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"Yeah." Grinning, she bent down to bite his bottom lip. "Let's see how we get there this time."
*** CHAPTER TWO ***
Eve scowled at her desk-link after she'd finished her conversation with the PA's office. They'd accepted a plea of man two on Lisbeth Cooke.
Second-degree manslaughter, she thought in disgust, for a woman who had cool-headedly, cold-bloodedly ended a life because a man couldn't control his dick.
She'd do a year at best in a minimum-security facility where she'd paint her nails and brush up on her fucking tennis serve. She'd very likely sign a disc and video deal on the story for a tidy sum, retire, and move to Martinique.
Eve knew she'd told Peabody to take what you could get, but even she hadn't expected it to be so little.
She damn well let the APA—and she'd told the spineless little prick in short, pithy terms—inform the next of kin why justice was too overworked to bother—why it had been in such a fucking hurry to deal it hadn't even waited to settle until she'd finished her report.
Setting her teeth, she rapped a fist against her computer in anticipation of its vagaries and called up the ME's report on Branson.
He'd been a healthy male of fifty-one, with no medical conditions. There were no marks or injuries to the body other than the nasty hole made by a whirling drill bit.
No drugs or alcohol in the system, she noted. No indication of recent sexual activity. Stomach contents indicated a simple last meal of carrot pasta and peas in a light cream sauce, cracked wheat bread, and herbal tea ingested less than an hour before time of death.
Pretty boring meal, she decided, for such a sneaky ladies' man.
And who, she asked herself, said he was a ladies' man but the women who'd killed him? In their damn rush to clear the dockets, they hadn't given her time to verify the motive for the pissy man two.
When it hit the media, and it would, she imagined a lot of dissatisfied sexual partners were going to be eyeing the tool closet.
Lover piss you off? she thought. Well, see how he likes a taste of the Branson 8000—the choice of professionals and serious hobbyists. Oh yeah, she thought Lisbeth Cooke could work up a pretty jazzy ad campaign using that angle. Sales would shoot right up.
Relationships had to be society's most baffling and brutal form of entertainment. Most could make an arena ball playoff game look like a ballroom dance. Still, lonely souls continued to seek them out, cling to them, fret and fight over them, and mourn the loss of them.
No wonder the world was full of whacks.
The glint of her wedding ring caught her eye and made her wince. That was different, she assured herself. She hadn't sought anything out. It had found her, taken her down like a hard tackle to the back of the knees. And if Roarke ever decided he wanted out, she'd probably let him live.
In a permanent body cast.
Disgusted all around, she spun back to her machine and began to hammer out the investigative report the PA's office apparently didn't want to bother with.
She glanced up as E-Detective Ian McNab poked a head in her doorway. His long golden hair was braided today, and only one iridescent hoop graced his earlobe. Obviously to make up for the conservative touch, he wore a thick sweater in screaming greens and blues that hung to the hips of black pipe-stem trousers. Shiny blue boots completed the look.
He grinned at her, green eyes bold in a pretty face. "Hey, Dallas, I finished checking out your victim's 'links and personal memo book. The stuff from his office just came in, but I figured you'd want what I've got so far."
"Then why isn't your report on my desk unit?" she asked dryly.
"Just thought I'd bring it over personally." With a friendly smile, he dropped a disc on her desk, then plopped his butt on the corner.
"Peabody's running data for me, McNab."
"Yeah." He moved his shoulders. "So, she's in her cube?"
"She's not interested in you, pal. Get a clue here."
He turned his hand over, examined his nails critically. "Who says I'm interested in her? She still seeing Monroe, or what?"
"We don't talk about it."
His eyes met hers briefly, and they shared a moment of the vague disapproval neither of them liked to show for Peabody's continued involvement with a slick if appealing licensed companion. "Just curious, that's all."
"So ask her yourself." And report back to me, she added silently.
