless everything you stated was a lie."

Lisbeth's eyes flashed. Her chin jutted. Pride, Eve saw, had been the right target.

"I don't lie. I insist on honesty, for myself and the people I'm involved with. Honesty, loyalty, and respect."

"Otherwise, you kill them. We've established that."

Something flickered in Lisbeth's eyes, then her mouth thi

"Just a few questions to tidy up my case file." Eve angled her head. "Don't you include neatness in your list of required virtues?"

Lisbeth stepped back. "I warn you, the minute I feel you're out of line, I'm calling my representative. I can file harassment charges."

"Note that down, Peabody. No harassing Ms. Cooke."

"So noted, Lieutenant."

"I don't like you."

"Aw well, now you've hurt my feelings."

Eve studied the living area, the absolute order, the flawless taste. Style, she mused, she had to admit the woman had style. She could even admire it, in the twin streamlined sofas in deep green and blue stripes that looked as comfortable as they did attractive. In the trim, smoked glass tables and the vivid paintings of seascapes.

There was a case filled with books with faded leather bindings she knew Roarke would approve of, and a view of the city neatly framed with swept-back curtains.

"Nice place." Eve turned to study the perfectly groomed woman in casual at-home wear of buff-colored slacks and tunic.

"I don't believe you're here to discuss my decorating skills."

"J. Clarence help you pick out your knickknacks?"

"No. J. C.'s taste ran the gamut from the absurd to the tacky."

Rather than wait for an invitation, Eve sat on the sofa, stretched out her legs. "You didn't seem to have much in common."

"On the contrary, we enjoyed a great many of the same things. And I believed he had a warm, generous, and honest heart. I was wrong."

"A couple hundred million seems pretty damn generous to me."

Lisbeth merely turned away, took a bottle of water from a built-in minifridge. "I wasn't speaking of money," she said, and poured the water into a heavy, faceted glass. "But of spirit. However, yes, J. C. was very generous with money."

"He paid you to sleep with him."

Glass snapped against glass as Lisbeth slammed down her water. "He certainly did not. The financial arrangement was a separate matter, a personal one mutually agreed to. It kept us both comfortable."

"Lisbeth, you were taking the guy for a million a year."

"I was not taking him for anything. We had an agreement, and part of that agreement included monetary payments. Such arrangements are often made in relationships when one party has considerable financial advantage over the other."

"You have considerable financial advantage now that he's dead."

"So I'm told." She picked up her glass again, watched Eve over the rim. "I was unaware of the terms of his will."

"That's hard to believe. You had an intimate relationship, a long-term and intimate relationship that included, at your own admission, regular monetary payments. And you never discussed, never questioned what would happen in the event of his death."

"He was a robust, healthy man." She tried for a smooth shrug, but it came off in a jerk. "His death wasn't something we focused on. He did tell me I'd be taken care of. I believed him."

She lowered her glass and passion leapt into her eyes. "I believed him. I believed in him. And he betrayed me in the most insulting, the most intolerable of ways. Had he come to me and told me he wanted to end our arrangement, I would have been unhappy. I would have been angry, but I would have accepted it."

"Just like that?" Eve lifted her eyebrows. "No more payments, no more fancy trips and expensive gifts, no more boinking the boss?"

"How dare you! How dare you lower what we had to such crude terms. You know nothing, nothing about what was between J. C. and me." Her breath began to heave, her hands to clench. "All you see is the surface because you don't have the capability to see beneath it. And you, you're boinking Roarke; you wangled marriage out of him. How many fancy trips and expensive gifts are you raking in, Lieutenant? How many million a year goes in your pockets?"

With an effort, Eve kept her seat. Temper had washed ugly color into Lisbeth's face, turned her eyes into hot green glass. For the first time she looked fully capable of punching a drill through a man's heart.

"I haven't killed him," Eve said coolly. "And now that you mention it, Lisbeth, why didn't you wangle marriage out of J. C.?"

"I didn't want it," she snapped. "I don't believe in marriage. It was something we disagreed on, but he respected my feelings. I will have respect!" She'd taken three long strides toward Eve, fists clenched, when a movement from Peabody stopped her.

She seemed to tremble, and her knuckles went white with strain. The lips she'd peeled back in a snarl relaxed slowly and the wild color began to fade from her cheeks.

"That's some trigger you've got there, Lisbeth," Eve said mildly.

"Yes. Part of my plea bargain is to enter anger control therapy. I begin sessions next week."

"Sometimes it's not better late than never. You claim you went off when you learned J. C. was cheating on you. Yet no one knows of another woman in his life. His personal assistant swears there was no one but you."

"He's mistaken. J. C. deceived him even as he deceived me. Or he's lying," she said with a shrug. "Chris would have cut off his hand for J. C., so lying would be nothing."

"Why lie? Why cheat if, as you just told me, all he had to do was come to you and end the arrangement?"

"I don't know." She pushed an agitated hand through her hair, disturbing its perfect order. "I don't know," she repeated. "Perhaps he was like other men after all and found it more exciting to cheat."

"Don't like men much, do you?"

"As a whole, no."

"So, how'd you find out about this other woman? Who is she? Where is she? How is it no one else knows about it?"

"Someone does," Lisbeth said evenly. "Someone sent me photos of them together, discs of conversations. Conversations where they talked about me. Laughed at me. God, I could kill him all over again."

She whirled around, yanked open a cabinet, and pulled out a large pouch. "Here. These are copies. We gave the PA the originals. Look at him, with his hands all over her."

Eve tapped out the contents, frowned. They were decent shots. The man was very clearly J. Clarence Branson. In one, he sat on what looked like a park bench with a young blonde in a short skirt. His hand was resting high on her thigh. In the next, they were kissing with apparent passion, and the hand was under her skirt.