The bedroom door was open, and inside two figures moved fluidly, somehow beautifully on the bed. The light flashed over them, off them, over. His hair was dark and gleaming, his eyes brilliant. She knew the curve of his face, his shoulders, the line of his back, the ripple of muscle in it.
The woman he was inside moaned out her pleasure, and her gilded hair shone in the ugly light.
The pain was worse than the broken bone, worse than the rape. It vibrated through her every cell, every muscle, every pore.
Behind her, Eve’s dead father chuckled. “You didn’t really expect him to stay with you? Look at him, look at her. You don’t even come close. Everybody cheats, little girl.”
And she was a little girl again, trembling with sickness, with pain, with helplessness.
“Go ahead, pay them back. You know how.”
When she looked down, the knife was in her hand, its blade wet and red.
9
IF LOOKS COULD KILL, THE STARE MIRA’S OVER- protective admin aimed would have dropped Eve on the spot. She managed to survive it, and went in to find Mira at her desk.
As always, Mira looked calm and collected. Her sable hair had grown longer, and was sassily waved today in a style Eve hadn’t seen on her before. It always gave Eve a jolt when people changed that sort of thing. Put them out of context, she decided.
It was a younger, sportier style and rippled back from Mira’s lovely face. She wore one of her pretty suits in a color Eve supposed was gray but looked to her like shimmering fog, and somehow made Mira’s eyes, a soft blue, look deeper.
She wore it with silver; spirals at her ears, a braided chain with a pendant that had a clear stone centered in an etched setting around her neck.
Eve wondered if Roarke would have considered it screen-friendly, and decided that what it was was somehow perfect.
“Eve.” Mira smiled. “I’m sorry, I haven’t had a chance to read the file.”
“Squeezed into your schedule.”
“There’s always a little wiggle room. You’ll give me the gist,” she continued as she rose to go to her office AutoChef. “Tough case?”
“Mostly they are.”
“You look especially tired.”
“Getting nowhere. The vic was a teacher. History. Private school,” she began and filled in the blanks while Mira programmed the flower tea she liked.
Mira gestured to a chair as Eve spoke, then took one herself as she handed Eve one of the tea cups.
“Poisoning is remote,” Mira commented as she sipped. “Keeps the hands clean. No physical contact necessary. Passionless, most usually. Often a female mode. Not exclusively, of course, but often a choice.”
“I can’t pin down a motive. Highest on the list is murder to silence him. He was, allegedly, aware that one of his fellow teachers liked to rack up affairs with faculty members, mothers of students.”
“Which, potentially, would be grounds for disciplinary action, even dismissal. Ricin poisoning,” Mira mused. “A little old-fashioned, even exotic. And not as efficient as other options, but easier to come by if you’ve any knowledge of the science.”
“Worked pretty damn well.”
“Yes, it certainly can. So the murder was planned, timed, executed. Not impulse, not in the heat of the moment. Calculated.”
Balancing the saucer on her knee in a way Eve found both baffling and admirable, Mira continued. “It’s possible, of course, that the poison was already in the killer’s milieu, and that easy access made it the method chosen. From what you’ve told me, the victim was unaware he was in any danger, was under any threat, had incurred anyone’s anger.”
“He was going about his routine,” Eve confirmed. “No one close to him reports any hitch in his stride.”
“I would say that the killer harbored this resentment, this anger, or this motive while continuing to go about his business. Planned the details, accessed the method. The killing was simply something that needed to be done. He didn’t need to watch the victim die, or touch him, speak to him. He wasn’t concerned that, in all likelihood, it would be a child or children who discovered the body.”
Mira considered it another minute. “If it was a parent, I would have to say it’s one who puts his own needs and desires above that of his child. A teacher? One who sees the children as a job, as units rather than children. This was means to an end. Efficiently done, with a bare minimum of involvement.”
“He’s not looking for attention or for glory. He’s not crazy.”