Witness in Death

"And Linus Quim."

Carly's defiant face softened. "I didn't know him very well. But I am sorry he died. You don't believe he killed Richard, then hanged himself, or you wouldn't be here. I suppose I don't, either, however convenient it would be. He was a little, sour-faced man, and in my opinion didn't think of Richard any more than he thought of the rest of us actors. We were part of his scenery. Hanging, it takes time, doesn't it? Not like with Richard."

"Yes. It takes time."

"I don't like suffering."

It was, Eve thought, the first simple statement the woman had made. "I doubt whoever helped him into the noose thought about it. Are you worried, Ms. Landsdowne, that tragedies come in threes?"

Carly started to make some careless remark, then looking into Eve's eyes changed her mind. "Yes. Yes, I am. Theater people are a superstitious lot, and I'm no exception. I don't speak the name of the Scottish play, I don't whistle in a dressing room or wish another performer good luck. But superstitious won't stop me from going back on that stage the moment we're allowed to do so. I won't let it change how I live my life. I've wanted to be an actor for as long as I can remember. Not just an actor," she added with a slow smile. "A star. I'm on my way, and I won't take a detour from the goal."

"The publicity from Draco's murder may just give you a boost toward that goal."

"That's right. If you think I won't exploit it, you haven't taken a good look at me."

"I've taken a look at you. A good look." Eve glanced around the lovely room, toward the staggering view from the window. "For someone who hasn't yet achieved that goal, you live very well."

"I like living well." Carly shrugged. "I'm lucky to have generous and financially responsible parents. I have a trust fund, and I make use of it. As I said, I don't like suffering. I'm not the starving-for-art type. It doesn't mean I don't work at my craft and work hard. I simply enjoy comfortable surroundings."

"Did Draco come here?"

"Once or twice. He preferred using his place. In hindsight, I see it gave him more control."

"And were you aware he recorded your sexual activities?"

It was a bombshell. Eve had her rhythm now, and recognized simple and utter shock in the eyes, in the sudden draining of color. "That's a lie."

"Draco had a recording unit installed in his bedroom. He had a collection of personal discs detailing certain sexual partners. There's one of you, recorded in February. It included the use of a certain apparatus fashioned of black leather and – "

Carly leaped off the sofa. "Stop. You enjoy this, don't you?"

"No. No, I don't. You were unaware of the recording."

"Yes, I was unaware," Carly snapped back. "I might very well have agreed to one, have been intrigued by the idea if he'd suggested it. But I detest knowing it was done without my consent. That a bunch of snickering cops can view it and get their kicks."

"I'm the only cop who's viewed it so far, and I didn't get any kick out of it. You weren't the only woman he recorded, Ms. Landsdowne, without her consent."

"Pardon me if I don't give a fuck." She pressed her fingers to her eyes until she could find a thread of control. "All right, what do I have to do to get it?"

"It's in evidence, and I've had it sealed. It won't be used unless it has to be used. When the case is closed, and you prove to be cleared, I'll see that the disc is given to you."

"I guess that's the best I can expect." She took a long breath. "Thank you."

"Ms. Landsdowne, did you employ illegals in the company of Richard Draco, for sexual stimulation or any reason?"

"I don't do illegals. I prefer using my own mind, my own imagination, not chemicals."

You used them, Eve thought. But maybe you didn't know what he was slipping into that pretty glass of champagne.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Roarke had two holo-conferences, an interspace transmission, and a head-of-departments meeting, all scheduled for the afternoon and all dealing with his Olympus Resort project. It was over a year in the works, and he intended for it to be open for business by summer.

Not all of the enormous planetwide pleasure resort would be complete, but the main core, with its luxury hotels and villas, its plush gambling and entertainment complexes, was good to go. He had taken Eve there on part of their honeymoon. It had been her first off-planet trip.

He intended to take her back, kicking and screaming no doubt, as interplanetary travel was not on her list of favorite delights.

He wanted time away with her, away from work. His and hers. Not just one of the quick forty-eight-hour jaunts he managed to push her into, but real time, intimate time.

As he pushed away from his in-home control center, he rotated his shoulder. It was nearly healed and didn't trouble him overmuch. But now and again, a faint twinge reminded him of how close both of them had come to dying. Only weeks before, he'd looked at death, then into Eve's eyes.

They'd both faced bloody and violent ends before. But there was more at stake now. That moment of co

They needed each other.

Two lost souls, he thought, taking a moment to walk to the tall windows that looked out on part of the world he'd built for himself out of will, desire, sweat, and dubiously accumulated funds. Two lost souls whose miserable begi

Love had narrowed the distance, then had all but eradicated it.

She'd saved him. The night his life had hung in her furious and unbreakable grip. She'd saved him, he mused, the first moment he'd locked eyes with her. As impossible as it should have been, she was his answer. He was hers.

He had a need to give her things. The tangible things wealth could command. Though he knew the gifts most often puzzled and flustered her. Maybe because they did, he corrected with a grin. But underlying that overt giving was the fierce foundation to give her comfort, security, trust, love. All the things they'd both lived without most of their lives.

He wondered that a woman who was so skilled in observation, in studying the human condition, couldn't see that what he felt for her was often as baffling and as frightening to him as it was to her.

Nothing had been the same for him since she'd walked into his life wearing an ugly suit and cool-eyed suspicion. He thanked God for it.

Feeling sentimental, he realized. He supposed it was the Irish that popped out of him at unexpected moments. More, he kept replaying the nightmare she'd suffered through a few nights before.

They came more rarely now, but still they came, torturing her sleep, sucking her back into a past she couldn't quite remember. He wanted to erase them from her mind, eradicate them. And knew he never would. Never could.

For months, he'd been tempted to do a full search and scan, to dig out the data on that tragic child found broken and battered in a Dallas alley. He had the skill, and he had the technology to find everything there was to find: details the social workers, the police, the child authorities couldn't.

He could fill in the blanks for her, and, he admitted, for himself.

But it wasn't the way. He understood her well enough to know that if he took on the task, gave her the answers to questions she wasn't ready to ask, it would hurt more than heal.

Wasn't it the same for him? When he'd returned to Dublin after so many years, he'd needed to study some of the shattered pieces of his childhood. Alone. Even then, he'd only glanced at the surface of them. What was left of them were buried. At least for now, he intended to leave them buried.