Indulgence in Death (In Death #31)(69)

Su’s smile spread sharp and fierce. “Let’s bury the bastards.”





Eve turned toward the bullpen at Homicide as Baxter and Trueheart walked out.

“You’ve got a Patrice Delaughter looking for you,” Baxter told her. “We put her in the Lounge.”

“Huh. Word spreads fast.”

“It does. Such as looking forward to Saturday.”

“Appreciate the invitation, Lieutenant,” Trueheart added.

“Right. Good. Peabody—”

“Listen, Trueheart’s too shy to ask, but I’m not. Can the boy bring a date?”

“I don’t care,” Eve said as Trueheart turned light pink and hunched his broad shoulders. “I guess that means you want to bring one, too.”

“Actually no.” Baxter grinned. “A date means I’d have to pay attention to somebody, and it’s going to be all about me, brew, and cow meat. We’re due in court.” Baxter tapped a finger to his temple and strode toward the glide.

“Thanks, Lieutenant. Casey’s going to be really excited about Saturday. Um, can we bring something?”

“Like what?”

“A dish?”

“We have dishes. We have lots of dishes.”

“He means food,” Peabody interpreted. “Don’t worry about it, Trueheart. They’ve got plenty of that, too.”

“Why would somebody bring food when they’re coming to your place to eat?” Eve wondered when Trueheart hurried after Baxter.

“It’s a social nicety.”

“There are too many of those, and who started them? It’s like dresses and suits.”

“It is?”

“Never mind. I’ll take Delaughter. Write up the interview with VanWitt, and start digging into the travel.”

“All over it.”

Eve headed into the Lounge with its simple, sturdy tables, vending offerings, and smell of bad coffee and meat substitute. A scatter of cops took a short break there, or conducted informal interviews.

No one would mistake the woman at the corner table for a cop. A mass of wavy red hair with golden highlights spilled past her shoulders in a fiery waterfall. It tumbled around a porcelain face dominated by bold green eyes, such was the family resemblance to her cousin.

It ended there.

She wore a snug, low-cut tank over very impressive breasts and a snug, short skirt over fairly stupendous legs. A multitude of thin chains of varying lengths sparkled around her neck, over the impressive breasts, and to the waist of that snug, short skirt.

She looked . . . indolent, Eve thought, as if she had all the time in the world to sit there—all sparkle and flame in the dull room—and was mildly amused at where she found herself to be.

“Ms. Delaughter?”

“That’s right.” Patrice did one quick up-and-down sweep, then offered a hand. “You’d be Lieutenant Dallas.”

“I’m sorry you had to wait. I was expecting to go to you at some point.”

“Felicity contacted me. I was in the city, so I decided to come here. It’s a fascinating place. That’s a fabulous jacket. Leonardo?”

Eve glanced down at the blue jacket she’d put on to cover her weapon. “Maybe.”

“Simple lines in a cropped length matched with a strong color in that Nikko blue, and the interest of the Celtic design on the buttons, which match the one on your ring. Clever. And the fit’s perfect.”

Eve glanced down again. She’d just thought of it as the blue jacket.

“Leonardo’s one of the reasons I’m in the city. He’s designing a gown for me.”

“Okay. Do you want something to drink?”

Patrice’s smile went from beautiful to breathtaking. “What’s safe?”

“Water.”

With a laugh, she gestured. “Water it is.”

Eve crossed over, scowled at the vending machine, and mentally warned it not to give her grief. She plugged in her code, ordered two bottles of water, and to her surprise the machine spit them out without incident.

When Eve came back to sit, Patrice held up a hand. “Let me just say, before we start, that I knew some of what Felicity told you today, but not all. We’re friendly, and we love each other, but we tend to drift in and out of each other’s lives. I wish, back when she got involved with Winnie, I’d taken more care with her, that I’d taken care of her. We were both young, but she was, always, softer than I. Sweeter, and more easily hurt. So I suppose I’m here because of that, because I feel, in some ways, responsible for what happened to her. How he treated her.”

“She came through it.”

Felicity smiled again. “Softer and sweeter, and in some ways stronger. The woman he ended up marrying was neither soft nor sweet, and came out of it richer. Maybe a bit harder.”

“You know Annaleigh Babbington?”

“I do, though we’re not particularly close. I dated her second husband for a while.” Patrice flashed that smile again. “We’re colorful, playful fish in an incestuous little pond. From what Felicity said, I imagine you’re going to talk to her at some point. It may have to be a later point, as she’s vacationing on Olympus for the next couple weeks. I can tell you, as it’s common knowledge in our little pond, there’s no love lost between Leigh and Winnie.”