Haunted in Death (In Death 22.50)

"Of course."

"So Maeve." Eve sat at the table across from her. "How long did you know Hopkins?"

A smirky little smile curved her lips. "Which one?"

"The one you shot nine times in Number Twelve."

"Oh, that Hopkins. I met him right after he bought the building. I read about it, and thought it was time we resolved some matters."

"What matters?"

"Him killing me."

"You don’t look dead."

"He shot me so I couldn’t leave him, so I wouldn’t be someone else’s money train. Then he covered it up. He covered me up. I’ve waited a long time to make him pay for it."

"So you sent him the message so he’d come to Number Twelve. Then you killed him."

"Yes, but we’d had a number of liaisons there before. We had to uncover my remains from that life."

"Bobbie Bray’s remains."

"Yes. She’s in me. I am Bobbie." She spoke calmly, as if they were once again sitting in the classy parlor in her brownstone. "I came back for justice. No one gave me any before."

"How did you know where the remains were?"

"Who’d know better? Do you know what he wanted to do? He wanted to bring in the media, to make another fortune off me. He had it all worked out. He’d bring the media in, let them put my poor bones on-screen, give interviews - at a hefty fee, of course. Using me again, like he always did. Not this time."

"You believed Rad Hopkins was Hop Hopkins reincarnated?" Peabody asked.

"Of course. It’s obvious. Only this time I played him. Told him my father would pay and pay and pay

for the letters I’d written. I told him where we had to open the wall. He didn’t believe that part, but he wanted under my skirt."

She wrinkled her nose to show her mild distaste. "I could make him do what I wanted. We worked for hours cutting that brick. Then he believed."

"You took the hair clips and the gun."

"Later. We left them while he worked on his plan. While, basically, he dug his own grave. I cleaned them up. I really loved those hair clips. Oh, there were ammunition clips, too. I took them. I was there."

Her face changed, hardened, and her voice went raw, went throaty. "In me, in the building. So sad, so cold, so lost. Singing, singing every night. Why should I sing for him? Murdering bastard. I gave him a child, and he didn’t want it."

"Did you?" Eve asked her.

"I was messed up. He got me hooked - the drugs, the life, the buzz, you know? Prime shit, always the prime shit for Hop. But I was going to get straight, give it up, go back for my kid. I was gonna - had my stuff packed up. I wrote and told my old lady, and I was walking on Hop. But he didn’t want that. Big ticket, that’s what I was. He never wanted the kid. Only me, only what I could bring in. Singing and singing."

"You sent Rad a message, to get him to Number Twelve."

"Sure. Public ‘link, easy and quick. I told him to come, and when to come. He liked when I used Bobbie’s voice - spliced from old recordings - in the messages I sent him. He thought it was sexy. Asshole. He stood there, grinning at me. I brought it, he said."

"What was it?"

"His watch. The watch he had on the night he shot me. The one I bought him when my album hit number one. He ha

d it on his wrist and was grinning at me. I shot him, and I kept shooting him until the clip was empty. Then I pushed the murdering bastard over, and I put the gun right against his head, right against it, and I shot him again. Like he did to me."

She sat back a little, smiled a little. "Now he can wander around in that damn place night after night after night. Let’s see how he likes it."