Page 5 of Passions in Death
She clicked off, gauged the speed and distance. She calculated even though Peabody and McNab lived downtown, Roarke would get there first.
“He doesn’t have cams,” Eve remembered. “No cams, in or out. Goddamn it.”
“It’s a sex club, Eve. You’d thin out your clientele considerably with door or interior cams. And you didn’t need them to deal with Casto when he attacked you at the D&D the night before our wedding.”
He’d given her a shiner, though. She still resented it.
“I wonder how that corrupt asshole former cop likes prison.”
Despite the speed, Roarke glanced at her, smiled. “I suspect not a bit.”
“It’s hard to see this being a fight gone south. Crack has a rep for dealing with trouble and troublemakers for a reason.” Then she shook her head. “No point in thinking about who and why. Best to go in cold. But you know what part of the problem is?”
“You know too many people.”
She shot him a hard look. “I was going to say that. How did you know I was going to say that?”
He didn’t bother to glance over, but he did smile. “I know my cop’s mind.”
“Well, I do.” She chugged down the rest of her coffee. “If I didn’t know too many people, I’d still end up driving like a maniac to a crime scene at damn near one in the morning because that’s the job, but I wouldn’t know so many people somehow connected if I didn’t know too many people in the first place.”
She tipped her head back. “How did that happen?”
“Your magnetic, people-loving personality?”
“Oh, bite me.”
“Didn’t I do that earlier?”
He had, she recalled, and in just the right way.
“It’s probably your fault. I don’t know how exactly, but probably. And who hangs out at a downtown sex club on a Monday night?”
“People lovers?” he suggested.
“Somebody sure as hell didn’t love somebody this Monday night.”
She spotted the police cruiser, then the uniform on the door when Roarke pulled up.
A quick summer storm had rolled through about the time Roarke had been biting her in just the right way. Damp pavement and puddles gleamed in the streetlights. When she stepped out, the air steamed with August.
In the steam bath, the uniform’s face gleamed like the puddles.
“Officer.”
“Lieutenant. Sir, my partner’s inside with the DB. We received the dispatch at zero hours, sixteen minutes, and arrived on scene approximately three minutes later. Female victim, discovered by one of the staff in a privacy room. From our visual it’s apparently a strangulation. Roughly eighty people inside, including staff. About two dozen of those are part of a single party. The victim was with that party, identified by others as Erin Albright.”
Pausing, the uniform used the back of her wrist to wipe a dribble of sweat from her temple.
“A hen party, sir. A girl party to celebrate an upcoming wedding. Albright was one of the brides. Crack—Mr. Buckley—”
“I know Crack,” Eve interrupted.
“Then you know he got things under control quickly. Blocked off the room, blocked the exits, even before we got on scene. He has the other bride, Shauna Hunnicut, and a couple of her friends in his office. She’s upset, sir, to put it mildly.”
“Got it. My partner— Never mind, here she comes.”
Peabody, in pink sneakers, khakis, with her red-streaked black hair bundled back in a short tail, hustled down the sidewalk. Beside her, McNab put on his usual show in red-and-blue-striped baggies, red airboots, and a blue tee that displayed a big red heart over his bony chest.
