Celebrity in Death (In Death #34)(39)

Eve stood, planted her palms on the table, crowded in. “I will know them. That’s your choice. It was personal between you and Harris, wasn’t it? It wasn’t the work, her bitchiness. It was personal. It’s all over you.”

“I’ve taken care, and worked hard to protect my children, to keep them out of the public eye. I’m not going to let you expose them to this ugliness because you’re shooting f**king craps.”

“A lot of police work is a crapshoot. Was Harris messing with your family, Andi?”

“It had nothing to do with my family. My family of record.” She passed a hand over her brow, back into her hair as she studied Eve, then Peabody in turn. “Are we wrong about you? Am I now in the position of trusting the words on the page as to who you are? If you’re a woman—if you’re women—of integrity?”

“This one’s got a medal for it,” Eve said, gesturing to Peabody. “But, I guess, it’s a crapshoot.”

Andrea managed a strained laugh. “It was about my godson. He’s like one of my own. He’s a couple years older than Cy, and they’ve been friends since birth. Dorian’s mother and I go back to grammar school. We’re family.”

Eve sat again. “Okay.”

“He’s a good boy, young man. But a few years ago he got in some trouble. He came to California looking for a break, as so many do. He stayed with us awhile, and I was able to get him some work. But he … he was young.”

“Okay,” Eve said again. “What kind of trouble did he get into?”

“Too many parties, too many people able and willing to provide him with illegals. There was nothing we could do, nothing his mother could do. Over a year, nearly a year and a half, he spiraled down. We bailed him out of jail. He’d go to some meetings, then back to the clubs, to the parties, to the street corners. He stopped getting work.”

“It’s hard,” Peabody said gently, “when someone you love hurts themselves, and you can’t stop it.”

“Yes.” Andrea steadied herself. “It’s bloody brutal. He stole or prostituted himself to get the next fix. He lied and schemed and … I felt responsible. He’d come to me, so bright, so shiny and young. Then I barely recognized him in what the drugs made him. A liar, a thief, a cheat. A violent young man. One day, it caught up with him, and the dealer he’d stolen from beat him nearly to death. He was almost …”

She trailed off, shook her head. “In any case, the police contacted my son. Dorian had Cy’s ’link number on him. Hitting bottom they call it, for good reason. When he could walk again, Dorian went into rehab. I knew a place with an exceptional reputation. A discreet place in Northern California. It brought him back, helped him find Dorian again.”

“How did she find out?”

“She was there. Fate is a cold, hard bitch.” Bitterness crackled in the words. “K.T. was in the same place, at the same time. They attended group together a few times, and Dorian held nothing back in group. As I said, it brought him back. He lives in London where he’s a solicitor. He’s engaged to be married, a lovely girl. They came to New York for a visit a week or so ago—and to the set, of course. She recognized him. And seeing our connection, thought it would be amusing to suggest how it might be if the media got wind of the story, of the trouble he’d been in.”

“Was she blackmailing you?”

“No. Taunting me. She understood it upset me, unsettled me, as little else she could say or do would. Dorian made restitution for that period of his life. Why should she want to expose him, his family, his fiancée to public shame? To hit back at me, of course.”

“Did you go up with her to the roof? Did she push and push, Andi, until you finally pushed back?”

“No. No,” she repeated. “During the argument you’re talking about, I told her to do her bloody worst, that I’d make sure the media knew how they’d come by the information, and she’d be the one digging out from the shit storm. I’d talked to Dorian that morning, and I’d told him what was happening.”

Her eyes filled, but she blinked back the tears. “He told me to stop worrying. To stop letting her bully me, and use him as a cudgel. He’d told his girl everything long before he’d asked her to marry him. He’d given the partners at his firm full disclosure during the hiring interview. And he’d only be sorry, should she follow through with the threat, if it embarrassed me.”

This time she didn’t manage to blink back the tears. “It wasn’t about being embarrassed.”

“You wanted to protect him,” Peabody murmured.

“I’d done such a poor job of it before. But he didn’t need me to protect him. So when she started on me about it at the party last night, I said everything I wanted to say. The upshot of which is, f**k off, you ugly cunt. Those were the last words I spoke to her, and I’m not sorry for them. Not in the least.”

When they’d ended the interview, had Andrea escorted out, Eve sat another moment. “Do you buy it?”

“Yeah. The facts can easily be verified. The rehab center, the timing, if they were both there and so on. It would be stupid to lie about it.”

Eve nodded in agreement. “Let’s verify anyway.”

“You don’t buy it?”