Witness in Death (In Death #10)(104)

"How did you know me?"

"Carly, I..." Areena trailed off, shook her head. "I never interfered with your life. I had no right to. But I was kept informed."

"Why did you care?" Carly demanded. "I was nothing but your mistake."

"No. No. You were a gift, one I couldn't keep. I gave that gift to your parents because I knew they would cherish you. They would protect you. As I tried to," she said wearily. "I would never have told you, Carly. Never. If there'd been a choice. But I can't let them accuse you, can't let them blame you for what I did."

She turned back to Eve. "You had no right to put her through this."

"We've all got a job to do."

"Is that what you call this?" Carly gasped. "To find out which one of us exterminated a roach, and why. Well, you've done it. I wonder how you sleep at night. I want to go." She began to weep. "I don't want to be here anymore. I want to go."

"Dr. Mira?"

"Yes." Mira walked onto the set, slipped an arm around Carly. "Come now, Carly. Come with me."

"I'm dead inside."

"No, only numb. You need to rest a little." Mira sent Eve a long, quiet look, then guided Carly away.

"Look what you've done to her. You're no better than Richard. Abusing her, exploiting her. Do you know the nightmares that will haunt her? Scream through her head?" Eyes grim, Areena faced Eve. "I would have spared her from that. I could have spared her from that."

"You killed him after he'd stopped abusing her. Why did you wait until it was over?"

"Because it wasn't over." Areena sighed, gave into her trembling legs, and sat. "He came to see me a few days before we opened. He'd been using. He was always more vile when he was using. He threatened to take her back. If I wanted him to keep his distance, I'd have to take her place. So I did. It was only sex, it meant nothing. Nothing."

But her hand shook as she dug into her purse, found a cigarette. "I should have pretended to be hurt, outraged, terrified. Those emotions would have stimulated him, satisfied him. I could have made him believe it. Instead, I showed disgust and disinterest. He retaliated by suggesting a threesome, himself, me and Carly, after opening night. He reveled in telling me everything he'd done to her, with her. How he'd enjoyed it, how exciting it had been for him to pound himself into her, knowing she was his blood, his daughter. He was a monster, and I executed him."

She got to her feet. "I have no remorse, I have no regret. I could have killed him that night when he stood in my rooms, bragging about being man enough to take on both mother and daughter at once."

There was a skim of sickness coating Eve's throat. "Why didn't you?"

"I wanted to be sure. And I wanted, somehow, for it to be just. And..." For the first time she smiled. "I wanted to get away with it. I thought I would. I thought I had."

When she began to fight with her lighter, Roarke crossed to her, took it from her chilly hands. Her eyes met his over the flame. "Thank you."

He laid the lighter back in her palm, gently closed her fingers around it. "You're welcome."

With her eyes closed, Areena took her first deep drag. "Of all my addictions, this is the one I've never been able to beat." She let out a sigh. "I've done many unattractive things in my life, Lieutenant. I've had my bouts of selfishness, of self-pity. But, I don't use people I care about. I wouldn't have let Kenneth be arrested. I would've found a way around that. But who would suspect quiet, obliging Areena of cold-blooded murder? Such a public one."

"That was your cover, doing it right here, onstage."

"Yes, surely I wouldn't commit murder in front of thousands of witnesses. I saw myself being eliminated as a suspect right away. And naively, I believed none of the others, being innocent, would face more than the inconvenience of questioning."

She managed a little laugh. "And knowing them, I was certain they'd find the process diverting. Frankly, Lieutenant, I didn't think any investigator looking into Richard's life to solve his death would work overly hard on the case once they discovered the kind of man he was. I underestimated you, even as Richard underestimated me."

"Until the moment you put the knife in him. Then he stopped underestimating you."

"That's right. The look in his eyes, the dawning of understanding, was worth every moment of planning. Of fear. It happened very much as you'd said before, only with me in the role you'd cast Carly in."

She could replay it in her head, scene by scene, move by move. Her own intimate play. "I simply took a knife from the kitchen one day when Eliza and I went down to ask for sandwiches. I kept it in my dressing room until opening night. Until the change of scene. There were several of us moving from point to point backstage, cast and crew. I exchanged the knives and added the touch of planting the prop in my own dressing room when my dresser's back was turned. I planted it right under her very loyal nose. Another clever twist, I thought at the time."

"It might have worked. It nearly did."

"Nearly. Why nearly, Lieutenant?"

"Anja Carvell."

"Ah. A name from the past. Do you know where it comes from?"

"No. I've wondered."