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

“Except you?”

“Yeah, well.” He smiled a little, and dimples popped into his cheeks. “For a while.”

“During the course of my investigation your engagement to Ms. Huffman and the circumstances of its termination came up.”

“Well, shit. You never close the door hard enough. Look, Lieutenant, that was a long time ago.”

“Understood. It would be helpful if you could give me your whereabouts on Monday evening, from nine to midnight.”

His eyes widened in alarm. “Is Gwen okay? Did somebody try to hurt her?”

“She’s fine, Mr. Billingsly. I’m just checking off boxes. Routine.”

“Okay, Jesus. I can tell you where I was Monday. I was working on my final project for the term. Grad school, engineering. Six of us have a group house, and we’re all humping it this last couple weeks. We ordered pizza from Lorenzo’s—I don’t remember when it got there. But four of us were at home all night. Two of us came in from the science lab about nine, I think, and scarfed up whatever was left.

“My girl and I—we share a room in the house—knocked off about one, one-thirty, and went to bed. I can give you the names.”

“I’ll let you know if that becomes necessary. Mr. Billingsly, I feel you deserve to know that the circumstances of your breakup with Ms. Huffman were false.”

“A setup.” His right shoulder jerked in a careless shrug. “I know.”

“You know?”

“Yeah.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes, then scrubbed his face with his hand. “This is like waking the dead or something. I never cheated on her. I never used an LC. I loved her. When you love somebody, you’re faithful. It was the worst time in my life. I knew I hadn’t done it, but it was right there, all over the fucking Internet. She wouldn’t even talk to me, and ran home. My friends believed me, and my family, but there were plenty … I’m like barely twenty, heart busted, life over.”

He shook it off, literally. “Anyway, my uncle—well, great-uncle—he’s a cop.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, my mom’s uncle Stu. And he believed me, and did some cop stuff and tracked down the LC. She told him Gwen paid her two thousand dollars to come into my dorm room, get naked, do the recording. How I’d be zonked out, how it was just a prank.”

“Must’ve pissed you off.”

“Yeah, it pissed me off, but more it just cut.” He blew out a long breath. “Man, it cut.”

“Your uncle must have told you that you could have charged Gwen on several counts.”

“Yeah, and he wanted me to. But I wanted it over. It didn’t just piss me off, cut me, but I had to ask myself what kind of person does that? Nobody I want to be with. I loved her, and I thought she loved me. If she didn’t, and didn’t want to get married, she could’ve said that. It would’ve cut, sure, but it wouldn’t have humiliated me and screwed with my head.

“Anyway, I got through it, and graduated, took a gap year to get some work experience. Now it’s grad school, and I met Holly. Gwen’s yesterday. But she taught me a lesson.”

“What lesson’s that?”

He smiled again, and the dimples popped back. “It’s engineering, man. Something might look bright and shiny on the outside, but the structure’s what counts.”

A good lesson, Eve thought, and added the conversation to her murder book.

She scanned her search results. Two matches in her initial twenty. She’d run those names, and remove the violent offenses from the filter.

Impulsive, Mira said. And maybe a first act of violence.

While that ran, she contacted a valuable source.

Nadine Furst came onto her screen. Her normally sharp green eyes looked teary.

“Jesus, what?” Eve demanded.

“I’ve just finished a tour of Mavis and Leonardo’s—and Peabody and McNab’s—house. Mavis is in there now with an architect, an engineer. They’re starting demo tomorrow.”

“Already?”

“They’re Roarke’s guys, already had the plans, expedited permits. She’s so stupidly happy, she’s dancing one minute, crying the next. It got me. It really got me.”

She dabbed at her eyes. “As it happens I was about to come your way.”

“Why?”

“Why’d you tag me?”

“Natural Order. What do you know?”

“I might know some of this, some of that.” Now those cat’s eyes turned sharp. “Was the artist who was murdered a member?”

“No.”

“The killer then.”

“If I knew the identity of the killer, I’d be making an arrest instead of talking to you.”

“Digging then. I’d be happy to have a little tête-à-tête with some tit for tat included.”

“You’ve already got tits, and I don’t have a tat.”

“Then we’ll quid some quo,” Nadine said breezily. “Why don’t you meet me in that sweet little park between Central and Mavis’s new place? That’s a nice little walk for both of us.”

“You said you were coming here, now you want me to meet you in the park?”