Fantasy in Death

“Hah. Who knew? I’m almost always fashionable.” She held out her hand. “Come on, man-flesh. We’ve got to rock.”

Music rang from the rooftop and into the deepening skies. People glittered and gleamed and glided, bussing each other’s cheeks, chattering happily over bubbling wine. Candles, already lighted, flickered. The wind was picking up, Eve noted.

They were likely to get that storm before it was done.

“They’re going to want to close the dome before long,” Eve said to Roarke.

“We might as well enjoy the night air while we can. You’ll want to congratulate Nadine.”

“She’s surrounded.” And Trina had been right. Nadine looked abso fab in siren red, her hair artfully tumbled and scattered with sparkling pins that caught the last light of the sun. “I’ll wait until she’s got some breathing room.”

“You’re here!” Peabody, her hand caught in McNab’s, hurried over on the famous shoes. They were silver, opened at the toe to show off pale pink toenails, strapped multiple times at the ankles, and as sparkly as Nadine’s pins.

“Isn’t this mag? Total. Everybody’s here, and Nadine’s so happy. The music’s completely hot, and Mavis said she’s agreed to do a number later. Gosh,” she said after she’d taken a moment to breathe. “You guys look beautiful. Seriously.”

“You couldn’t look lovelier.” Roarke took Peabody’s hand and kissed it. “You’re a lucky man, Ian.”

McNab gri

Peabody giggled and elbowed him.

Eve heard the squeal and turned. No one squealed like Mavis Freestone squealed. Her hair, summer blond and cotton-candy pink, bounced down her back as she bulleted-on the towering toothpicks held on her feet by two ski

“I knew that dress would be Triple T on you!” She danced into Eve’s arms, then back again. “This is the juiciest party, and look at us! We’re the juice. Moonpie! Come see what your dress does for Dallas.”

Moonpie-or Leonardo-walked over in his version of a tux. The long, smoked silver coat suited his coppery skin and his considerable size. That same silver wound here and there through the rich copper curls that fell around his wide, fascinating face.

“It’s what Dallas does for the dress. I hope you like it.”

“It’s terrific. Thanks for the pockets.”

He smiled at her, kissed her cheek. “I thought you’d like having them. Let me get you all a drink.”

“I’ll help you with that,” Roarke said, and after another Peabody elbow poke, McNab went with them.

“Hey, there’s Trina. Be right back,” Peabody said. “I need to ask her a hair question.”

“You sicced Trina on me, didn’t you?”

Mavis rounded midnight blue eyes in i

“Another smartass. Speaking of reading you your rights, we go back.”

“Yeah, to when you first arrested me on the grift. Now look at me. I’m a married woman and a mommy, and I’ve got a career. I didn’t have to steal any of it. Life’s twisty keen.”

“At least. I’ve been friends with you longer than I’ve been friends with anyone.”

“Double back at you.”

“So, we’re tight, and we know each other about as well as people ever do. You could say we love each other, in a nonlesbian lifestyle way.”

“We might’ve done the les, if we’d gone a really long time without men. If we, like, washed up on a deserted island for months, or-”

“Yeah, yeah, you’d be the first I’d jump,” Eve said and made Mavis snicker. “But what I’m wondering is, what would it take, what would I have to do to make you want to kill me. Literally kill, not think ‘I could kill Dallas for that.’”

“Oh, easy. If you did the steamy pretzel with my honey bear, I’d stick the first sharp implement I could find in your heart, and in his balls. I’d probably be sorry after, but too late.”

“That’s it? Sex with Leonardo is the only reason you’d want me dead? Think about it,” Eve insisted. “What if I stole from you, or insulted you, made fun of you on a regular basis.”

“Okay.” Mavis tipped her head side-to-side in thinking mode. “If you stole from me you’d need whatever you took really bad. If you insulted me you’d piss me off and I’d insult you back. If you made fun of me you’d hurt my feelings and I’d tell you to knock it off.”

“So the only reason you’d stick a knife in me-”

“Or a really sharp nail file. Maybe a kebab skewer. That would be, like, inventive. See, you were doing the steamy with my cuddle-up in the kitchen, so I just grabbed what was there. Murder by kebab skewer, and I’d get off on the temporary whacked.”

Fixing rage on her face, Mavis demonstrated by pumping a fist toward Eve’s heart.

“It’s a good one. Anyway, the only reason you’d plunge that kebab skewer in me is the blind passion of the moment?”

“Yeah, so remember that if you ever get ideas about my baby doll, ’cause I’d kebab your ass.”

“So warned.”

Mavis gri

Eve laid a hand on hers. “You wouldn’t do it even then. You might want to, even think it, and you’d hate me, but you wouldn’t kill me.”

“I’d really want to, but no. But you’d never go after my man because you’d never hurt me that way, ever, much less cheat on Roarke. Real friends, real lovers don’t do that shit to each other. Not the reals.”

“Exactly. You’re exactly right. Okay. Let’s see the vid.”

17

Eve didn’t know if Bella was the baby girl of all baby girls as she didn’t have much experience with babies of either variety. But the kid was ridiculously pretty, especially if you overlooked the drool.

Still, she was happy to be spared watching Bella clap her hands, blow kisses, and babble a second time as the men came back with drinks. She cornered McNab while Roarke was treated to Bella’s goos and giggles and baby-spit kisses.

“What’s the status on the journal?”

“She’s tricky. I got through the first level, but she put another layer on. Paranoid-and really good.”

“I could probably get a court order for her to open it.”

“And suck out my fun? Give me a couple more hours.”

“If you don’t have it by eleven hundred, I’m going to see what Reo can do. A woman who lives alone in a secured apartment who keeps a journal with that kind of protection has something to hide.”

“Everything in her place is locked down double, even her house ’link. Again, can you say paranoid? Callendar and Feeney said the other two were overcovered, but this one? It’s like Global Security.”

“We’ll brief at eleven hundred,” Eve decided. “That gives you and the rest of EDD time to comb through what we have while Peabody and I go over what the rest of the team brought in.”

“Then we’d better party now, because we’re going to kick it early tomorrow. There’s Baxter. Looking tight.”

“Baxter?” Glancing around, she spotted Baxter and a scatter of other cop faces. “What, did Nadine invite the entire NYPSD?”

“Looks like it. I spotted Tibble over at the bar. I guess you got to do the invite to the commissioner. He looked like he was in a good mood.”

“Let’s close this case and keep him that way.”

“Cop talk? This is a party.” Nadine hooked arms around McNab’s and Eve’s waists. “With all my favorite people.”

“From the looks of it,” Eve observed, “you have a lot of favorites. And a good chunk of them are cops.”

“You work the crime beat, you make friends with cops-or you don’t work it long.”

“It’s a total bash,” McNab told her. “The music slays. I’m going to get Peabody out there and show them how it’s done. Cha.”