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“It certainly is.”

“Love. Hate. But no passion.” She yawned, hugely. “If I needed to kill you, I’d want you to suffer. A lot.”

He smiled in the dark. “Thanks, darling.”

She smiled along with him, and slipped into slumber.

10

AT SEVEN A.M., EVE WAS DRINKING HER SECOND cup of coffee and studying the data she’d pulled up on Avril Icove.

She noted Avril’s date of birth, her parents’ dates of death, and that she’d become Icove’s legal ward before her sixth birthday.

Eve read through Avril’s educational data—Brookhollow Academy, Spencerville, New Hampshire, grades one through twelve, with continuing education Brookhollow College.

So the kindly doctor had put his ward in a boarding school straight off the bat. How had she felt about that? Eve wondered. Loses her mother—and where had the kid been while Mommy was off in . . . where had it been? Africa. Who’d kept the girl while the mother was off saving lives, and losing her own in Africa?

Then she loses her mother and gets shipped off to school.

No living relatives. Really bad luck there, Eve thought. No sibs; parents were both only children. Grandparents dead before she was born. No records of aunts or uncles or fricking second cousins twice removed.

Kinda weird, Eve thought. Most everyone had some relation somewhere. However distant.

She didn’t, but there were always some exceptions to the rules.

Jeez, look what had happened to Roarke. Go around all your life thinking you’re it, then bam! Got yourself enough relatives to people a small city.

But Avril’s records indicated no blood kin except her two children.

So, she’s almost six years old, tragically orphaned, and Icove, her legal guardian, puts her in a swank school. Busy surgeon, busy becoming Icon Icove, raising his own kid, who’d have been, what, about seventeen.

Teenage boys had a habit of getting into trouble, causing trouble, being trouble. But her run of Dr. Will had shown her a record as spotless as his father’s.

Meanwhile Avril’s doing sixteen years at basically the same school, which struck her as close to a prison term. Of course, she considered as she sipped more coffee, school had been a kind of jail for her.

Marking time, she remembered, until she’d been of legal age and could escape the system that had gobbled her up after she’d been found in that alley in Dallas. Then straight to the Police Academy. Another system, she admitted. But her choice. Finally, her choice.

Had Avril had a choice?

Art major, Eve read, with minors in domestic sciences and theater. Married Wilfred B. Icove, Jr., the summer after she’d gotten her degrees—putting him in his middle thirties, with no blemish on his official data, no cohabs.

She’d have to nudge Nadine, see if the reporter could find any juice on serious relationships for the young, rich doctor in any old media records.

No employment for Avril. Professional mother status after the birth of her first child.

No criminal.

She heard the faint swish of airskids and took another hit of coffee as Peabody came in.

“Avril Icove,” Eve began. “Personality assessment.”

“Well, hell, I didn’t know there was going to be a quiz first thing.” Peabody dumped her bag, squinted her eyes.

“Elegant and contained,” she surmised. “Well-bred and -mannered, and I want to say correct. Assuming the house is her territory—as it most likely would be considering she’s a pro mom and he’s a busy doctor—I’d say tasteful and discreet.”

“She wore a red coat,” Eve commented.

“Huh?”

“Nothing, maybe nothing. All that quiet elegance in the house, and she wears a bright red coat.” Eve shrugged. “Anything else?”

“Well, she also strikes me as being subservient.”

Eve’s gaze whipped over. “Why?”

“Our first visit to the house, Icove told her what to do. It wasn’t ‘Hey, bitch, get your ass out in the kitchen.’ It wasn’t harsh, not even really direct, but the dynamic was there. He was in charge, he made the decisions. She’s the WIFE, in big letters.”

Peabody glanced hopefully at the coffee, but kept going. “Which is something