The In Death Collection Books 6-10 - J. D. Robb [585]
A glossy white piano stood at one end of the room, and at the other, carved wood panels hid what she assumed was a full entertainment unit. There were plants of thick and glossy foliage, glass displays holding pretty dust catchers she concluded were art, and no discernable sign of life.
“Housekeeping would have come in after he left for the theater,” Roarke told her. “I can ask the team on duty that evening to come up and let you know the condition of the rooms at that time.”
“Yeah.” She thought of Nadine. If she knew the reporter, the condition of the rooms had been something approaching the wake of a tornado. She walked over to the panels, opened them, and studied the entertainment unit. “Unit on,” she commanded, and the screen flickered to soft blue. “Play back last program.”
With barely a hiccup, the unit burst into color and sound. Eve watched two figures slide and slither over a pool of black sheets. “Why do guys always get off watching other people fuck?”
“We’re sick, disgusting, and weak. Pity us.”
She started to laugh. Then the couple on the bed rolled. The woman’s face, soft with pleasure, turned toward the camera. “Goddamn it. That’s Nadine. Nadine and Draco.”
In support, Roarke laid a hand on Eve’s shoulder. “It wasn’t taped here. That’s not the bedroom. Her hair’s different. I don’t think it’s recent.”
“I’m going to have to take it in, prove it isn’t. And I’ve got a damn sex tape of one of the media’s cream as evidence on a murder case.” She stopped the play, ejected the disc, and sealed it in an evidence bag from her field kit.
“Damn it. Damn it.”
She began to pace, to struggle with herself. All this relationship stuff was so complicated and still so foreign to her. Nadine had told her what she’d told her as a friend. In confidence. The man currently, and patiently, watching her from across the room was her husband.
Love, honor, and all the rest of it.
If she told him about Nadine and Draco, was she breaching a confidence and the trust of a friend? Or was she just doing the marriage thing?
How the hell, she wondered, did people get through life juggling all this stuff?
“Darling Eve.” Sympathizing, Roarke waited until she’d stopped prowling the room and turned to face him. “You’re giving yourself a headache. I can make it easier on you. Don’t feel you have to tell me something that makes you uncomfortable.”
She frowned at him, narrowed her eyes. “I hear a but at the end of that sentence.”
“You have very sharp ears. But,” he continued, crossing to her, “I can deduce that Nadine and Draco were involved at one time, and given your current concern, that something happened between them a great deal more recently.”
“Oh hell.” In the end she went with the gut and told him everything.
He listened, then tucked Eve’s hair behind her ear. “You’re a good friend.”
“Don’t say that. It makes me nervous.”
“All right, I’ll say this: Nadine didn’t have anything to do with Draco’s murder.”
“I know that, and there’s no hard evidence indicating any different. But it’s going to be messy for her. Personally messy. Okay, what else is in this place?”
“Ah, if memory serves. Kitchen through there.” He gestured. “Office, bath, bedroom, dressing room, bath.”
“I’ll start in the office. I want to run his ’links and see if he had any conversations that involved threats or arguments. Do me a favor.” She handed him her kit. “Bag the rest of the video discs.”
“Yes, sir. Lieutenant.”
She smirked but let it ride.
She worked systematically. He loved watching her at it: The focus, the concentration, the absolute logic of her method.
Not so long before in his life if anyone had suggested he could find a cop and her work sexy, he’d have been both appalled and insulted.
“Stop staring at me.”
He smiled. “Was I?”
She decided to let it pass. “Lots of communications in and out. If I were a shrink, I’d guess this was a guy who couldn