Born In Death

After the second marriage, Eve mused.

No criminal record.

Eve took a dip into the financials. Hefty salary, she decided, but it wasn’t illegal to pay employees well. Major influxes in income jibed with Christmas, Bruberry’s birthday, and the time she’d come into the law firm – and would be easily explained as bonuses.

But wasn’t it interesting that her personal accounts were handled by Sloan, Myers, and Kraus?

Not Byson’s client though, she confirmed after a check of his list. She made a note to find out who at the firm handled Bruberry’s financials.

Direct lines, she thought again. What was the most direct line from Copperfield/Byson to Cavendish/Bruberry?

The firm again, but if she spiked out from there it was the Bullock Foundation. Clients of both the law firm and the accounting firm. And Cavendish had been flustered when she’d asked if he’d seen the foundation people during their time in New York.

It was the youngest partner, Robert Kraus, who’d been entertaining Bullock and Chase – and who was alibied by them.

“Hey, Dallas.”

She grunted as she called up Kraus’s data.

“You’re not still working. Come on.” Peabody stood beside the desk, hands on her hips. “You need to look at the decorations we’ve got going. I need to run some stuff by you.”

“You just do what you’re doing. It’s fine.”

“Dallas. It’s after ten.”

“Golly, Mom, did I miss curfew? Am I grounded?”

“See, you’re cranky.” Peabody pointed an accusing finger. “Take a break, take a look. It’s for Mavis.”

“Okay, okay. Jesus.” But if she was going to be dragged into decorations, she wasn’t being dragged alone. Eve marched to Roarke’s office. “We’re going to look at decorations and see what else needs to be done. I think.”

“Have fun.”

“Un-uh. We is you, too.”

“I don’t want to.” But he made the mistake of glancing up, and met the same glowering look on Eve’s face she’d seen on Peabody’s. “All right, then. But when this whole business is finally over, you and I are taking that postponed holiday, and doing naked handsprings on the sand.”

“Right with you, ace.”

11

IT WASN’T NUMBERS THAT DANCED IN HER dreams, but rainbows and strange winged babies. When the flying babies began to buzz like wasps and form into packs, Eve clawed her way out of sleep.

She sat up as if her shoulders were on springs and said, “Whoa.”

“Nightmare?” Roarke was already rising from the sofa in the sitting area.

“Flying babies. Evil flying babies with evil wings.”

He stepped onto the platform, sat on the side of the bed. “Darling Eve, we need a vacation.”

“There were balloons,” she said darkly. “And the wings cut through them like razors so they popped. And when they popped, more evil flying babies zoomed out.”

He trailed a finger along her thigh. “Maybe you could make an effort to dream about, oh, let’s say, sex.”

“Somebody had sex, didn’t they, to create the evil flying babies?” Suddenly she reached forward, grabbed fistsful of his sweater. Her eyes radiated desperation. “Don’t leave me alone with all these women today.”

“Sorry. I’m falling back on the penis clause. Which sounds vaguely obscene, when spoken aloud, but I’m using it in any case. No negotiation.”

“Bastard,” she said, but with more envy than heat as she released him to flop back.

“There, there.” He gave her an absent pat.

“Maybe it’ll snow. There could be a blizzard, and people won’t be able to come because it’s a blizzard – a big mother – that brings New York to its trembling knees.”

“Forecast is for a high of twenty-two degrees under clear skies.”

“I heard that. I heard it.” Rearing up again, she jabbed a finger at him. “Not the words, the tone. You think this is fu

“No. I know it is. And you’ll end up having a good time, first because Mavis will be so happy, and next because you’ll spend some nonprofessional time with a number of women you like.”

“But, Roarke, there have to be games.”

“You don’t play them.”

Her eyes went cop flat. “Why not?”

He couldn’t help it if he was amused. She managed to be panicked and suspicious at the same time. “You’re the hostess, and it would be wrong for you to participate in the games and win any of the prizes.”

“Is that true?”

“It should be, and that’s your stand on it.”

“Yeah, that’s my stand on it.” She perked up considerably. “Thanks.”

She revved herself up with a workout, a long swim, and a hot shower. Then she snuck into her office to run probabilities on different scenarios.

“You’re working again!”

She actually jolted upright, and felt a small twinge of guilt. “What are you,” she demanded of Peabody, “the work police?”

“You don’t need a cop, you need a keeper. Dallas, the caterer’s going to be here any minute.”

“Okay, fine, good. Somebody can tell me when they’re here.” Eve waved a hand. “I’m just checking some things that have to do with pesky details like double murders.”

But she shut down the machine when Peabody merely stood, gimlet-eyed, actually tapping her foot. “You’re not the work police.” It was said with some bitterness. “You’re the party gestapo.”

“Mavis just called. She didn’t try your ’link because she knew you’d be busy with the shower preparations. She’s on her way over because she can’t wait anymore.”

“Man. I turned my machine off, didn’t I? I’m leaving the office. See, walking out, shutting the door behind me.”

Peabody only smiled. Guilt was the best tool, she knew. She’d learned that one at her mother’s knee.

Eve’s first surprise was that the caterer didn’t want her to do anything. In fact, they wanted Eve and everyone else completely out of the way. Her second was that Summerset had already left the house, and wouldn’t be back until the following day.

“You won’t find any Y chromosomes on the premises this afternoon,” Roarke told her. “Except the cat.”

He stood with Eve in the second-level sitting room. It was larger than the downstairs parlor they used most often, and boasted double fireplaces with malachite surrounds. Sofas, chairs, and an abundance of pillows had been arranged in conversation areas, with a long table, covered now with a rainbow hue of cloths and candles, ru

Baby roses, baby iris, baby’s breath – and an assortment of other baby-type posies Eve had already forgotten – were spilling out of little silver baskets shaped like cradles.

Buffet tables, also rainbow-hued, were already set up. The caterer had dressed one with china following the color scheme, more miniature candles, more flowers, and an ice sculpture of a stork carrying a little sack in its beak.

Eve had been sure it would be silly, and instead it was sort of charming.

Both fires simmered low, and in the center of it all the rocker was draped in rainbows and decked in flowers.

“I guess it looks pretty good.”

“Very sweet.” Roarke took her hand. “Very female. Congratulations.”

“I didn’t do that much.”

“That’s not true. You dragged your feet every chance you got, but you picked them up and did the job.” He brought her hand to his lips, then leaned down to kiss her.

“Oops.” Peabody stopped in the doorway and gri

“Don’t make me hurt you,” Eve warned.

“I’ve got Mavis out here. I thought maybe you’d want to show her in.”

“Has pregnancy affected her eyesight?”

“No, I just – never mind,” Peabody said with a laugh. “Okay, Mavis.”