J. Robb - Indulgence in death

“Two people are dead. Is that enough?”

Felicity closed her eyes, lifted a hand. Without a word, Anna moved over to sit on the arm of the chair, take that hand in hers.

“Yes.” She opened her eyes again. They stayed direct and steady as they met Eve’s. “Do I have any reason to be afraid of him, for myself, for my family?”

“I don’t believe so, but it’s hard to say when I don’t have the background between you and Dudley. He was at a dinner party in Greenwich a few nights ago,” Eve added. “A few miles from here. He didn’t contact you?”

“No. He’d have no reason to. I’d like it to stay that way.”

“Then help us out, Doctor VanWitt.” Peabody kept her voice low and soothing. “And we’ll do everything we can to make sure it does stay that way.”

“I was very young,” Felicity began. “And he was very charming, very handsome. I was absolutely dazzled. Swept off my feet, cliché or not. He pursued me and courted me. Flowers, gifts, poetry, attention. It wasn’t love on my part, I realized that after it ended. It was… thrall. He was, literally, everything a young woman could have wanted or asked for.”

She paused a moment. Not stalling now, Eve noted, but looking back. Remembering. “He didn’t love me. I realized that sooner than I realized my own feelings, but I wanted him to. Desperately. So I tried, as young women often do, to be what he wanted. He and I and Patrice and Sly went everywhere together. It was exciting, and God, so much fun. Weekends at Newport or the Côte d’Azur, an impromptu dinner trip to Paris. Anything and everything.”

She took a deep breath. “He was my first lover. I was naive and nervous, and he was very considerate. The first time. He wanted other things, things that made me uncomfortable. But he didn’t push, not overtly. Still, the longer we were together, the more I felt something off. Something… as if I’d catch a shadow or movement out of the corner of my eye, then turn and it would be gone. But I knew I’d seen it.”

She drank, cleared her throat. “He enjoyed illegals. Many did, and it was recreational. Or it seemed so. Then again, recreation was what he did, what we did, so there was always a little boost of something. And he did pressure me to use, to have fun, not to be so closed in.

“When he and Sly were together, there was a kind of wildness. And it was appealing at first, exciting at first. But then it got to be too much. Too fast, too hard, too wild because, at the core I wasn’t what I was trying to be.”

She paused, breathed, and on the arm of the chair Anna continued to sit. A silent wall of support.

“He started hurting me. Just a little, little accidents-accidents that left bruises, and I started to realize he liked to see me frightened. He’d always soothe me after, but I could see on his face he enjoyed frightening me-accidentally locking me in a dark room, or driving too fast, or holding me under just a bit too long when we went to the beach. And the sex got rough, too rough. Mean.”

She stared into her iced coffee for a long moment-remembering again, Eve thought-but her hand stayed steady as she lifted the glass to drink.

“He was so charming otherwise, and so smooth. For a time I thought it was me, that I was too closed in, not open enough to the new or the exciting. But…”

“You didn’t want what he wanted,” Eve prompted. “Or to do what he pressured you to do.”

“No, I didn’t. It just wasn’t me. I started to realize, more to accept, I was pretending to be something I wasn’t to please him and I knew I couldn’t keep it up. I didn’t want to keep it up,” she corrected. “Once I overheard him and Sly talking about it, laughing at me. I knew I had to break it off, but didn’t know how. My family adored him. He was so charming, so sweet, so perfect. Except for those movements out of the corner of the eye, except for the accidents. So I picked a fight with him, in public, because I was afraid of him. And I maneuvered him into breaking it off. He was so angry, and he said horrible things to me, but every word was a relief because I knew he didn’t want me, and he wouldn’t bother about me. He’d walk away, and I’d be free. He never spoke to me again.”

She shook her head, let out a short, surprised laugh. “I mean that literally. Never another word. It was as if all those months hadn’t happened. We both attended my cousin’s wedding to Sly, and he didn’t even speak to me, or look at me-not, if you understand me, in a way that was a deliberate snub. It was as if I were invisible, didn’t exist. Never had. I was just no longer there for him. And that was an even bigger relief.”

They look through you, Roarke has said, and Eve understood exactly what Felicity meant.

“Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Yeah. You have a nice place here, Doctor VanWitt. I bet you have nice kids, and a good husband, work you’re good at and enjoy, friends who matter.”

“Yes, I do. Yes.”

Eve rose. “Maybe you were young, maybe you were naive and dazzled and swept. But you weren’t stupid.”

“He’s a dangerous man, they both are. I believe that.”

“So do I. He won’t bother you or your family,” Eve promised. “You’re not in his world, and he has no reason to hurt you. I’m going to talk to your cousin.”

“Will it help if I contact her, tell her some of this?”

“It might.”

“Then I will.” Felicity got to her feet, held out a hand. “I hope I helped, but I have to tell you this sort of thing is a lot more exciting, and a lot less emotionally wearing, in a book than it is in real life.”

“You got that right.”

PEABODY STAYED QUIET FOR SEVERAL MILES while the lushly green landscape whizzed by.

“You really don’t think there’s a chance Dudley will go at her, or her family?”

“Not now, not while he’s into this competition. If he’d wanted to pay her back for dumping him, or maneuvering him into dumping her, he’d have done it before this.” She wanted to talk to Mira, but…

“She wasn’t worthy of him. He was just using her as a toy, then he got tired of her. That’s how it plays in his head. So, just as she said, she stopped existing in his world. She’s not even a blip at this point. If they keep at it, continue to rack up points or however they’re scoring this deal, either one of them could decide to make it personal. But not now.”

“If it is a competition, how do two men like these two come up with it? Does one of them just say, ‘Hey, let’s have a murder tournament?’ I can almost see that,” Peabody added. “Too much to drink, hanging out, maybe add in some illegals. Things you say or do under the influence that seem so brilliant or funny or insightful, and you’re never going to follow through with clean and sober. But they do, and if this is a contest, they go forward with it, with rules, with, like you said, structure.”

She shifted, frowned at Eve. “It’s a big deal. Even if it’s just a game to them, it’s a big game. Not just the killing itself, which is way big enough, but the selections-vics, weapons, timing, venue, and cover-your-ass. Do you go into that cold? I mean, if you’re going to compete in a major competition-sports, gaming, talent, whatever, you don’t just jump in, not if you want to win. You don’t jump on a horse to compete for the blue ribbon if you’ve never ridden before, right? Because odds are pretty strong for not only losing, but humiliating yourself in the bargain. I don’t see these guys risking humiliation.”

“Good.” Excellent, in fact, Eve noted. “Neither do I.”

“You think they’ve killed before?”

“I’d bet your ass on it.”

“Why my ass?” Eyes slitted, Peabody jabbed a finger in the air. “Because it’s bigger? Because it has more padding? That’s hitting below the belt.”