Calculated in Death (In Death #36)(113)

Roarke nodded at her face. “Did he do that, bloody bastard?”

“Is it bad?” She touched her fingers to her cheek, her eye, sent them both throbbing madly. “Shit, shit. No, he didn’t do it—directly. He threw that idiot Candida at me. Her fist hit me—I think her fist.”

“First a baby, now a drunk idiot.”

“Well, it’s sort of consistent.” She glanced back, saw the people crowded in the back of the theater with Peabody and Baxter and others trying to move them back. She gave Roarke a thin smile. “Sorry, but it looks like I’m going to miss the premiere. I need to deal with this.”

“We’ll miss it. I’m with you.”

“You don’t have to—” She broke off, shrugged. Of course he had to go with her. “Nice tackle, by the way.”

“I spent some time on the pitch as a boy.”

“On the—oh, right, Irish football. You’ve got a knack.”

“I feel it in every bone,” he said, and flexed his raw knuckles. “It was like hitting a wall of f**king concrete—tackle and punch.”

She took his hand, studied the knuckles. “Looks like somebody else is going to need some ice.”

“I’m after some in a glass, with whiskey over it.”

“Who can blame you? Well, hell, I guess we put on a show anyway.”

“We did indeed, and we’ll make the after-party at some point.” He rose, held out a hand to pull her up, then he laid the fingers of his bruised hand on her bruised cheek. They just smiled at each other.

“Dallas!” Peabody ran down, Eve’s glittery shoes in her hand. “Ouch! You took a knock. Are you okay? Both of you okay?”

“Okay enough. We’re going out the back. I’m going to finish with Frye.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“I need you to stay here, handle this situation, calm it down, make sure that incredibly stupid Candida isn’t hurt.”

“But—”

“I can handle Frye, but I can’t be here and there. I need you here. You’re in charge here. I’ll contact you when it’s done. We’ll hit the party if we can, otherwise, the rest can wait till Monday.”

“All right.”

“Alexander?”

“Baxter and Trueheart have him, and is he pissed.”

“Sorry I missed that.”

“Wow. Some night already.”

“Some night,” Eve agreed. She took Roarke’s good hand, forced herself to put on her shoes. “It pretty much went as planned.”

He laughed, gave her hand a squeeze. “Pretty much.”

They went out the back, leaning on each other.

EPILOGUE

EVE SAT ACROSS FROM FRYE IN INTERVIEW. THEY’D PUT him in stronger restraints, and those restraints were attached to chains bolted to the floor.

He’d fought, according to Reineke, like a crazy, giant bastard every step of the way.

“Alexander rolled all over you,” she told him. “He said you acted on your own, threatened him, coerced him. What do you say to that?”

What he said was nothing.

“Do you want him to walk?” Which was bullshit, as they had Alexander cold, as she’d just informed him and his four lawyers. He wouldn’t walk outside of a prison for the rest of his life. “Don’t you want to tell me your side of this?”

When he didn’t respond, she settled back. “Okay, I’ll tell you what I know, what I can prove, and what will put you in a concrete cage for the next three lifetimes. You abducted Marta Dickenson with the aid of Milo Easton, and on the orders of Sterling Alexander. You forced her into the empty apartment below the new WIN Group offices, questioned her, struck her, terrorized her, then you snapped her neck. Now Alexander wants to claim the neck snapping was your idea, and Easton wants to say he didn’t know what was going on. What do you say?”

Nothing.

“I can take you through the other two murders the same way, with Alexander claiming ignorance or coercion, with Milo claiming to be oblivious, and you acting on your own. If you don’t tell me your side, you go down for everything, and they get a slap on the fraud. Are you that stupid?”

Fury leaped into his eyes. “Don’t call me stupid.”

And these, she thought, were the first words she’d heard him utter. With them, he’d shown her his weak spot.

“I’m asking if you are stupid. If you’re just going to bend over and take it while Alexander screws you, question answered in the affirmative. I know he hired you. I know he paid you. I know he told you what to do. Show me you’re not stupid. Show me you’re not going to just sit there and let him hang everything on you.”

She leaned in. “He doesn’t have the right to make you the patsy. He’s the one who thinks you’re stupid, but we both know he gave the orders. You just did the job. You just followed those orders.”

“He says take the woman, find out what she knows, what she did. Take what she’s got, then shut her up for good. Get rid of her. I decide what to do and how.”

“Okay.” Face impassive, she sat back again. “You think for yourself, I get that. How much did he pay you to take her, to question her, to kill her?”