Chapter Eleven

It didn't surprise her to find herself within a dream. The dead woman preyed on her mind.

Maybe being murdered in the same room where she herself had been targeted for death played into it. Maybe dying right before her wedding as she herself might have played into it.

Whatever reason nudged at her subconscious, she stood in the Down and Dirty with the music pounding, the holo-band rocking. Onstage with them, Shauna Hunnicut and Nadine Furst, both half-naked, danced like lunatics.

There was Peabody, with her bowl cut, giggling like a drunk teenager, and Angie Decker laughing with Mira. Mavis, with no baby belly, standing on a table. Crack at the bar, grinning as he mixed a drink for Lopez.

All of this happened, she thought. Different times, but the same place, and now it blurred together into one wild and singular party.

"They're having so much fun." Erin stood beside her wearing the pink heels, the grass skirt, coconut bra. "Celebrating for us."

"I wasn't really into it," Eve said. "I was just coming around to understanding I wanted the whole marriage thing. It still scared the crap out of me, but I wanted it. I just didn't know why I wanted it."

"I wasn't scared, and I wanted it more than I ever wanted anything. More than anything." Erin said it softly, like a sigh. "But we both loved, you and me. We loved somebody who loved us, and we both had friends who wanted to celebrate that. That's really mag."

Erin looked down at herself, brushed a hand over the grass skirt. "I never had a chance to put this on and make Shauna's dream come true. We never had a chance to put on our white dresses and make the promises you made."

"No, you didn't. I'm sorry. I'm no expert," Eve added, "but I think you'd've made a solid life together."

"Who says you're no expert?" Erin did a little hula that made the grass skirt sway. "You know people. You get under the skin and know who they are."

"That's the job."

"Yeah. Your job, and you're trying to find out why I'm dead, and who killed me. I wish I could tell you, but this is just a dream."

"I know."

"You got lucky." The statement held no bitterness, just flat truth. "I sure as hell didn't. I'm glad you did, since you're trying to find out why and who. But you got lucky. He wanted you dead, that dirty cop, and if he'd gotten the full dose in you, if you'd been drinking like he figured, you'd be dead."

"I was getting married the next day. Maybe I didn't know completely why I was getting married the next day, but I wanted to stay sober."

"We were supposed to have a few more days before the white dresses. I was a little bit drunk."

They stood at the doorway of the privacy room now. For a moment Eve saw herself, fighting Casto off. He'd gotten some of the drug into her, and he'd blackened her eye, but she'd taken him down.

And the next day, a bright summer day, she'd married Roarke under an arbor of flowers. She'd carried petunias and made those promises to him. He'd made those promises to her.

They'd kept them for three years and counting.

"It's nice, isn't it, being married?"

She glanced over at Erin. "Most of the time, yeah. It's nice. And when it's not, you know it'll get back there."

"You trusted the bad cop, maybe not a hundred percent, but enough to be in there with him. But you knew how to fight. Me? I know how to paint, how to make art. I know how to tend bar and serve tables, how to clean an apartment. I don't know how to fight."

"You didn't have a chance to fight. And it wasn't personal with Casto. It was… business."

She saw Erin on the floor now, in her party dress stained with blood that had flowed from the necklace of blood around her throat.

"You never had a chance."

"I trusted the wrong person. So did Shauna. But I'm dead, and she still trusts the wrong person, right? She doesn't know she trusts the person who killed me."

"No," Eve said as the music and laughter banged her awake. "She doesn't."

When she woke, the man she'd married while she'd sported a black eye—mostly disguised with makeup—sat on the sofa, tablet in hand, cat across his lap.

The wall screen ran the stock report on mute as he sat in his sleek black suit with its gray pinstripes.

She smelled coffee, and wished someone would just pour some in her before she had to move.

The dream hadn't answered any questions, but it clarified, if it mattered, just how much the investigation brought back the incidents on the eve of her own wedding.

And what it meant to her to wake like this, on so many mornings, and see him there, sitting across the room.

"It shouldn't be possible," Roarke said without looking up, "but I can actually hear your brain waking up."

"It can get noisy in there."

"And often does." He looked over now, and the easy smile faded. "Did you dream?"

"Yeah. Not a nightmare, just a dream."

"That troubles you." Rising, he went to the AutoChef, programmed coffee. When he brought it to her, she sat up.

Instead of taking the coffee, she framed his face with her hands and kissed him. "It shows how smart I was and am to marry a man who'd know how much I need coffee and get me some."

"And how smart I was and am to have lured you with real coffee in the first place."

"Yeah, that was pretty smart." She took it now, drank. "Like that first bite of New York pizza, my first taste of real coffee was a revelation."

"And the dream? A revelation?"

"Not really. Maybe on a personal level a little. It blurred the murder party with the one at the D she didn't."

"It's never only luck with you, Eve. You have the training, the skills, the reflexes the victim couldn't have."

"I didn't trust Casto all the way. Enough to give him that shot at me, but not all the way. And…" She had to admit it. "I didn't like the way he was with Peabody. It bugged me the way he moved in on her. But she'd been my aide like five minutes, so I didn't push on that."

She shook her head, drank more coffee. "Anyway, everybody's all mixed and mingling together. Nadine, Peabody, Mavis, Mira, and all that along with the other group. And I'm standing there with the victim."

She told him.

"There's truth in there," he said. "Erin trusted the wrong person, and Shauna would trust the same one. Still trusts the same one."

"Which makes me wonder, should I worry about her now? Will that trust—or some detail or memory that cuts through it—make her a target?"

"It's easier to kill a second time, and yet, wouldn't that risk focusing the investigation even more narrowly?"

Too early in the day to hit him with how he thought like a cop. Plus, he'd brought her coffee.

"There was a lot of luck in that first kill. Planning, yeah, and I think the intent to kill Erin had been in the works awhile. But the opportunity, that just opened right up. And the victim, trusting, opened the door for her killer by handing over that opportunity."

"Right now, Shauna's surrounded by friends, family as well, I expect. Getting her alone with enough cover to get away with it? Opportunities would be severely limited."

"Yeah."

"But you'll worry." He tapped her head. "Because it's very noisy in there."

"Some. Thanks for the coffee."

She got out of bed and into the shower.

Surrounded by friends, Eve reminded herself. It would take more than luck for the killer, who was certainly among those friends, to get Shauna alone, kill her, and come up with cover.

She'd have to keep that worry in the back of her head, as she needed the rest to pinpoint the killer.

After a spin in the drying tube, she grabbed a robe—this one a pale lavender—and stepped out.

He had breakfast under domes, and the cat banished to the floor. Because he still worked on his tablet, she walked over, topped off his coffee, and poured herself another.

"What's going on with that?"

"Some of this, and some of that. Infrastructure improvement on your cop bar, Off Duty. We're so well under way that I imagine you can reopen by the holidays."

"I'm not opening anything. It'll have to open itself."

"Mmm-hmm."

Because his response made her think he had ideas, and she didn't want to spoil her breakfast, she ignored that.

"And some work on guest rooms on the Great House Project. Both sides. Some communications with Peabody's parents, who've let me know their housewarming gifts will be on the way by the end of the week."

"Partner's desk and blown-glass ceiling light. She's told me a half dozen times. More than." Eve lifted the domes.

Waffles! Never the wrong choice.

"They're coming, right? The Peabodys?"

"They are, but wanted the desk and light in place, as hopefully a surprise."

"Not big on surprises right now." She drowned her waffles in butter and syrup. "But I'll keep it zipped."

"They also have gifts for Mavis and Leonardo. A charming little child's picnic table with benches, and a lovely family sculpture—Mavis holding an infant, Leonardo holding Bella. A thank-you for opening their family to Peabody and McNab."

"Nice. Seriously on target. We've the gift thing covered, right?"

"We do, and they'll arrive well before move-in."

"Okay, good. The partner's desk deal. That would never work for us."

"I do on occasion use your auxiliary."

"On occasion, and for short duration. How could you buy the next quadrant of the universe if I'm sitting across from you digging for a murderer?"

"And how could you dig for a murderer if I'm sitting across from you negotiating the price of the next quadrant of the universe?"

"Exactly. But it'll work for Peabody and McNab. How do you negotiate buying a quadrant of the universe?"

"Skillfully. But this morning I settled for closing the deal on a small resort in Australia."

"Australia? What are you going to do with a resort in Australia?"

"Make some improvements, which will include a five-star luxury spa and a few private villas. It's been let go a bit."

"So you grabbed the opportunity."

"I did, yes. But I'll look into that quadrant for you first chance I have."

"Wouldn't surprise me." She polished off her waffles, rose to go to her closet.

"Why are there kangaroos there? It's not like you see them hopping around the Bronx."

"You don't often see elephants or lemurs there, either. I suppose things have their place."

"And crocodiles. They've got crocodiles down there. Who decided it was a good idea to make something that swims around waiting to eat you? Sharks. There's another one. What do they do but swim around, eat fish—or people when they get a chance—and make more sharks?

"And people think New York's dangerous," she continued. "Then they're off swimming in some lagoon, la-la-la, and chomp. Or it's how much fun it is to hike in the woods, and bang, a snake bites your ass. You decide to vacation in some cabin, because peaceful and pretty vistas. And it's all fine until some bear mauls you to death."

Roarke listened with genuine fascination as she reeled off various deaths by nature.

"Sailing along in your big-ass yacht, drink too much, fall overboard. And a shark bites off your leg. Take an African safari, and you're just asking to get eviscerated, dragged off into some jungle, and eaten. But people do it."

She stepped out in tan trousers, a white tee, carrying a navy jacket.

"People do it," she repeated, and walked over to hook on her weapon harness. "Then they come here, goggle at everything with their wallets all but hanging out, and when it's stolen, people back where they come from remind them, smugly, New York's a dangerous place. How they should've gone to Australia to see the cute kangaroos."

She loaded her pockets.

"And when they do, Marge is taking pictures of the cute kangaroos when one of the big bastards with the long claws hops up and slices Waldo open so his guts spill out on the ground."

"Remind me not to let you anywhere near the marketing for the resort."

She sent Roarke a dark, knowing look. "It could happen—the guts, not me and marketing. I've got to go meet Peabody at the art gallery."

Still fascinated, he rose. Then gripped her hips, kissed her. "I don't expect you to come across kangaroos or sharks and the rest, but see you take care of my cop nonetheless."

"I'll do that. Galahad's enjoying the syrup still on the plates."

Roarke glanced back, saw the cat licking his whiskers. "Bloody hell. You distracted me."

"Guess I'm good at it, too." She gave him another quick kiss. "See you later."

She'd distracted herself, she admitted as she jogged downstairs and out. With thoughts on predatory wildlife.

She'd rather face a gang of thugs hopped up on Zeus than a single kangaroo with six-inch claws.

Or however long they were.

She could probably take a kangaroo down with a solid stun, but for all she knew they traveled in packs or herds or whatever the hell.

And she had to get her brain off kangaroos.

She blamed Roarke and his Australian resort.

She hit traffic, which she preferred over predatory wildlife.

Since she had to deal with it, she used the extended drive time to think things through.

They weren't dealing with a lunatic—at least not someone overtly crazy. Not a serious calculator, either, because there had to be less risky ways to kill Erin Albright.

So target specific.

Motive? If Lopez, payback for rejection. If Barney, possibly still holding a flame for Shauna.

If someone else… so far the dead artist = paydirt didn't hold up well enough to rate high. But maybe she'd find out more from Glenda Frost.

While it remained true a decent percentage of the partygoers could have slipped away just long enough to kill, the question of motive, and removing the weapon and the rest from the scene, remained.

Motive first, she concluded, and the rest would come.

Where was the gain? What was the reason?

She added having a conversation with the other artist, Anton Carver, since Lopez had rolled around with him after Shauna came into the picture.

Maybe his alibi wasn't airtight. Or maybe he knew something. At least a different viewpoint on Lopez. A separate conversation with Becca DiNuzio, she decided. Another viewpoint on Barney.

She spotted Peabody at the entrance to the gallery with another woman. Pulling into a loading zone, she flipped on her On Duty light, waited for a break in the damn traffic. After nipping out of the car, she headed down the sidewalk.

Glenda Frost, her blond hair in a braided roll at the nape of her neck, wore a sleek black sleeveless dress with black pumps that added about four inches to her height. Black-framed sunshades guarded her eyes as she unlocked the gallery doors.

About five-three, she may have weighed in at a hundred pounds if you included the huge black bag hanging from her shoulder.

Even without the out-of-town alibi, her physicality would have ranked her low on Eve's list.

According to her data, Frost—forty-six, divorced, one offspring—had managed the art gallery for twelve years.

Polished, attractive, she wore silver hoops on her ears and a wide silver cuff, intricately carved, on her right wrist.

"Lieutenant Dallas," Peabody said, "Glenda Frost."

"Ms. Frost, thanks for meeting us."

"Whatever I can do to help." Her voice was as polished as the rest of her. "Erin wasn't just a talented young artist, she was a friend. Please come in."

She led the way, switching on lights that showcased art. It hung on the white walls, stood on pedestals and glossy white or black tables.

Some Eve understood, even liked. The portrait of a woman, her face a map of what was surely a century of life, the cobalt vase of bold orange flowers caught in a beam of sunlight.

Others baffled her. Red and blue dots on a white canvas, a carefully detailed bag of soy chips.

"The portrait there." Peabody gestured toward the old woman. "That's Erin's work, isn't it?"

"Yes. Very good eye, Detective. She finished that about three months ago, from a photograph of her great-grandmother."

"I think it's wonderful."

"So do I."

Glenda slipped off her sunshades, dropped them into her bag. She crossed the white floor to a black counter and stowed her bag behind it.

"She recently sold three pieces," Eve said.

"Yes, a triptych, moody still lifes, beautiful use of light and shadow. I saw them in progress, and told her I thought I had a buyer. My sister's an interior designer, and is working with a client I thought they'd be perfect for."

Glenda came back around the counter. "I took photos of the works in progress, showed my sister, who agreed. But there was a deadline, and Erin worked so hard to finish them. It was her biggest single sale. We were so happy."

"She also sold a single through you. About two weeks ago?"

"Yes, ChiChi bought one of Erin's we had on display. She's a collector. That's a smoke tree in full blossom. Erin painted it from one on the High Line, with a stormy sky behind, a flash of lightning in the clouds. Dramatic and detailed. We considered it an unexpected bonus so close to the wedding."

"Did she tell you what she intended to do with the money from those sales?"

"No. When I saw Shauna yesterday, she did." Pressing her lips together, Glenda looked back at the portrait. "It was so Erin, all of it. The trip, the surprise, the way she'd intended to announce it. Do you see the life in this portrait?"

Walking closer, Glenda gestured up at the old woman. "The light in the eyes, the humor in the curve of the mouth? I can see Erin in there, in her great-grandmother. That should've been her in another seven decades. Someone stole those years, that light, that life from her."

"You didn't make the party Monday night."

"No." Turning back, she faced Eve. "I'd arranged my travel and my schedule so I'd make the shower, and the wedding. I was coming back on Thursday—tomorrow—but…"

She let that trail off.

"The last time I saw her was in her studio. I helped her box the paintings, the ones for my sister's client, for transport."

"Was anyone else there?"

"Anton. He often works at night. He actually helped us carry the paintings down. It surprised me he interrupted his work to help, but, well, Erin's happiness could be infectious. And she was so damn happy."

"Any artist envy with the others who share the studio?"

"That wouldn't be uncommon." Idly, Glenda patted at the roll at the back of her neck. "Temperaments, egos. I've worked with artists for nearly twenty years. Some—many, in fact—can be challenging. But I didn't notice anything like that there.

"Roy—that's Roy Lutz—is focusing on his mural work, and that's a wise choice for him. My sister's commissioned him several times. Anton? He does mostly commercial art. Large pieces for offices and commercial spaces. He's quite good at what he does. He and Roy, opposites in style and personality. Roy's got a sweet nature, and Anton—you'd have to say a sour one. Donna? She and Erin were very close, and absolutely supportive of each other, in every way."

"Do you have access to the studio?" Eve asked her. "A swipe?"

"No. I wouldn't have any need for that. For the most part, I'd arrange to go by, see the work. Unannounced drop-bys interrupt the work. On commissions, occasionally the artist needs a little nudge, but you don't want to interfere with the process."

"Erin had a lot of her work stored at the studio. What happens to it now?"

"That depends on Shauna and Erin's family, as it does with what we have displayed here. If possible, I'd like to offer to do a showing. For the art, for the business of art. And for Erin, for Shauna and Erin's family."

"Regarding the business of the art, you think you'd be able to sell her work?"

Glenda glanced back at the portrait, smiled a little.

"I do. If I'm able to select the pieces, with the right display and marketing, I think her work would sell very well. That's my job," she added, "and also a tribute to a friend."

"Are you friends with all your artists?" Eve wondered.

"Absolutely not. But Erin was a friend. I met her when I browsed by the street art, something I often did and do. And I saw something in her work—that was, God, about five years ago. I bought two of her pieces—a cityscape at sunset, and one of a pub scene. Both underpriced, and I bargained her down from that just to see if I could. Then I gave her my card, told her to bring me what she thought were her two best pieces."

Glenda laughed even as her eyes went damp. "She told me I'd just bought them, but she had more. And that started our professional and personal relationship. I helped her. I like to think I helped her. Her work needed to ripen and mature, and she lacked business sense. I like to think I helped her."

"On the business of art," Eve began, "what's the price of the portrait up there?"

"Forty-seven hundred."

"And if you keep it on display, manage to have that showing?"

"I'd double it." She sighed. "That's the business of art."

Outside, Eve started toward the car.

"Double it," Peabody said. "That's a big jump."

"I'd say she knows how it works, what she can get. Friends or not, if she had a dead artist, she'd try for the posthumous showing. Likely, as manager, she gets a cut for finding an artist who sells, and maybe for putting on a showing."

Eve got in the car, tapped her fingers on the wheel. "She was out of town, but could, possibly, have worked with someone else to do the cash-in thing. But I don't see it. Unless she has a river of dead artists behind her, it doesn't follow."

"It doesn't make real good business sense, either," Peabody pointed out. "Find an artist, bring them along, then kill them to sell at a high price. You'd run out of artists sooner or later, or get a bad juju rep."

"Bad juju." Eve rolled her eyes, then pulled away from the curb. "And I hate to say you're not wrong about the juju. Check and see about posthumous showings and/or sales through the gallery. But it doesn't really follow.

"Let's talk to Anton Carver."

"He's got a tight alibi."

"Yeah, maybe we can loosen it. Or maybe he knows something. He was there when they took the art out of the studio. Maybe Erin got just happy enough to tell him she was going to book the trip. They're not particular friends—according to Donna—so he's not going to go blabbing to Shauna. She's happy, excited, wants to tell somebody. And he's right there."

"And if she did say something…"

"Maybe she said something to someone else, or he did," Eve finished. "Or maybe he or someone else who came in looked in the case she's stashed. It was all in there, the tickets, the costume, the note.

"Carver and Lopez had sex in the studio, at least once."

"Yeah, I saw that in your report. So maybe more than once. Maybe when the case was in there."

"She's pissed, and now more pissed. ‘You don't want me, you're not going to have anyone.' Erin asks her to bring the case, and she takes that opportunity. Or Erin gets the case there another way, and Lopez, knowing what's coming, follows her to the room. Erin tells her, and she's ‘Let me help you change.' She goes in first, or tells Erin to check the door, make sure it's secured. Kills her, tries to make it look like a robbery, leaves the door unsecured."

"The only person who knows who Erin told is Erin, and she's dead."

"That's how it stands. A tight group like that, your tribe deal. You'd think something like this big surprise would make the rounds."

"You knew Jenkinson was going for the DS exam, and we're a pretty tight group in the squad. You didn't tell anyone."

"Jenkinson told Reineke. Yeah, his partner," Eve added, and settled on the crappy lot to park. "And Reineke kept it in the vault. That's respect. But this is a surprise thing, not professional. People like being in the know, but so far, nobody's saying they knew."

"We've got Donna." Peabody got out of the car to walk. "She knew about the case, but not what it was for. I believed her on that."

"So did I. But Erin told her she had a backup, and that tells me she pulled somebody in when Donna went to Baltimore—so the day before the party. Or maybe knowing Donna might have to book it to Baltimore, she set up a backup in advance. A just in case."

"It was an important deal for her," Peabody commented. "I can see a just in case."

"Decker strikes me as the most logical, but she'd already put in time and trouble."

"And you—Erin—don't want to pile on. Lopez makes sense. In your report, it has Monday as her day off, so Erin would figure, hey, she's clear."

"On the other hand, why not ask someone outside the tribe, somebody who hasn't had dick to do with showers, wedding prep, drunk girl parties?"

"And that points, possibly, to Greg Barney."

"Shauna's best friend's cohab. Also logical. Lives and works easy walking to the D&D. Actually closer than Lopez. A longer hike to the studio for the case, but not a lot. Or she gets him the case and he stashes it."

"Motive being he still has a thing for Shaunbar."

"It's personal. Whoever killed her," Eve insisted, "it was personal. Sex, love, passion. Personal."

At the street door, Eve started to press the button for A. CARVER , then decided to master in.

"Second floor. Yay."

They trooped up the stairs.

"Even outside the tribe, they're an incestuous group. Shauna's high school guy hooked with her best friend—also from the same school. Lopez having sex with Erin, then with Carver. Barney having drinks with one of the other member's cohabs. The gallery manager's sister buying Erin's art for a client, commissioning the other artist—Lutz—to paint murals."

"Frost doesn't have that river of dead artists behind her, but she did have a couple of shows at the gallery for Anton Carver, four years ago, another two years ago. And Lutz's girlfriend sculpts. Frost carries some of her work."

"Incestuous," Eve repeated, and buzzed at the apartment door on the second floor.

It took a second buzz before Eve heard a very irritated male voice from behind the door.

"The fuck you want?"

"To speak with you, Mr. Carver. Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody, NYPSD."

"You want to talk to me, come back when I've had more than three hours' sleep."

"We're here now. How about you open the door?"

"Unless you've got a warrant, I'm going back to bed. Knock off the buzzing."

"Would you like us to get one? Then have this conversation down at Central? Or would you like to open the door and get it over with quickly?"

"Fuck's sake. Cops are a pain in the ass."

"Yeah, that's why we make the crappy bucks. A woman's dead, Mr. Carver, a woman you knew, one you shared studio space with for more than three years. If you don't open the door, being a pain-in-the-ass cop, I'm going to start wondering why."

Chains rattled, bolts slid, locks thumped.