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“I was home in bed.” She shot Eve a defiant look now. “With Sweetie. Where else would I be?”
Good question, Eve thought.
She asked about the writing paper, but Darla shrugged it off. Yes, they’d been in Europe in August, and she bought a lot of things. Why shouldn’t she? How was she supposed to remember everything she’d bought or that Sweetie bought for her?
Dallas circled around for another few minutes, then stood so Darla cou
ld walk back, and be comforted by Hank. He shot Eve a nasty look before leading his student toward what Eve assumed was the clubhouse.
“Interesting,” Eve stated aloud. “Looks like our Darla was out, practicing on Hank’s balls during at least part of the time in question.”
“Definitely getting more than instruction on her backswing,” Peabody agreed. “Poor Sweetie.”
“If Sweetie knows his wife’s playing singles with her tennis pro, he could’ve used the time she was out pulling his racket to get downtown, do Wooton. You got a wife’s running cross-court on you, it pisses you off. So you not only kill a whore—and what’s your young, unfaithful wife but a whore—but you use the cheating bitch as your alibi. Game, set, match. Very neat.”
“Yeah, and I liked your tennis metaphors, too.”
“We do what we can. Anyway, it’s a theory. Let’s go see what else we can dig up on Hawthorne.”
He’d been married three times, as Roarke had stated, with each successive spouse younger than the preceding one. He’d divorced both former Mrs. Hawthornes, and had nipped them off with the lowest possible financial package, as arranged through a premarital agreement. An iron-clad one from the results, Eve mused.
The man was no fool.
Would such a careful and canny man be oblivious to his current wife’s activities?
He had no criminal record, though he’d been sued a number of times in civil court for various financial deals. A quick scan told her most of them were nuisance suits, brought by unhappy and unlucky investors.
He owned four homes, and six vehicles, including a yacht, and was associated with numerous charities. His reported worth was just under a billion.
Golf, according to the various media articles and features she scanned through, appeared to be his god.
Every name on her list had an alibi corroborated by a spouse or partner or employee. Which meant none of them held much weight.
Sitting back, Eve propped her feet on her desk, closed her eyes, and took herself back into the Chinatown alley.
She walks in ahead of him. She leads the john. Her feet hurt. She’s got a bunion. Shoes are killing her. Two in the morning. Hot, airless. Not much business tonight. Only two hundred in her cash bag.
Gives her four, maybe five johns on this circuit, depending what they wanted.
Been in the game a long time, knows to get payment up-front. Did he take it back, or didn’t he give her a chance to take it? No chance, she decided. He’d want to move fast. Spins her around. Wants her facing the wall.
Does he touch her? Run his hand over her breast, her ass, slide it over her crotch?
No, no time for that. Not interested in that. Especially after the blood gushes out on his hands.
Warm blood. That’s what got him off.
Against the wall. Tug her head back by the hair. Left hand. Slice the scalpel over her throat with the right. Left to right, slight downward path.
Blood gushes, splashes on the wall, splashes back at her face, her body, his hands.
She’s alive for a few seconds, just a few, shocked seconds when she can’t scream, and her body jerks a little as it dies.
Lay her down, head toward the opposite wall. Get out your tools.
A light, some sort of light. Can’t do that sort of precision work in the dark. Laser scalpel, use the light from the laser scalpel to guide the way.
Put what you came for in a leakproof bag, clean off your hands. Change your shirt or take off what you were wearing over it. Everything in a bag or case now. Check yourself, make sure you’ll pass on the street.
