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You don’t last forty-odd years in the assassin game by plucking at the wrong target.

Logically, Yost had done what he’d been paid to do.

So, who was Darlene French, and who was she linked with?

Roarke’s connection was there, no question, but while the death would cause him personal unhappiness and some professional inconvenience, it just didn’t make that much of a ripple in the big ocean of Roarke’s holdings.

Back to the victim. Had Darlene heard or seen something, without even being aware she’d heard or seen it? Hotels were busy places, with a great deal of business being done.

But if the girl had brushed up against something, why have her murdered in such an obvious and dramatic fashion? Take her out quietly and be done with it.

An accident, a botched mugging, everyone’s shocked and sorry. The cops take a glance, offer their sympathies. And it all goes away.

Though the theory didn’t gel for her, Eve decided she’d need to go back to the hotel and take a close look at who’d stayed in the rooms under Darlene’s care for the last several weeks.

She stopped by her skinny window, watched the morning insanity. Sky and street traffic were vicious. An airbus lumbered by, jammed port to port with commuters who didn’t have the luxury or the good sense to work out of their homes. A one-man traffic cam hovered with a scissor snap of blades as the rush hour was analyzed, reported, and broadcast to those already suffering through it.

The media needed to fill airtime with something, she supposed. She’d already ignored over a half dozen calls from reporters hoping for a comment or break on the murder. Until she was pushed into giving a statement by her commander, she was leaving the media spin to Roarke.

No one did it better.

She heard the unmistakable sound of cop shoes slapping against ancient linoleum, and continued to stare out her window.

“Sir?”

“There’s a woman on this airtram out here with a lap full of flowers. Where the hell is she going with all those flowers?”

“It’s coming up on Mother’s Day, Lieutenant. Could be paying her duty call a little early.”

“Hmmm. I want to run the boyfriend, Peabody. Barry Collins. If we swing with this being a hired job, somebody’s footing the bill. I don’t think a bellman’s got the wherewithal for Yost’s fee, but it could be he’s the connection to someone who does.”

“Yost?”

“Oh, sorry. You’re not up-to-date.” She corrected that oversight with her back to the room and her eyes on the sky.

“Captain Feeney’s coming in on the investigation? Are you going to pull in McNab?”

Eve glanced over her shoulder. Peabody was working hard to look casual, but that square, earnest face wasn’t fashioned for bluffing. “Not so long ago if I’d hinted about pulling McNab into an investigation, you’d have whined and bitched.”

“No, sir. I’d have started to whine and bitch, then you’d have slapped me down. After that I’d have whined and bitched mentally.” She broke into a grin. “Anyway, times change. McNab and I get along better now, mostly since we’re having sex. Except . . .”

“Oh, don’t. Don’t tell me stuff about it.”

“I was just going to say he’s been acting a little weird.”

“If you look up McNab in the dictionary, weird is the common definition.”

“Different weird,” Peabody corrected, but filed that little gem away to use on him at the first opportunity. “He’s . . . nice. Really nice. Sort of sweet and attentive. He brings me flowers. I think he’s stealing them out of the park, but still. And just a few days ago, he took me to the movies. A chick flick I’d made noises about wanting to see. He hated it, and made sure I knew it after, but he sprang for the admission and everything.”

“Oh, man.”

“So anyway, I think—” Peabody stopped, snorted out a laugh as her cool-eyed and courageous lieutenant let out a short shriek and stuck her fingers in her ears.

“I can’t hear you. I don’t want to hear you. I’m not going to hear you. Go do the run on Barry Collins. Now. That’s an order.”

Peabody simply moved her mouth.

“What?”

“I said, ‘Yes, sir,’” Peabody explained when Eve unplugged her ears. She