“You will need to speak to them?”
“Yes.”
“I will arrange it. But Teresa? She has this night off.”
“If you’d give us her contact information, we’ll take care of that.”
“I will. I will tell you as well both Eliza and Micha have been here since four-thirty. We have a short rehearsal before we open, and there is restaurant business as well.”
“That’s also helpful, thank you.”
“I’ll bring Eliza back first. I have to arrange for someone to take the bar for Micha. May I bring you wine?”
“Appreciate it, but we’re not allowed. On duty.”
“That’s very much too bad, but I’ll bring you cappuccino. We make very excellent cappuccino.”
Eve drummed her fingers on her thigh when Annalisa stepped out. “I think, if her killer stalked her here, he was subtle about it, careful about it. That’s a woman who’d notice, or would be told if anybody gave the wrong vibe. Both she and the roommate insist the vic had no angry or disgruntled exes. But some can play that game and seethe inside.”
Rising, Eve wandered the little room. “But it strikes as less personal than an ex or a rival. We’ll talk to these two, just to wind it up, then unless something pops out, call it. I’ll put together the book and board at home. We’ll hit the morgue first thing in the morning, see if there’s anything we missed about the body.”
“Homicide,” Peabody intoned. “Our day starts and ends with death.”
“That’s why we get the shitty bucks, Peabody.”
Eve drove through the gates of home for the second time that night. She wanted that glass of wine Annalisa had offered—though the cappuccino hadn’t sucked. And she wanted something, anything, that tasted even half as good as the air in Broadway Babies.
But wants took second place to needs, she thought. She needed to set up her murder board and book, and to think about Chanel Rylan.
Lights sparkled in the windows of the big house, lending it that castle-in-a-fairy-tale air. Low-lying clouds, shadows in the night sky, floated over turrets and towers. She caught a hint, just a hint, of the moon behind those blanketing clouds.
The wind, quieter than it had been, still bit, so little felt better than escaping it and letting the warmth inside envelop.
Once again, she tossed her coat and scarf on the newel post. This time no cat waited. She’d find him, she knew, with the master of the house.
Book and board first, she thought, then she’d catch up with them. But when she walked into her office, she found them both stretched out on a sofa, the fire snapping. The man held a book in his hand, had a glass of wine on the table. The fat lump of a cat sprawled across Roarke’s knees.
“And there she is.”
“I figured you’d be in your office, or watching a vid.”
“Work’s done for the day—for me, in any case. And watching a vid’s more fun with you. Reading’s a nice solitary choice.”
He gave the cat a nudge that had Galahad rolling over on his back. “You’ve work yet.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
He got up, setting the book aside, walked to her. “You’ll tell me about it.”
She moved into him, wrapped her arms around him, just held there. “Sometimes it hits me especially.”
“What does?”
“That I have this to come home to.”
She’d tell him about it, she thought, knowing from experience that it would help line up her thoughts.
“I’ll wager you haven’t eaten.”