J. Robb - Innocent In Death

“Igave you Trina,” Nadine corrected. “She’s damn good, which is why I hired her for the show. Plus, for tonight, I figured your point of view would be ‘better the devil you know.’”

“Got a point,” Eve decided.

“You look good, which is essential. Strong, alert, smart, attractive,” Nadine mused, walking a circle around Eve. “And all cop. We’ll leave the glamour for me.”

“You wear it so well,” Roarke commented. “You look radiant, Nadine, and polished as a jewel.”

“I do, don’t I?” Laughing, Nadine shook back her chic bob of streaky blond hair, did a styling turn in the electric blue suit with its pencil-thin skirt and waist-cinching jacket. The heels were black skyscrapers that set off the wink of a diamond ankle chain.

“I didn’t think I’d be nervous, but I am. There’s a lot riding on this first show. Dallas, I don’t want to prep you. I don’t want the interview to be stale or rehearsed, but I do want to go over a few points.”

“I’ll get out of your way, then,” Roarke began, but Nadine shook her head.

“No. You can run faster than I can in these shoes if she makes a break for it. Let’s just sit.”

“Something to drink, then.” Roarke gestured to the well-stocked counter. “Or eat.”

“After.” Nadine pressed a hand to her stomach as she sat on one of the sofas. “My system’s on full alert.”

“I’m good,” Eve said. “What’s to be nervous about? It’s what you do.”

“That’s what I tell myself, but I’ve never done exactly this before. And this was the big gold hoop. Now that I’ve got it in my hot little hand, I can’t afford to drop it. So…”

Nadine scooted to the edge of her chair as if she might be the one to make a run for it. “We’ll have to touch on the Icove case. That’s what got me the gig. But I’m not going to linger on that. I’m going to want to revisit that after the book and the vid hit. The baby-market business is still fresh, so we’ll discuss that. Speaking of babies, Belle was well named. God, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Eve squirmed. “Sure.”

“I’ve done an interview with Tandy, and with Mavis on that one, and we’ll air pieces of those during the spot. We’re going to talk about what you do, how you do it. How much will you be able to tell me about the Foster homicide?”

“The investigation’s ongoing.”

Nadine didn’t miss a beat, or the chance to smirk. “I’m going to need more than that-leads being pursued, avenues explored, the players, the scene, the victim. It’s calledNow for a reason. But we’ll keep that until we’re on. It’s a hard news show, but I will have to ask about Roarke.”

Nadine put up a hand before Eve could speak. “I can’t interview Roarke’s cop in a venue like this without asking about Roarke. Don’t worry, it’s not boxers or briefs, just an overview, we’ll say.”

She aimed an amused, inquiring glance at Roarke, who only laughed and shook his head.

“How you manage to balance the work with your life,” Nadine continued. “If marriage has changed how you do the work, or how you look at the job. We’ll get on and off. So…”

She checked her wrist unit. “I’ve got to get touched up. Trina will take a last look at you in a few minutes, then Mercy will bring you into the studio. And we’ll go from there. Dallas.” Nadine pressed a hand on hers. “Thanks.”

“You better hold that ’til after. You may not like my answers.”

“Thanks,” she said again, and rose. Then she turned to Roarke. “How about one right here, big guy?” She tapped a finger to her lips. “For luck.”

He stepped to her, kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Here’s to a thirty-percent share.”

“Your lips, God’s ears.”

In the end, it went okay, as far as Eve could tell. Though she couldn’t understand how anyone could be juiced about sitting in front of an image of the city, under hot lights, while robocams slithered around like snakes.

Theme music shimmered out, and she heard Nadine take three quiet breaths while some guy on the floor signaled with his fingers. Then Nadine aimed her eyes toward one of those robots.

“Good evening. I’m Nadine Furst, and this isNow.”

They did, as Nadine had said, touch on the Icove case from the previous fall. Yes, Eve believed the laws against human cloning were correct and just. No, she didn’t hold the clones themselves responsible for what the Icoves had done.

She watched the clips as the separate interviews with Tandy Applebee, her husband and their infant son, and Mavis, Leonardo, and Belle were run. Both women got teary as they spoke about their friendship, and how Eve had saved Tandy’s life, saved the baby-who they’d named Quentin Dallas Applebee-from being sold in the black market, and had broken the ring only hours before their babies had been born.

“How does that make you feel?” Nadine asked.

“Like I did my job.”

“Just that?”

Eve shifted. What the hell. “Sometimes it gets personal. It’s not supposed to, but it does. This was personal. Mavis and I go back, and she and my partner are tight. Mavis is the one who pushed me, pushed us, to look for Tandy. She deserves a lot of credit for that, for standing up for a friend. You could say, in this case, it was friendship that ultimately connected the cases, and cleared them both. The job’s not just about clearing a case, it’s about justice. I did my job.”

“A demanding, dangerous, high-powered job. You’re married to a man with a lot of demands on his time, who some might term dangerous, and who is certainly high-powered. How do you balance the work with your private life?”

“Maybe by knowing it’s not always going to balance, and being married to someone who gets that. A lot of cops…There can be friction in the personal area,” she amended, “because the job means you put in long hours, inconvenient hours that mess up schedules. You miss dinners or dates or whatever.”

“Which may seem minor,” Nadine said, “but in reality, those dinners, dates, and so on are part of what makes up a personal life.”

“Lapping into personal life is part of it, that’s all. It’s just the job. It’s tough for a civilian to deal, day after day. In my opinion, cops are mostly a bad bet in the personal arena. But some make it work. It works, I guess, when the civilian gets it. When the civilian respects and values the job, or at least understands it. I got lucky there.”

She shifted her gaze to where Roarke stood behind the range of cameras. “I got lucky.”

They broke for the ads that paid the bills, and Trina marched over with a flurry of brushes.

“Nice,” Nadine told her.

“Is it almost over?”

“Nearly there.” She thought, but didn’t say, what a moment it had been when Eve’s gaze had shifted away, when the emotion had swarmed into her eyes on her claim that she’d gotten lucky. Thirty-percent share? Nadine thought. Her ass. That single moment was going to blow the ratings out of the stratosphere.

“Your current case,” Nadine began when they were back. “The shocking murder of Craig Foster, a history teacher. What can you tell us?”

“The investigation is active and ongoing.”

Flat voice, flat eyes, Nadine noted with satisfaction. All cop now, and the contrast was perfect. “You’ve said that to know the killer, know the victim. Tell us about Craig Foster. Who was he?”

“He was, by all accounts, a young and dedicated teacher, a loving husband, a good son. A good man, and a creature of habit. He was frugal, responsible, and ordinary in the sense he did his work, he lived his life, and enjoyed both.”

“What does that tell you about his killer?”

“I know that his killer knew and understood Craig Foster’s habits, and used those habits to take his life, to take a husband, a son, a teacher. That he did so not in heat, not on impulse, but with forethought and calculation.”