Dark in Death (In Death 46)

Rosie Kent on one side just as she’d been in the crime scene photos from the file. Pryor Carridine on the other, as described in the book.

Close, she thought. Not exact, not like twins or clones, but close.

“That one’s mine.”

Eve glanced over. She’d read the description of Deann Dark enough times now to recognize her. The dark hair drawn back in a short tail to leave the face unframed. A pretty face, deceptively soft, as the woman inside it, behind it, knew how to be hard.

“I know which is which.”

Even as she spoke, the pages turned. Now she stood in the theater, a body slumped in a seat on either side of the aisle.

No, of the page, Eve corrected. Again, they were close but not exact.

“I know which is which here, too, but they’re the same to her.”

“Him,” Dark corrected.

“That’s the fiction. They’re the same.”

“We’re not.”

“I’m not in the books.” Still, Eve crossed over to examine the fictional body as she would any victim. “Strongbow had to change some things around so it worked for her. She’d call it rewriting, but really, it’s just cheating.”

She straightened, gestured. “This one came in alone because the friend got the bogus tag before showtime. But the real murder? Strongbow had to wait until both the vic and her friend were in place, because a real person doesn’t have to follow the book, right? Rylan could have decided to skip it if her roommate got the emergency tag before the vid started.”

“That’s not how it was,” Dark insisted.

“It’s not how it was because the killer changed it. Benson came in alone because that’s how DeLano wrote it. Rylan came in with a friend because the killer couldn’t risk her changing her mind. She wrote it different, just different enough.”

Eve turned back. “Benson has to do what’s written, no choice. Same for you. I’m not in the books,” Eve said again. “How does the killer account for that?”

“You don’t exist,” Dark told her. “You’re not real until you’re on the page.”

Eve smiled, cool and thin. “That’s exactly right.”

She awoke to morning’s reality. Roarke sat on the couch in the sitting area, drinking coffee, the morning stock reports scrolling on the muted screen, the cat sprawled beside him.

She stayed in the warmth of the big, fancy bed another moment, studying the man who’d banged her like a drum the night before. The business suit radiated the elegant power of the man wearing it, and she had no doubt he’d already wielded that power in the predawn hours.

The cat showed a man content in his home, and the coffee? Well, a man who understood priorities.

She sat up, said, “I’m not in the books,” and rolled out of bed.

“You’re not, no, and good morning to you as well.”

“Coffee. Shower. Think.” After programming coffee—hot, black—she stumbled off to the shower with it.

Roarke reached down, scratched Galahad between the ears. “Another cold one for those of us who have to venture out of the house today. What do you say we get a bit of oatmeal in our favorite cop, and help it go down easier with a ham and cheese omelet?”

When Eve came out the cat was sprawled in front of the fire, no doubt where he’d been banished, as two domed plates sat on the table. Along with a pot of coffee.

She hit the coffee first. Priorities. And sat.

“I’m not in the books.”

“So you said.”

“How does she deal with that? I don’t know anything about writing a book, but it seems to me it’s got to be a problem to add an entire character to the mix, right? And not just one,” she continued as Roarke removed the domes. “There’s you, there’s Peabody. You’ve got McNab and, for this at least, Reineke and Jenkinson. Mira, Morris. It’s a frigging cast of characters.”