Festive in Death (In Death #39)(56)

“I’ve no problem with that. But,” he added when she smiled and leaned in for another kiss, “you didn’t make the deal with me. You made it with Summerset.”

“It’s our party, right? You could talk to him.”

“It’s your deal. You talk to him.”

“Damn it.”

“Meanwhile . . .” He scooped her up, stood, started out of the room with her.

“I’m not finished yet.”

“You’ve enough to chew on until morning. And you did sit in my lap.”

“Maybe I don’t want sex.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you tried to use it to wiggle out of your deal.”

“I didn’t make the deal with you.”

“Exactly.”

“Damn it.” Eve plotted how she could get out and back before Summerset knew the difference.

Then with the bed under her, her man on top of her, she decided to worry about it in the morning.

• • •

Somewhere in the dark, the dream formed. She didn’t fight it, didn’t try to struggle out of its grip, but gave over to it.

Through the dark came the bright, bright lights, the pounding music. She saw them on the treads, on the mats, on the other machines, decked in colorful gymwear, as their faces, their bodies, gleamed with sweat.

Trey Ziegler stood in the center, atop a kind of dais that slowly revolved to give him a three-sixty perspective of the space. He wore black—snug black to show off every cut and ripple.

He looked, she realized, like the trophy that had killed him.

“They have to do what I tell them,” he told Eve. “I’m the trainer.”

“At least one of them didn’t.” She gestured at the knife hilt protruding from his chest, and the note with its large red letters and its single line of blood.

“I’m the trainer,” he insisted. “I’m the best. I have trophies to prove it. Why shouldn’t they pay more, plenty more, for the best? You think they’d look like that if it wasn’t for me? Shit. Desk jockeys, socialites, rich bitches, and lazy bastards.”

“In other words,” Eve said, “clients.”

“That’s right. They’ve got good bodies because of me. They’d pay some sculptor to carve the fat off for twice what I get. I keep ’em honest, so I deserve more.”

“You didn’t settle for that, Ziegler. You didn’t settle for what you deserved.”

“Why settle? All that gets you is a dump of an apartment, crappy shoes, and some dumb-ass bimbo whining for more. No pain, no gain.” Smirking, he tapped his chest, either side of the knife, with his thumbs. “I got gain.”

“You’re a ra**st.”

“Hell no! You!” He shouted over the music, jabbed a finger in the air at Martella. “Bump up those weights! Squeeze those biceps. Let me see some sweat! I never raped anybody in my life,” he said to Eve.

“You drugged them.”

“All natural product,” he insisted. “Just to help them relax, ease those inhibitions. Some women, they tell themselves they don’t want it, but they do. I just gave them a little help relaxing. And every one of them got off.” He grinned, cupped his cock. “I’m the trainer.”

“You’re an ass**le. You raped them. And those women who were willing, though God knows why, you sold yourself to. Illegally.”

“It’s not selling to take a nice tip for exceptional service. They got off, didn’t they? So what if they gave me a few bucks?”

“Others you blackmailed.”

“So you say. Somebody offers me a few bucks to keep my mouth shut, why shouldn’t I take it? I’m better than this place. I’m going to have my own place. You take money for what you do,” he pointed out. “You’re no different from me. Jesus, JJ, I want real push-ups, not those wussy girl excuses for push-ups. Burn it up a little.

“They keep coming back,” Ziegler told Eve, “because I’m the best.”

They kept coming back, she thought. Copley, Quigley, the Schuberts, Robbins, Sima, Alla Coburn. All of them lifting, running in place, lunging, sweating.

And all of them watching Ziegler with hate in their eyes.

“They come back, but they hate you.”

“I ain’t in it for love.”

“For money, for sex, for what you see as power? It got you killed.”

“That’s not my fault. You’re supposed to fix it, so fix it.” He reached out, grabbed her arm, squeezed. “You need to build more muscle. I can help you with that. I can help you with a lot of things.”

“Keep your hands off me.” She yanked away, but he only grinned. Grinned as the blood from the shattered skull began to drip.

“What’re you going to do about it?” He grabbed her again. “Are you going to try to stop me like you stopped your old man?”

Her hand closed over the hilt of the knife. She felt the warm, wet blood in her hand, remembered, remembered how it sprayed and poured when she’d hacked and hacked.

He grinned at her while the blood slid between her fingers.

“If you had a chance to kill him now, you’d do it. You’d cut him to pieces if you had a chance to do it all over again.”