Echoes in Death (In Death #44)(111)

“You watched them whenever you wanted. Watched them in bed together.”

“So what? All it did was prove to me how much better I was at it.”

“Your timing was—bears repeating—exquisite. Right after their honeymoon. Just as they’re really starting the whole married gig together.”

“Now she’ll know, for the rest of her life, she settled. He’ll know she had the best sex of her life with another man.”

“And Lori, Lori Brinkman.” She pulled out the photo. “How did you pick her?”

“Ah, Lori. That face, that body, the laugh. It was her laugh that got me. The laugh said sex. Pulled one of her scripts out of the vault—not bad.”

“Astra’s a screenwriter, too, isn’t she?”

“It’s more a hobby, just like with Lori. And they wouldn’t need a hobby, would they, if they weren’t married to losers. If a man keeps a woman satisfied, she doesn’t need anything but him.”

“You could see Lori wasn’t satisfied, sexually.”

“Stuck with that boring fuck? Give me a break. Lori was really the one who inspired it all. Why stop at Rosa, that’s what I thought. I thought, right here, in this room there are a dozen women like that. Stuck in that rut, trapped in the rules. I picked them out, and saw how it could be. And after Rosa, I knew how it could feel.”

“You planted the cameras.”

“You’re a cop, right? I don’t have to tell you people think they’re secure in their own homes, and they’re not. You just have to be observant, take the time, be smart. I could’ve made a living with e-work. Everyone said so.”

He shook back his hair, obviously comfortable now, completely in the groove of his own arrogance.

“But, Jesus, how many electronics experts get covered by the media, have stars coming to them? Do on-screen interviews? E’s just a hobby. And watching all those lives, those small lives on screen? Hell, I almost ran out of popcorn.”

He laughed, finished off the tube of ginger ale.

“Watching, you got to know their routines, and their secrets.” Eve’s hand flowed over Lori’s photo. “It made it easy for you to time when to break into Lori’s house, set everything up, wait for them to get home from vacation. Hell of a welcome back, right?”

“She was excited. You were right, I wasn’t in such a hurry this time, so I had her strip. She was so ready for it, trying to pretend, pulling out the tears when I went for that loser she married, but so ready. I gave her a break, told her to beg for more. And I gave her more. That asshole she married—what’s his name?”

“Ira.”

“Right, old Ira won’t be able to satisfy her now.”

“Why did you wait so long between Rosa and Lori, then for Daphne?”

“I believe in rehearsals. If you want a performance to shine, and I do, you rehearse.”

“You had the droid for that?”

“The droid, LCs. And Daphne? She was going to be special.”

“Why is that?”

“She likes it rough. That rich doctor she hooked knocked her around plenty, and she’d come back for more. He’d tie her up, blindfold her, and bang the shit out of her. Choked her, too, just enough. Then he’d get out his med bag, fix her up. She’d cry and cry, but she did what the hell she was told. He knew how to run that house. I had to respect that.”

“He was stronger than the others.”

“He wasn’t a pussy, I’ll say that. A man who knows what a woman’s for, and how to make her show respect. She said what he told her to say, wore what he told her to wear, fucked the way he told her to fuck.”

“Like a droid?” Peabody put in.

“Hey, he paid for her, didn’t he? He put the roof over her head, the food in her mouth, the clothes on her back. If she needed reminding, he reminded her.”

“I bet you got off watching him remind her.”

He answered Peabody with a cocky grin.

Homeland had watched her father beat her, Eve thought. Had watched him rape her, a child of eight. Had done nothing. The thought of it made her insides want to shake, so she pushed that new echo away, blocked it out, focused on the moment.

“You respected him,” Eve repeated. “It even sounds like you admired him. But you killed him.”

“Hey, he brought it on himself. Absolutely self-defense. He came at me.”

“You know, I did read the scene like that.” She looked at Peabody, who gave a grudging nod. “Walk us through that, Kyle. To me, it looked like he broke out of the chair you had him restrained in while you were out of the room.”

“That’s just what happened.” Kyle shoved the empty tube aside so he could lean in closer. “Let me set it up for you. I’ve got Daphne in bed. She’s half out of it—that’s what some serious sex will do to a woman, right? I choked her a few times to give her a better orgasm. Might’ve held it a little long on the last because we were both into it, but she was breathing, and going in and out. He’s out, all the way, so I leave them to pick up a few things I’d earmarked, get a drink. He kept some exceptional unblended scotch in his room upstairs. When I come back, holy hell.”

“He’d busted out, and charged at you.”