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“Trying to smoke him out?”
“He’ll worry about it, try to backtrack his steps, figure out if he made a mistake. Off-balance, he’s more likely to make one now. Mira’s worried, and I think she has cause, that he may go as far as offing one of the others to throw suspicion onto them. He’s done it before.”
“With the business partner. So you want me to add to the pressure, give him more of a nudge by pushing for an interview.”
“If you get one you go in wired.?
?
“Wait a minute—”
“For your own protection, Nadine. He may decide you’re the one to off.”
“Oh, bull. Why would he target me? We barely brushed by each other. I only went to the set a handful of times, to another handful of table readings or meetings.”
“She pressured you to expand her part, to change some of the scenes, to twist the actual facts of the case to suit her desire for more screen time.”
“I wouldn’t say pressured, but—”
“She pushed for it—went to Roundtree, to Steinburger—who would probably be happy now to detail an argument he umped between you—once both of you are dead and unable to say it never happened, or not that way. She claimed your work was inferior, that you were, after all, just a reporter. Not Hollywood, not someone who really understood how to translate the story onto the screen.”
“She never … not exactly. Besides she wasn’t going to get it.”
“But she went at you the night of the party. Drunk, obnoxious, insulting. Maybe she gave you a little physical push. You responded. You didn’t mean to kill her, but things got out of hand.”
“Hey!”
“Now you’re riddled with guilt. Trying to cope with it by throwing yourself into another project. But it’s eating at you. You know, even though we’re friends, I’m sniffing it out, and I’ll do my job. You can’t face that. The scandal, the pressure, the threat of doing time. So, you take the easy way out and kill yourself.”
“I do not. You know damn well I’d never kill myself, and you’d vow to avenge my death, should it happen, while fighting tears over my beautiful, stylish corpse.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. The point is, he doesn’t know either of us well enough to know I’d never buy that you offed yourself. You could be, for him, a very convenient, beautiful, and stylish corpse.”
“I get your point. I still think there are more convenient corpses.”
“So do I, but since I don’t want to have to spend my time avenging your death and fighting tears, why take chances? You go wired.”
“I’ll get the interview, and I’ll go wired—on the condition I get an exclusive one-on-one with you, and a full hour with you on Now.”
For form, Eve scowled. “This isn’t about media scoops and ratings, Nadine. It’s about stopping a killer who’s not only slipped the law for forty years, but profited from it.”
“If it wasn’t about the media, you wouldn’t be talking to me, or asking for my help. You need the media on this. You need me, and I’ll play it your way. You just have to play the aftermath mine.”
“Maybe I should let him off you.”
“You like me too much. Plus there’s that whole protect-and-serve thing.” She dug her notebook out of her bag, made a few quick notes. “I’m also going to need your cooperation with the book I’ll be writing on this, and for that I’ll be putting my considerable resource skills into those other murders. And I’ll share.”
She slid the book back in her bag, closed it. Gave Eve her cat smile.
“You know and I know it’s going to take research, resources, and manpower to put together the evidence to build all those cases.”
Eve frowned down at the toe of her boots, as if reluctant. “All right. Deal. But it has to be today. Right after the media conference.”
“Done. We were both going to agree to all this anyway, but it was a nice break in the park.” Nadine got to her feet. “I’ll be at the conference, and I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve set up the interview with Steinburger.”
Eve watched her walk away on her impractical shoes, then got up to find Peabody and make sure she hadn’t been eaten by squirrels.
Back at Central, she issued a request—through two uniforms she sent to the studio—for Valerie to come into Central, answer a few more questions.
