Witness in Death (In Death #10)(29)

"You should know a man in my position doesn't discuss such matters."

"Please, this is embarrassing." Areena lifted her hand to toy restlessly with her necklace again and didn't notice Charles's mouth twist in a thin, cynical line, but Eve did. "Obviously, you're aware Charles is a professional. I didn't want to be alone, and I needed... some simple companionship. Charles -- Mr. Monroe came highly recommended."

"Areena." Smooth as silk, Roarke stepped forward. "I'd love some coffee. Would you mind?"

"Oh, of course. Forgive me. I can..."

"Why don't I see to it." Charles brushed a hand over Areena's arm and started toward the kitchen.

"I'll just give him a hand." With a last look at Eve, Roarke strolled away.

"I know how this must look to you," Areena began. "It must seem very cold and very self-interested for me to have hired a sexual partner the night after..."

"It seems odd to me that a woman like you would have to hire anyone to be with her."

With a light laugh, Areena picked up a glass of wine and, sipping, began to pace. The silk whispered around her legs. "A pretty compliment wrapped in barbed suspicion. And well delivered."

"I'm not here to pay you compliments."

"No." Areena's eyes lost their light of humor. "No, of course not. The simple answer to your underlying question is that I keep to myself a great deal. It comes, I suppose, from spending too much of my youth at parties, in groups. You'll have learned about my indiscretions, my difficulties with illegals. That's behind me now."

She turned back, lifted her chin. "It wasn't easy to put it behind me, but I did. In doing so, I lost a number of what I once considered friends. I ruined relationships that mattered to me because of addictions, lost those that shouldn't have mattered when I beat the addictions. And now I'm at a point in my life where my career needs all my attention. It doesn't leave much time for socializing or for romance."

"Were you romantically involved with Draco?"

"No. Never. We had sex a lifetime ago, the sort hearts and minds have nothing to do with. For some time, we've had nothing in common but the theater. I came back to New York, Lieutenant, because I wanted this play, and I knew Richard would shine in his part. I wanted that. There'll never be another like him onstage. God."

She squeezed her eyes shut, shivered. "It's horrible. Horrible. I'm more sorry to have lost the actor than the man. I'm sorry to know that about myself. No, I can't be alone." She sank down on the sofa. "Can't bear it. I can't sleep. If I sleep, I wake up, and my hands are covered in blood. Richard's blood. The nightmares."

She lifted her head, and her eyes swam as they met Eve's. "I have horrible nightmares every time I lie down, they leap into my head, and I wake up sick, wake up screaming, with his blood all over me. You can't imagine. You can't."

But Eve could. A small, freezing room, washed in the dirty red light from the sign across the street. The pain, the sheer hideousness of the rape, of the bone he'd broken in her arm when she'd fought him. The blood, his blood everywhere, slicked on her hands, dripping from the blade of the knife as she crawled away.

She'd been eight. In her nightmares, Eve was forever eight.

"I want you to find who did this," Areena whispered. "You have to find who did it. When you do, the nightmares will stop. Won't they? Won't they stop?"

"I don't know." Eve forced herself to step forward, forced herself to step away from her own memories and stay in the present. Stay in control. "Tell me what you know about the illegals. Who were his contacts, who supplied him, who played with him?"

In the kitchen, Charles sipped his wine, and Roarke made do with the reasonably decent faux coffee the AutoChef offered.

"Areena's having a difficult time," Charles began.

"I imagine she is."

"There's no law against paying for comfort."

"No."

"My job is as viable as hers."

Roarke inclined his head. "Monroe, Eve has no personal vendetta against licensed companions."

"Just against me, in particular."

"She's protective of Peabody." With his eyes clear and direct, Roarke sipped again. "So am I."

"I'm fond of Delia. Very fond. I'd never hurt her. I've never deceived her." On a sound of disgust, Charles turned away to stare through the window at the lights. "I lost my chance to have a relationship outside my job -- to have a life outside my job -- because I deceived a woman. Then because I cared enough about her to be honest. I've come to terms with that. I am what I am."

He turned back, and his lips curved. "And I'm good at what I do. Delia accepts that."

"Perhaps. But women are the oddest creatures, aren't they? A man never really knows. And that, I think, is part of their continual appeal. A mystery's more interesting, isn't it, before it's completely solved."

With a half laugh, Charles looked over his shoulder, and Eve walked through the door.

She couldn't have said, precisely, why it annoyed her to see Charles and her husband sharing a moment of what couldn't be mistaken for anything but male amusement. But since it did, she scowled at Roarke.