“You’re cooked, Bill.” Eve studied the scalpel.
“That proves nothing.”
“Oh, it’s going to have weight. Then there’s the swipe cards, the log-ins. There’s going to be the lineup with the wits you walked out of Du Vin with. And better? What we find on your comp. Because someone like you? An organizer, a planner, somebody who handles details, schedules? You wrote it all out. You researched how to kill them, how long it would take. You timed it and wrote it all out.”
“You can’t break into my electronics.”
“My warrant and badge says different. Officers.” She nodded to the two uniforms. “Take this dick-ass to Central. He’s invoked his right to counsel, so let him contact a lawyer, then put him in Holding. Roarke, you’re on e-duty. Make me proud.”
“It’s what I live for.”
“You’re going to arrest me? Me? Do you know what she was? What she did? Why didn’t you arrest her?”
Stir him up, Eve thought. Just keep him stirred up. “Bill, you’ve invoked your right to counsel, but you keep talking. You really ought to shut the hell up.”
“Don’t you tell me to shut up! I’ll have my say.”
With the hand at her side, Eve signaled the uniforms back. “Are you waiving your right to counsel at this time? You want a lawyer, or not? Make up your freaking mind, Bill.”
“I’ll get a lawyer when I’m ready to get a lawyer. You’re going to listen to me.”
“Are you waiving your right to counsel at this time?” Eve repeated.
“Yes. And you’re going to listen!”
Eve walked over, sat on
the side of the bed. “Happy to, I get paid either way. We’re on the record here, Bill.”
“She was a spider, a leech.”
“Who?”
“You know damn well. Larinda Mars. She was blackmailing Annie, threatening to break a story about how Annie defended herself against a rapist when she was just a teenager. She bled her month after month. Mars, she held that over Annie’s head, said she’d spin the story so it came off Annie was whoring, like her bio mother, and was a junkie, like her bio mother. Annie would lock herself in her office and cry her heart out. And what did Bic do about it? Nothing! He did nothing to ease her pain, to protect her.”
“So you did.”
“You’re damn right.”
“Did she tell you all this? Annie? Did she come to you for help?”
His chin jutted up. “She’d never unburden herself that way, never let herself lean or ask for help. But I could see, months ago I could see how upset she was. She lost weight, wasn’t sleeping. She and Bic would close themselves in her office to talk about it.”
“Her private office?” Eve asked. “You listened to conversations they had in her private office? Oh, Bill, did you bug her office?”
His jaw tightened. “I’m Annie’s personal assistant, and I need to know what she needs, often before she does. I have to know her moods, her difficulties. I did what had to be done to protect her. I’m the one who looked after Annie, not Bic. I’m the one who confronted that bitch, not Bic.”
“When did you confront Mars?”
“Months ago. The way she’d just stroll in whenever she liked, bag little pieces, even in-depth interviews with people Annie had worked, honestly, forthrightly, to get on the show. You can thank Ilene Riff for that. She’s the one who fed that bitch names and times. Arrest her.”
As his venom spewed, Eve thought Riff could consider herself lucky. Hyatt would have killed her eventually.
But she simply said, “So noted. You confronted Mars.”
“You’re damn right I did. I told her straight out she had to stop tormenting Annie, that I wouldn’t tolerate it. And she laughed at me, she insulted me. She dared me to go to the police, and said if I did, Annie would be ruined, and I’d be to blame.”
“You realized words wouldn’t be enough to stop her.”