Obsession in Death(102)

“He said Nadine was okay?”

“She is,” Eve confirmed. “Do you know her?”

“Oh, no. I mean I watch her on screen. Never miss Now, and I catch her a lot on her reports. She’s in here a lot – virtually,” he added with a sheepish smile. “It starts to feel like you know her. Anyway, I’m glad she’s okay. Sorry one more time. Have a seat. You want some really bad coffee? Savannah did the marketing last, and whatever she picked up there is pretty awful, but it’ll be hot.”

“We’re fine. Where is Savannah?”

“In her room with Thea, probably on the ’link with Flo-lo. Florence Louise – the three of them are like this.” He linked his fingers together. “I’ll get them.”

“Her mother’s not home?”

“What? Oh, no, we’re… not together. She’s away for a few weeks with her… I don’t really know what he is. Doesn’t matter. It’s just me and Vanna – and Thea for a couple of days because she didn’t want to go on the little post-Christmas cruise with her parents. Anyway, I’ll get them. God, I’m nervous.”

He moved to the back of the apartment, took a short jog to the left, knocked on a door. “Vanna? You and Thea need to come out here now.”

“Dad! We’re jiving with Flo-lo on mega importanto!”

“Now, Savannah. For the police.”

The squeals clawed at the walls. Bocco rubbed his eyes, walked back to Eve and Roarke. “I opted out of the soundproofing on her bedroom. You want to be able to hear, in case they need you. But it’s a high price to pay. Hey, how about a Coke? That’s one thing Savannah got in prime on marketing day.”

“That’d be great,” Eve said, just to give him something to do.

The girls came out, holding hands, as Bocco stepped into the kitchen. She pegged Savannah as she had her father’s olive complexion, brown hair – though there were violet streaks throughout the girl’s – and his compact build.

Thea, at sixteen, had the body of a siren. Did they grow sirens’ bodies that young, Eve wondered, or had her parents allowed body enhancements?

Both girls were pretty in the young, knowing way of teenagers Eve had never comprehended. Both wore wildly colored thick socks, baggy sleep pants, and bright, striped shirts.

“OMG! It’s totally Roarke and Dallas! Vann! We like saw your vid a zillion times,” Thea went on. “A zillion and one. Matthew Zank is so completely magalicious, even though he went and married Marlo Durn. Not that she isn’t iced, but still. Bogus. This is trip tees! Too totally twee!”

“Thea.” Bocco came back with two glasses filled with ice and Coke. “Try real English, just for right now.”

“Dad.” Savannah whispered it. “It’s absotively Roarke and Dallas. Don’t be lame, you know. The Icove Agenda.”

“Right. I didn’t put it together. I haven’t been to a vid in… who knows? I’m reading the book when I get time. Not a lot of that around here.”

“Nadine Furst lives right upstairs,” Savannah said. “I’ve talked to her and everything, a couple of times. Somebody tried to totally kill her. We rode on the elevator with him. The killer,” Savannah added in dramatic undertones.

“Her,” Eve corrected, and Thea sent Savannah a smug smile.

“Told you it was a woman. She was all covered up, but she looked like a girl to me. Dork outfit for sure, and abso dullstown.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“Not a peep. We’d just pranked on Rizz, and were in hilarity over it. She was all pinched and sour.”

“Gave us the trout eye,” Savannah added.

“The what?”

“Fish eye, I’d say,” Roarke put in, amused.

“Yeah, like…” Savannah glowered, tightening her mouth, lowering her eyebrows. “And I thought bite me – like you say in the vid. I thought that. Bite me, mister, we’re in hilarity. Except you say he was a she. And I… it’s not because we know she’s bad now, honest it’s not. But she looked mean. Like she wanted to be mean to us.”

“That’s a true.”

“I didn’t look at her much because she gave me a wills.” Savannah gave a full-body shudder. “But Thea said, even before the cop came and all that, how the lady – I thought guy – but she said lady – in the elevator was like psycho. How if she hadn’t been with me or somebody, she’d’ve gotten off just to do the distance.”

“It’s a true,” Thea said.

“Thea’s a sensitive,” Bocco put in.

“Mr. B! Am not!”

“Let’s just say you get feelings, have good instincts.”

“Yeah, okay. I’m not weird. I just got a feeling, and I was glad to get off and away. Plus she smelled funny.”

“How?” Eve asked.

“I didn’t smell anything.” Savannah shrugged. “But Thea’s got super nose.”

“She smelled funny,” Thea repeated, and hunched her shoulders.

A teenage sensitive who didn’t want to be one, be any different from the other teenage girls. Just how, Eve wondered, did she press the right buttons?

“I’ve a young nephew with super ears.” Roarke pumped the Irish, just a tad, added a quick, charming smile.