Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(35)

“Anything you could do, anything at all. I’d be so grateful. I need someone on my side, Jan, someone who knows the real me. Someone who knows my heart.”

She pressed Shelby’s hand to her heart. “I’m so frightened.” She leaned in. “So frightened. I need a friend. I need you. I’ve missed you. Missed being with you.”

Shelby used her hand to nudge Gwen back. “I’m seeing someone.”

“It’s only you and me here now. No one has to know.”

An instant before Gwen’s mouth met hers, Shelby rose. “I’d know. And since there’s nothing I can or would do for you, Gwen, you’re insulting us both by trying to trade sex for my integrity.”

“I need help.” Tears. “Can’t you see how desperate I am?”

“You need a good lawyer. And if you don’t want me to add offering sexual favors to a cop for information on an active investigation, you need to leave.”

“That’s it?” The tears in her eyes burned away with temper as Gwen shoved to her feet.

“Yeah, I’d say that covers it. I’d say sorry about your bad luck, but it’s clear you brought it on yourself. And you’re alive. Someone you claimed to have feelings for isn’t.”

“I never had any for you.”

“I know.”

“You were never anything but a summer diversion—the dumb bitch from the blue-collar family, with the rich uncle with no class who couldn’t keep her stupid mouth shut about some careless sex on the beach.”

“I guess I was dumb to get tangled up with you, but my uncle has more class in his left armpit than you ever will. And I never told anyone about you and me.”

“Liar!”

“Of the two of us standing here, I think you’re the clear winner of the title.”

Shelby went to the door, opened it. “Get out.”

“Of this pathetic shithole? My pleasure.”

She actually sailed to the door. Shelby didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone else pull that description off.

“And it was lousy sex.”

Now Shelby smiled. “Liar,” she said, and shut the door in Gwen’s face.

After deciding she deserved a second brew, she carried her minicomp from the closet to the table. She wrote it up, all of it, and sent the report to her lieutenant.





8


At her command center, Eve read through Shelby’s report. While she digested it, she went into the kitchen, programmed coffee and cake.

After she set it up, she went to the doorway. Roarke worked something on his desk screen.

“I’ve got cake. You want it in here or out there?”

“I’ll come to you—and the cake. Two minutes.”

She spent it studying her board.

“Ah, at the table, is it? Like the civilized.”

“It looks like really good cake.”

She sat, sampled a bite. “I’m wrong, it’s not. It’s really freaking good cake.” She shoved in another bite. “Gwen Huffman went to Shelby. Dug up her address from a cousin—of Shelby’s.”

“So she made bail.”

“She did—and though Caine repped her at the bail hearing, he didn’t cough up the bail. She did.” Considering, she eyed Roarke. “If you got busted and charged—”

He shot her a warning glance much like the one he shot Galahad when the cat bellied toward breakfast plates. “Hypotheticals can still be insulting.”

“And still. If you did, I’d stand your bail. I’m a cop, but I’d stand your bail.”

“How beautifully romantic. I, of course, would do the same for you.”

“But he doesn’t cough up her bail, and in fact breaks the engagement. That tells me it’s very unlikely he knew or suspected his bride-to-be was having an affair while she planned the wedding, and your speculation on him hit the mark.”

“You didn’t consider him a suspect?”

“His alibi’s solid, his background’s clean. Gwen, on the other hand? She takes the time to go home after getting sprung—”

“And dumped,” Roarke added.

“And dumped,” she agreed between bites of cake. “Takes time to change her clothes into the more casual, takes the time to dig up Shelby’s address, then goes there. Turns on the waterworks, spins a new story—slight variations from what I broke out of her in Interview, and a long way from her initial statement.”

“A clever liar molds the tale to her audience.”

Eve shook her fork at him, then licked it. “That’s just right. Anyway, she had the affair, but both parties knew it was just sex. Ariel suddenly demanded more, threatened to expose her, and blah blah. She left out details like having and destroying Ariel’s key-card copy, and claimed she just has an urge for a new ’link. How I’m a big meanie out to destroy her, and help me!”

“She becomes the victim.”

“I half believe she sees herself that way. She went back to the shock—why she left the scene this morning—but added, maybe a slip, that she had to protect herself.”

“Ah.” Roarke toasted with his coffee. “A moment of truth.”

“How I see it? Merit’s dumped her, humiliation, bitch cop, parents will cut off the money stream. Help. You’re a cop, you’re right there, you can look at files, and so on. A lot of play on that long-ago summer, then she made a move.”