Holiday In Death

"I'm investigating. I need names."

"Give her whatever she needs, Rudy." Piper patted her fingers under her eyes to dry tears.

"I'd like to, but we have a responsibility to our clients. We guarantee privacy."

"Maria

Rudy took a deep breath. His face was paler now, if that was possible, so that his eyes seemed to burn against a field of glossy white. "I trust you'll be discreet."

"You can trust I'll be good," Eve said in return and waited for him to call up the list of matches.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sarabeth Greenbalm wasn't having a good day. First off she hated working the afternoon shift at the Sweet Spot. The clientele from noon to five consisted primarily of junior execs looking for a long lunch and cheap thrills. With the emphasis on cheap. The climbing-the-corporate-ladder crowd didn't have a lot of money to toss to a stripper.

They just liked to gawk and hoot.

Five hours of hard work had netted her just under a hundred in cash and credit chips, and a half a dozen drunken propositions.

None of which included marriage.

Marriage was Sarabeth's Holy Grail.

She wasn't going to find a rich husband in the afternoon set of a strip club. Even a high-class club like the Sweet Spot. There was potential in the night hours, when the VPs and CEOs sauntered in, bringing important clients for an hour or two of titillation. She could make a thousand easily, and when you added in some lap dancing, double that. But the best was collecting business cards.

Sooner or later one of those corporate suits with their big, white smiles and perfectly manicured and grabby hands was going to put a ring on her finger for the privilege of groping her.

It was all part of the career plan she'd carefully mapped out when she'd moved from Allentown, Pe

Younger competition.

The first year she'd worked two shifts, three if she could still stand. She'd worked as a roamer, sliding from club to club and shelling out the hard-line forty percent of take to the managers. It had been a gruesome year, but she'd earned her nest egg.

The second year she'd focused on nailing a regular spot at an upscale club. It had taken nearly all of those twelve months, but she'd carved her niche at the Sweet Spot. During her third year she'd fought her way up the food chain to shift headliner, cagily investing her profits. And, she admitted, she had wasted nearly six months considering the cohabitation offer of the club's head smasher.

She might have done it, too, if he hadn't gone and gotten himself sliced into six separate pieces in a bar fight at a dive where he'd been moonlighting because Sarabeth had insisted he needed a bigger bank account if he wanted her to sleep with him on a permanent basis.

She'd decided to consider it a lucky escape. Now, well into year four, she was forty-three years old and ru

She didn't mind naked dancing. Hell, she was a damn good dancer and her body – she studied it as she turned in front of her bedroom mirror – was her meal ticket.

Nature had been generous, gifting her with high, full breasts that hadn't required augmentation. So far. A long torso, long legs, a firm ass. Yes, she had all the necessary weapons.

She'd had to put money into her face, and considered it a good investment. She'd been born with thin lips, a short chin, and a heavy forehead. But a few trips to a beauty enhancement center had fixed that. Now her mouth was full and ripe, her chin sassily pointed, and her brow high and clear.

Sarabeth Greenbalm looked, in her opinion, damn good.

The problem was she was down to her last five hundred, the rent was due, and some over-eager bozo in the lunch crowd had ripped her best G-string before she could slither out of it.

She had a headache, her feet hurt, and she was still single.

She should never have plunked down the three thousand for Personally Yours. In retrospect what had seemed like a clever investment now appeared to be good money down the sewer. Losers used dating services, she thought as she tugged on a short purple robe. And losers attracted losers.

After meeting the first two men on her match list, she'd gone straight down to Fifth Avenue and asked for her money back. The blond ice queen hadn't been so friendly then, Sarabeth thought now. No refunds, no way, no how.

With a philosophical shrug, Sarabeth walked from the bedroom into the kitchen – a short walk in an apartment barely bigger than the communal dressing room at the Sweet Spot.

The money was gone, a write-off. And a lesson had been learned: She had to depend on herself, and herself only.

The knock on her door interrupted her hopeful scan of the limited offerings of her AutoChef. Absently she tugged her robe closed, then beat a fist on the wall. The couple next door fought like cats and fucked like minks most every night. Her pounding wouldn't change the noise level by a decibel, but it made her feel better.

She turned one suspicious brown eye to the security peep, then gri

"Hey there, Santa."

His eyes twinkled merrily. "Merry Christmas, Sarabeth." He shook the big silver box he carried, then winked at her. "Have you been good?"

Captain Ryan Feeney sat on the end of Eve's desk and munched on candied almonds. He had the lived-in, vaguely morose face of a basset hound and a wiry thatch of russet hair sprinkled with thin, steely threads of silver. There was a rust-colored splotch on his rumpled shirt – a memory of the bean soup he'd had for lunch – and a small nick on his chin where he'd cut himself shaving that morning.

He looked harmless.

Eve would have gone through any door with him. And had.

He'd trained her, and taught her. Now as captain of the Electronic Detective Division, he was an invaluable resource to her.

"Wish I could tell you the bauble was a one of a kind." He popped another nut into his mouth. "Still there's only a dozen stores in the city that sell it."

"And how many do we have to trace?"

"Forty-nine of them were sold in the last seven weeks." He scratched his chin, worrying at the tiny scab. "The pin runs about five hundred. Forty-eight were credit deals, only one cash transaction."

"That would be him."

"More than likely." Feeney pulled out his memo book. "The cash deal was at Sal's Gold and Silver on Forty-ninth."

"I'll check it out, thanks."

"Nothing to it. Got anything else? McNab's willing and able."

"McNab?"

"He liked working with you. The boy's good and sharp and you could toss him any grunt work."

Eve considered the young detective with his colorful wardrobe, sharp mind, and smart mouth. "He gives Peabody the fish eye."

"You don't think Peabody can handle him?"

Eve frowned, tapped her fingers, shrugged. "Yeah, she's a big girl, and I could use him. I contacted the victim's ex-husband. He's relocated in Atlanta. His alibi for the period in question looks fairly solid, but it wouldn't hurt to look closer. See if he booked any travel to New York, made any calls to the victim."

"McNab can do that in his sleep."

"Tell him to stay awake and do it." She reached for a disc file, handed it over. "All the data I have on the ex is here. I'll be ru