“Peabody.”
Reva waited until Peabody walked outside to retrieve the package. “It doesn’t make me look any less guilty. I get proof my husband’s diddling my best friend, find out they have a rendezvous tonight, and I come over here, armed and ready. I walked right into this. I don’t know how or why I was set up. I don’t know why you’d believe me when I tell you I was set up. But that’s the truth.”
“I’m going to have to take you in. I’m going to have to charge you. The charge is going to be Murder in the First, two counts.” She watched Reva’s color drain. “I don’t know you,” Eve continued, “but I know your mother, and I know Roarke. Neither of them are pushovers. They both believe in you, so here’s what I’m going to tell you. Off record. Get a lawyer. Get a damn good fleet of lawyers. And don’t lie to me. Don’t lie to me about anything I might ask you. Those lawyers are good enough, they’ll have you out on bond first thing in the morning. Stay clean, stay straight, and stay available to me. You hide something, I’ll find it, and that’ll piss me off.”
“I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“You might think of something. If and when you do, think again. I want you to volunteer for a Truth Test, third level. It’s hell, it’s intrusive, and it can be painful, but if you’ve got nothing to hide and you’re being straight with me, you’ll pass it. A third level will weigh heavy on your side.”
She closed her eyes, breathed deep. “I can handle third level.”
Eve smiled thinly. “Don’t go in with a chip on your shoulder. I’ve been there, and it’s going to flatten you. I can get a warrant to search your house, your office, your vehicles, everything. But if you give me permission to do so, on record, that’s going to weigh, too.”
“I’m putting a hell of a lot in your hands, Dallas.”
“It’s in them anyway.”
She took Reva in, booked her. Due to the hour she could opt, without breaking procedure, to continue their interview until morning. But she still had work, and she still had Roarke.
She walked through the bull pen in Homicide where the scatter of detectives on graveyard shift yawned their way through the last couple of hours of work. As she expected, Roarke waited in her office.
“I need to speak with you,” he began.
“Figured. Don’t speak until I have coffee.” She went directly to the AutoChef, programmed a double serving, strong and black.
He stood where he was, only turned to stare out of her miserly window at the fitful predawn traffic. As she drank, she could all but see impatience and outrage snaking out of his skin like lightning bolts.
“I arranged it so Caro could have fifteen minutes with her. That’s the best I can do. Then you need to take Caro out of here, take her home, settle her down. You’ll know how.”
“She’s out of her mind with worry.”
“I expect she is.”
“You expect?” He turned around then, slowly. Slowly enough for her to understand his temper was on its shortest, thinnest leash. “You’ve just booked her only child for two first-degree murders. You have her daughter in a cage.”
“And did you think because you’re fond of them, and I of you, I’d just let her waltz into the night when I have her prints all over a murder weapon? When I have her on the scene of a double murder and the victims just happen to be her husband and her pal, both naked in bed? When she fucking admits she broke in after learning he was sticking it to her good pal Felicity?”
She took a deep gulp of the coffee, gestured toward him with the cup. “Hey, maybe I should’ve pulled the religious cop routine, and nudged her out the door with the advice to go forth and sin no more.”
“She didn’t kill anyone. It’s obvious Reva was set up, and that whoever killed them marked her for it, planned it out and left her twisting in the wind.”
“I happen to agree with you.”
“And locking her up only gives whoever did this time and opportunity to—what?”
“I said I agree with you, about the setup. But not with what you didn’t quite finish saying there.” She drank more coffee, slower this time, letting it slide deliciously into her system. “I’m not giving whoever did this the time and opportunity to get away. I’m giving them the time and opportunity to think they’ll get away—and keeping Reva safe in the meantime. And following the pesky little letter of the law while I’m at it. I’m doing my job, so get off my back.”
He sat because he was suddenly tired, and because he, too, was sick with worry over the mother, the daughter. Both of whom he considered his responsibility. “You believed her.”
“Yeah, I believed her. And I believe my own eyes.”
“I’m sorry. I seem to be a little dull this morning. What did your own eyes tell you?”
“That it was too staged. The scene. Like a vid set. Viciously murdered naked couple, knife—from the prime suspect’s own kitchen, sticking out of the mattress. Blood in the bathroom drain, suspect’s print on the sink—one little spot she just happened to miss on the wipe-down. Her prints all over the weapons, just in case the investigating officer needs to be led by the fucking nose.”
“And you certainly don’t. Should I apologize for doubting you?”
“You get a free one, seeing as it’s five in the morning and we’ve put in a long night.” She felt generous enough to give him the coffee, and program another mug for herself. “Classy frame job for the most part, though. Whoever did it had to know your girl—what she does for a living, how she reacts. Had to be dead sure she’d rush over to her pal’s house with blood in her eye. That she’d bypass security. Might have figured she’d just beat on the door first, but that she wouldn’t turn around and slink off home when nobody answered. But they missed a few.”