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“Certainly.”
“Did he give you trouble over it?”
“No. He may have planned to push it, but we never had words over it. The fact is, his agent went to my lawyers, they to me, me back to them, and so on. It hadn’t progressed beyond my refusal before opening night.”
“Okay, that keeps you clean. I want to check out the bedroom.” She moved past him, across a small, circular hallway and through the door.
The bed was big, elaborate, with a high, padded wall behind and covered with sheer, smoky gray. It looked like a bank of soft fog.
She moved briefly into the adjoining dressing room, shook her head at the forest of clothes and shoes. A built-in, mirrored counter held a chorus line of colored bottles and tubes: enhancers, skin soothers, scents, powders.
“Okay, we’ve got vain, selfish, egocentric, childish, and insecure.”
“I wouldn’t argue with your assessment. All those personality traits are motive for dislike, but for murder?”
“Sometimes having two feet’s a motive for murder.” She moved back to the bedroom. “A man that full of ego and insecurity wouldn’t sleep alone very often. He dumped Carly Landsdowne. I’d say he had someone else lined up to take her place.” Idly, she pulled open the drawer of the bedside table. “Well, well, look at the toys.”
The drawer was fitted with compartments, and each was jammed with various erotic enhancers suitable for partnership or solo bouts.
“Lieutenant, I really think you should take these in for further examination.”
“No touching.” She slapped Roarke’s hand away as he reached in.
“Spoilsport.”
“Civilian. What the hell does this do?” She held up a long, cone-shaped piece of rubber. It made cheerful tinkling noises when she shook it.
Roarke tucked his tongue in his cheek and sat on the bed. “Well, in the interest of your investigation, I’d be happy to demonstrate.” Smiling, he patted the bed beside him.
“No, I mean it.”
“So do I.”
“Never mind.” But she was still pondering when she put the cone back and opened the bottom drawer. “Ah, here’s a little gold mine. Looks like a month’s supply of Exotica, a bit of Zeus, and…” She opened a small vial, sniffed cautiously, then shook her head like a dog coming out of a pool of water. “Shit. Wild Rabbit.”
She fumbled the stopper back in, grabbed for an evidence bag, and sealed the vial.
“Pure, too.” She blew out a breath. “If he’s using that on his dates, no wonder they all think he’s a sex god. One or two drops of Rabbit, and you’d screw a doorknob. Did you know he was into this?”
“No.” All humor fled, Roarke rose. “I don’t have particularly strong feelings about most of the illegals. But this one is the same as rape, as far as I’m concerned. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” A little dizzy, she thought, and annoyingly horny. And that was only from a quick whiff of the fumes. “Stuff this pure goes for ten thousand an ounce, minimum, and it isn’t easy to come by. It only works on the female system,” she murmured. “Only takes a drop too many to overdose.”
Roarke cupped a hand under her chin, lifted it to examine her eyes. Clear enough, he decided. “There was never any talk about him using anything like this. If there had been, and I’d discovered it was true, I’d have broken his contract. And very likely, his arms.”
“Okay.” She lifted a hand to his wrist, squeezed. “That’s enough in here for now. I’m going to need you to keep this room vacant another day or two. I want an Illegals unit to run through it.”
“All right.”
She slipped the vial into her kit, and hoped to lighten his mood. “So, how much is it costing you?”
“Excuse me?”
“To keep this place vacant? How much does it run a night?”
“Oh this little place? I believe it’s in the neighborhood of eighty-five hundred a night, though I imagine we have weekly and monthly rates as well.”
“Chump change. Mansfield has a unit in here, too, right?”
