"I'd drink to old times, Dallas, but... they sucked."
"Yeah. Well, I've got some new times for you, Charles. They suck, too. Why is a successful LC using a dating service? Before you answer," she continued, lifting her glass, "I'll inform you that using such services for professional solicitations is illegal."
He blushed. She wouldn't have believed it possible, but his strong, handsome face colored painfully and his gaze dropped to his glass. "Jesus, do you know everything?"
"If I knew everything, I'd know the answer. Why don't you give it to me?"
"It's private," he muttered.
"I wouldn't be here if it was. Why have you gone to Personally Yours for consults?"
"Because I want a woman in my life," he snapped. His head came up, and now his eyes were dark and angry. "A real woman, not one who buys me, all right? I want a goddamn relationship, what's wrong with that? In my line of work, they don't happen. You do what you're paid to do, and you do it well. I like my job, but I want a personal life. There's nothing illegal about wanting a personal life."
"No," she said slowly, "there's not."
"So I lied about what I do on the form." He moved his shoulders restlessly. "I didn't want to match up with the kind of woman who'd get some purient thrill out of dating an LC. You going to arrest me for lying on a fucking dating video?"
"No." And she was sorry, sincerely, to have embarrassed him. "You matched up with a woman. Marianna Hawley. Do you remember her?"
"Marianna." He struggled to regain his composure, drank deeply of the iced drink. "I remember her video. Pretty woman, sweet. I contacted her, but she'd already met someone." Now he smiled, shrugged again. "Just my luck. She was exactly the type I was looking for."
"You never met her?"
"No. I went out with the other four from my first match list. Hit it off with one of them. We saw each other off and on for a few weeks." He blew out a breath. "I decided if it was going to go anywhere, I had to tell her what I really did. And that," he finished, toasting Eve with his glass, "was the end of that."
"I'm sorry."
"Hey, there are more where she came from." But his cocky smile didn't reach his eyes. "Too bad Roarke took you out of the running."
"Charles, Marianna is dead."
"What?"
"Haven't you caught the news lately?"
"No. I haven't been watching any screen. Dead?" Then his eyes sharpened, focused in on Eve. "Murdered. You wouldn't be here if she'd died quietly in her sleep. She was murdered. Am I a suspect?"
"Yeah, you are," she said because she liked him enough to be straight with him. "I'm going to want to do a formal interview, just to keep it all official. But tell me now, can you clear yourself for last Tuesday night, for Wednesday, and for last night?"
He stared at her for a long time, just stared with eyes dull with horror. "How do you do what you do?" he demanded. "Day in and day out?"
She met those eyes levelly. "I could ask you the same thing, Charles. So let's not get into career choices. Can you alibi?"
He broke the stare, pushed away from the table. "I'll get my book."
She let him go, knowing she could trust her gut on this one. He wasn't a man who had murder inside him.
He came back carrying a small, elegant date book. Opening it, he plugged in the dates she'd asked for. "Tuesday, I had an overnight. Regular client. It can be verified. Last night I had a theater, late supper, and seduction here. The client left at two-thirty a.m. Got thirty minutes overtime out of it. And a handsome tip. Wednesday I was home, alone."
He slid the book across the table to her. "Take the names, check it out."
She said nothing, merely copied the names and addresses into her own book. "Sarabeth Greenbalm, Donnie Ray Michael," she said at length. "Either ring for you?"
"No."
She looked at him then, steadily. "I've never seen you use enhancements. Why did you purchase lip dye and eye smudger from the Natural Perfection line at All Things Beautiful?"
"Lip dye?" He looked blank for a moment, then shook his head. "Oh, I picked them up for the woman I was seeing. She asked me to get her a couple of things since I was going into the salon for the styling that came with my package."