Judgment in Death

Sleeves-they had to be sleeves because as far as Eve knew, gloves had hands-skimmed down her arms. Needle-heeled boots, in the same dizzy stripes, rode up her legs to just under crotch level.

"It's-" She had no idea. "Amazing."

"Yeah, isn't it? TTT. Too totally terrific. Trina's going to do my hair to match. Leonardo's a complete genius. Leonardo, Dallas is here. He's making a batch of screamers," she told Eve. "You came by at the exact moment. I hate drinking alone, and you know how Leonardo can't."

She kept up the chatter, pulling Eve toward the pink couch. She wasn't giving her friend a chance to escape until she knew what was going on.

"Here he is." Her voice went to coo, her eyes went gooey. "Thanks, honey love."

Leonardo, a giant of a man with long, glossy braids, gold eyes, and the smooth copper skin of a mixed-race heritage, swirled into the room. He moved with unca

He cooed right back at her. "You're welcome, turtledove. Hello, Dallas. I put together a little snack, in case you haven't had di

"Isn't he TTT?"

"You bet," Eve said as Mavis cuddled up against him. Even in the boots, she didn't make it to his breastbone. "You didn't have to go to any trouble, Leonardo."

"None at all." He set down a tray loaded with food and drink. "It's nice you came by so Mavis won't spend the evening alone. I have some appointments."

Mavis sent him an adoring look. Their plans had been to have a rare quiet evening together. When she'd told him Eve was coming by and something was wrong, he'd agreed without a murmur to her request that he make himself scarce.

He was, Mavis thought with a sigh, perfect.

"I can't stay long," Eve began, but Leonardo was already scooping Mavis up in his long arms, kissing her in a deep and intimate way that had Eve wincing and looking away.

"Enjoy yourself, my dove."

He sent Eve a quick, flashing smile and managed to glide out of the apartment without ru

"He didn't have any appointments."

Mavis started to protest, then gri

Eve opened her mouth, then closed it and pursed her lips. It had been a hell of a long time since she'd downed a batch of screamers with Mavis. "Maybe I can get a buzz on while I tell you."

"Solid." Mavis tapped her glass against Eve's and knocked back the first of what promised to be many.

– =O=-***-=O=-

"So…" Mavis was on her third screamer, and most of the soy chips, whey-cheese dip, and corn doodles Leonardo had arranged were long consumed. "Let me sort of put this in a box. You went to square off with some bad guy who used to have business with Roarke, without telling Roarke you were going."

"It's police business. It's my job."

"Okay, okay, I'm just scoping it down. Then the bad guy sent second-string bad guys after you."

"I handled it."

Mavis glanced over with a gimlet look in her eye. "You want my take or just your own?"

"I'm shutting up," Eve muttered and poured another screamer.

"When you got back home, there were flowers from the bad guy and a smarmy card." Because Eve's mouth opened again, Mavis held up a purple-tipped finger. "You figured he did it to rile you up and to get Roarke's goat, so you had Summerset ditch the posies. But Roarke saw them and called you on it. Then you were like: 'Duh, what flowers?' "

"I didn't say 'duh.' " The screamers were doing the job. "I never say that. I think, maybe, I said 'Huh.' That's entirely different."

"Whatever. You… what's a word that means lie, but's nicer than lie?" Mavis closed one eye as if to sharpen her focus. "Fib. You fibbed because you didn't want Roarke to go out and crush the bad guy like a bug and maybe get messed up in the process."

Eve actually preferred the word lie to the word fib but decided not to make an issue of it. "More or less."

"Well, that was stupid."

Eve's mouth fell open. "Stupid? You're saying I was stupid? You're supposed to tell me I was right. That's how this works."

"Dallas." Mavis leaned over, then slid gracefully to the floor. "You didn't figure the man factor. They got dicks. You can't ever forget the dick when you're dealing with a man."

"What're you talking about?" Eve slid to the floor as well, sucked down the rest of her drink. "I know Roarke has a dick. He uses it every chance he gets."

"The dick's co

"He didn't trust me to handle myself."

"Dallas, Dallas." Shaking her head, Mavis patted Eve's thigh. "Dallas," she said a third time, with great pity. "Let's make more screamers. We'll need them when we get to the men are pigs stage."

– =O=-***-=O=-

Halfway through batch two, Eve lay on the floor staring up at the beads raining from the silver ceiling. "If men are pigs, why do so many of us have one?"

"Because women work on an emotional level." Mavis hiccupped delicately. "Even you."

Eve rolled over, eyed Mavis narrowly. "Do not." "Do, too. First he got you by the hormones. I mean, Jesus, look at him. The man's a sexual… Gimme a minute. A sexual… banquet. Yeah, that's a good one. Then he clicked into your head, because he's smart and interesting and mysterious and all that stuff you'd really go for. But then, the whammer was when he jammed right into your heart. Whatcha go

"I'm not a goddamn fish."

"We are all fish," Mavis said in rounded tones, "in the great sea of life."

Eve had swallowed enough screamers to find that hysterically fu

"Hey, I'm not the one in emotional crisis here." On her hands and knees, Mavis crawled over and kissed Eve, smackingly, on the cheek. "Poor baby. Mommy's go

She crawled off for the screamers, crawled back, and poured them out into the glasses, somehow managing not to spill a single potent drop.

"Well, what?"

"Fuck his brains out."

"That's it? That's Mommy's best advice?"

"It's the only advice. Men, being pigs and having the dick factor, will usually forget what they were pissed about if you lay them right."

"So I'm supposed to use sex to fix this?" Somewhere in her alcohol-dulled brain there was a glimmer of a thought that this approach was seriously marred. But she couldn't quite grab onto it. "It could work," she decided.

"Guaranteed. But…"

"I knew there was a but. I could almost feel it."

"It's only a… what do you call it, a temporary measure. Dallas, you've got like, you know, issues. So you gotta figure out why you went behind his back. Not that there's anything really wrong with that, 'cause sometimes you just gotta do what you do. But what you got here are two really rock heads that are rapping up against each other." She demonstrated by banging her hands together, and spilled some screamer after all. "Oops."

"You're saying I'm a rock head?"

"Sure you are. That's why I love you. And when you got those rock heads smacking together like that, you're go

"He's hardly speaking to me."

"He's so mean." Mavis polished off the screamer, then gave Eve a hard hug. "Want some ice cream?"