Page 61 of Passions in Death
“I wouldn’t be here making your clientele nervous if you’d responded to my partner’s v-mails.”
“I didn’t feel like it.” She shrugged as the server brought her sparkling water. “I said everything I knew, which is nothing, last night. I lost a friend. I took a pill and went to bed, and stayed there until after noon. I had to tell my family, and they liked Erin a lot. Then I went to church with my abuela, and got ready for work.”
“You work an early shift,” Eve noted. “I’d think the later crowd would bring in more.”
“I bring in more.” She tossed her hair. “And I’m done by ten.”
She shifted eyes very like her grandmother’s to Roarke. “If you like redheads, Gia said to tell you she’d give you the first lap dance free.”
“That’s a lovely offer, but I prefer lanky brunettes.”
“Your choice.”
“You were involved with Erin at one time,” Eve said.
“I wouldn’t say involved. We took a spin a few times. I like sex—not a crime. I like sex with men, with women, also not a crime. I liked sex with Erin. We had some fun, but we weren’t looking to pick out china patterns. She met Shauna, and we stopped taking spins.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“How was I supposed to feel?” She tossed back her waterfall of hair, gave Eve a cool, patronizing smile. “Look around here. I could have my pick, but I keep sex and work separate. Maybe I didn’t get what Erin’s thing was with Shauna, but her life, right?
“Until it wasn’t.”
“Not a fan of Shauna’s?”
“She’s all right. If you go for boring and ordinary.” With a shrug, she drank some water. “I just didn’t get it, that’s all. Why she wanted this shoe store manager, this dead ordinary person, and the whole marriage thing.”
“Did she know how you felt about it?”
“She knew I thought she was making a mistake, sure. I mean, hell, how long do you have to be young, and she locks herself in with one person before she’s thirty? I didn’t get it.”
“But you went last night.”
“Sure, why not? It’s a party, and she’s a friend of mine. Was.” She paused, drank again. “Was. And I thought, what the hell, they’re having this deal at a place like the D&D? Maybe Shauna’s not as dull as I figured. Anyway, she got trashed enough to get up there and strip down. No style to it, and not a lot of tits, but she was game. Gotta give her that.”
“Have you spoken to anyone who was there last night since?”
“No. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to go over and over it. What’s the point? She meant something to me. I thought she was wasting her life, then all of a sudden, she doesn’t have a life to waste.”
“Have you ever been to her art studio?”
“Sure. We were friends, so sure. Hell, I posed for her in there, then we rolled around on the floor. Did the same with the big guy. Anton.”
“Anton Carver? So you had sex with him?”
“One round, after he sketched me. A couple rounds since. Why not?”
“After Erin met Shauna?”
“Yeah, after. No big thing.”
“Did you work here yesterday, before the party?”
“I take Mondays off.”
“Why don’t you run me through your day?”
“For fuck’s sake.” She set down her water with a pissy little slam. “Look, I have to get ready for my next act.”
