Secrets in Death (In Death #45)(42)

“What?” Eve jerked sharply enough to have Trina mutter a curse. “You and me?”

“That rippled along for a few weeks.” The annoyance on Nadine’s face shifted to sheer humor. “Don’t you pay any attention?”

“Not to crap like that.” Eve wasn’t quite sure if she should be amused or embarrassed.

“Sometimes you made a Roarke sandwich,” Trina put in. “Yummy mmm-mmm.”

Throwing back her perfectly groomed head, Nadine laughed. “Hard to argue with the delicious potential of that one. It’s the bottom-feeder gossip that baits clicks, then dies, Dallas. It’s tabloid bait. Her point to me? She’d fed that bottom, and could keep doing so unless I cooperated.”

Maybe she didn’t pay any attention, but Eve got the system. “You told her to fuck off.”

“I did better. I let her listen to the recording I’d made of our conversation where she’d told me she’d violated Seventy-Five’s rules of conduct, where she’d threatened me, attempted to extort me, which opened her to both criminal and civil action.”

Abruptly, Nadine shoved up from the chair. “Who the hell did she think she was dealing with?” The heated question came with a wide-arm gesture for emphasis. “I told her—and kept the recording going—that if she continued, if I so much as heard a whisper of her continuing to smear my reputation, yours, Roarke’s, to abuse or pressure any of my staff—or anyone else I learned of—I’d take the recording straight to the top. And if she wasn’t terminated immediately, I’d give the station a choice—her or me. And just who did she think they’d stick with?”

“Why didn’t you go to the top then and there?”

“Maybe I should have,” Nadine admitted. “I didn’t like her. I sure as hell didn’t respect her. But … she had a place here, Dallas. She was part of Seventy-Five. Unless she gave me no choice, I didn’t want to make the station choose, or set her off on some vindictive spree. She backed off, so I didn’t have to.”

“You’ve still got the recording.”

“Of course I do.”

“I’m going to need that. Who else did she push or threaten or try to exploit?”

Nadine dropped into a chair again, lifted a hand, nearly raked it through her hair until she remembered her on-screen appearance.

“Am I getting the one-on-one—here, this morning?”

“I said I’d give you what you needed.”

“Fine. Hold on.” Nadine stood again, pulled out her ’link, and walked out of the room.

“She’s gotta go on screen and say nice things about an asshole,” Trina commented, still snipping. “A lot of assholes in the world though, and most of them probably have some nice parts in there. She had good skin, took care of it. That’s something nice to say.”

Eve tried to swivel again so she could see Trina in the mirror, but Trina locked the chair in place. “Hold still, I’m fine-tuning.”

“How do you know about her skin? Mars?”

“I did her face and hair a few times. She tried buying me away from Nadine. As if.” Trina snorted off the idea of it and kept snipping. “I got my own place, and I do this gig because I like it. Mostly I just do Nadine up for Now, unless we got something big like this. And I don’t work for that sort. She comes into the salon, that’s one thing.”

Eve read worlds in the tone. “What do you know, Trina?”

Trina released the chair, turned Eve to face the mirror. “I know you’ve got good hair, and you can thank me for looking after it.”

Eve honestly couldn’t see much difference, which actually counted in Trina’s favor. “What and who did she talk about when she sat in here?”

Trina’s ruby-red lips—with three tiny stars at the left corner—pokered up. She lifted her hands into a point over the chair, brought them down like a pyramid.

“What’s that?”

“That’s the Cone of Silence. Somebody sits in my chair, that’s what they’re sitting in.” Trina’s chin jutted up, held firm as stone. “That’s the integrity of the chair.”

“Murder evaporates the Cone of Silence.”

“Maybe.” Those same lips pursed in thought as Trina picked up one of the brushes.

“Keep that stuff away from me.”

“You’re going on screen. Nadine’s got the serious reporter look. You need some kick-ass.”

“I am a kick-ass.”

“I know that, you know that.” Using the brush for emphasis, Trina pointed the end at Eve. “Which is how I know how to make sure everybody else does. You don’t like it after, it comes off. But if you want me to break the C of S, I need the incentive. C of S is sacred shit.”

She set down the brush, opened a drawer, took out a small tool. “Your eyebrows need shaping. She tried to wheedle info out of me—just like you are now, right? Sugar-time though, not hard-ass like you. All smiles and just-us-girls shit. I said how I couldn’t tell her anything about anybody, just like I couldn’t tell anybody anything about her.”

Trina paused, met Eve’s eyes in the mirror with her purple ones. Whatever their color, those eyes transmitted sincere emotion. “She poked at me about Mavis, Dallas—like I’d ever give anybody anything about Mavis. No matter what or who. Ever.”