Visions in Death (In Death 19)

“Dallas,” Louise said in an aside. “Give me a hand in the kitchen?”

“The kitchen? Me?”

“For a minute.”

“Ah. Okay.”

Eve followed her in, looked around. “We’re not going to actually cook or anything?”

“What, d

o I look simple? Everything’s stocked from a very nice restaurant around the corner. It’s just a matter of putting it together for the table, which I’ll take care of in a minute.”

Louise sipped her wine, studying Eve over the rim. “Are you taking care of yourself?”

“What? Why?”

“Because you look tired.”

“Well, shit. I spent a good five minutes slapping goop on my face. What’s the point?”

“Your eyes look tired. I’m a doctor, I know these things. And I would’ve understood if you’d needed to cancel tonight.”

“Thought about it, but the fact is I couldn’t do anymore. Maybe I needed a break from it. Maybe I’ve got to learn how to take a break from it.”

“That’s good. But we’ll make this an early evening.”

“We’ll see how it goes. You and Charles . . . things cruising there?”

“They are. He makes me awfully happy. No one has, in just that way, in a very long time.”

“You look happy. Both of you.”

“Funny, isn’t it, how you find someone when you’ve stopped looking.”

“I don’t know. I never looked.”

“Now that hurts.” With a laugh, Louise leaned back against the counter. “You don’t even bother to look, and you end up with Roarke.”

“He just got in my way. Couldn’t get around him, so I figured I might as well keep him.” And oddly, she realized, it wasn’t small talk when it was with a friend. It was just . . . talk.

“We’re thinking about taking a little holiday together, maybe next month. Go up to Maine or Vermont, look at the fall foliage and stay in some quaint little inn.”

“You’re going to go look at trees?”

Laughing, Louise brushed Eve aside to set up the salads. “People do, Dallas.”

“Yeah.” Eve drank. “Takes all kinds.”

Bitches. Whores.

All but consumed with rage, he stormed around the apartment. He had the screen on repeat, playing the Channel 75 interview and the media conference over and over and over.

He couldn’t help himself.

They’d sent women out after him. Women discussing him, analyzing him, condemning him. Did they think he was going to take that?

Look at them. Pretending to be so good, so clean, so righteous. But he knew better. He’d seen, and he knew. Underneath they were cheap and vicious. Weak and vile.