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It could play, Eve mused. She could see that playing out. But she could
n’t see the delicate Martella adding the flourish.
But who was she with the first time Eve had interviewed her?
The sister. Big sister.
Impulse, rage, violence, panic.
What if she’d called on the sister.
Tash, I’m in trouble. Oh God, he’s dead! I killed him. What should I do?
What would big sister do? Would she run to the rescue, assess the situation? And with the knowledge the vic had slept with her and the sister, lead with a little of her own rage?
The note, the knife, then unity. Each keeping the big secret while dribbling out bits of the rest.
Maybe.
Or Natasha Quigley alone. She claimed the arrangement with Ziegler was over, ended with her hopes of mending her marriage. Maybe Ziegler didn’t want it over—wanted her to keep paying. Or maybe she’d found out about her sister, confronted Ziegler.
Alibi reasonably tight, Eve mused. But all from staff of one kind or another, and staff often said or did what they were told to say and do.
And physically she fit the bill.
As for the husbands, she couldn’t see Schubert. Like Rock, he’d have used his hands, his fists.
Now JJ Copley didn’t strike her as a guy who led with his fists. A blunt object seemed more his style. And the flourish, well, that fit, too. Payback without any chance of confrontation.
She could see him stabbing a dead man. Yeah, she could see it.
But maybe she could see it because she just didn’t like him.
Regardless, he topped the list of this next group, with his wife running a close second.
And still, not enough, Eve thought.
So she got more coffee, sat again, put her feet up on the desk and let the entire business begin again inside her head.
Roarke glanced up, distracted, by the jingle bells. Galahad slunk into his office just ahead of Eve.
“I have some data for you,” he told her, “but I’m not altogether finished.”
“Okay.”
She set a fresh glass of wine beside him, knowing he cut off the caffeine intake a hell of a lot earlier than she did.
“Thanks. And this is for?”
“Interrupting. Go ahead and finish. I’m just taking my brain into a new space.”
The cat gathered himself, leaped onto Roarke’s lap with a ringing of bells, kneaded and circled while Eve wandered to the wide window.
His home office space was sleeker and snappier than hers, she thought—by design. He’d created hers to mirror her old apartment, and to lure her in with the familiar.
Clever.
Wasn’t it interesting how that single room was indeed just about as large as her former living space altogether? She hadn’t given that much thought before, had just found herself—initially—baffled and touched that he would go to the trouble, that he would understand her so well so quickly.
