“Fine, let’s hear what Natasha Quigley has to say.”
Eve set the mini recorder with its copy of the nine-one-one call on the table, ordered on.
She’s dead! I think she’s dead! Oh my God, Cate. It’s . . . Wait, please. Oh God. This is Natasha Quigley at 18 Vandam. I need to report a— JJ! Oh, JJ, something terrible happened. JJ! What are you doing? JJ, stop, stop! Don’t!
Copley stared at the recorder, mouth agape.
“You were too enraged to hear her.” Eve tapped the recorder. “Too caught up to think. It was act. Act now.”
“That’s a fake. It’s a fake! She was on the floor when I ran in. She . . . there must have been someone else there. Someone else must have been there. Maybe he looked like me. She was upset. She . . . she wasn’t talking to me. She was . . . calling for me so I’d come help her.”
“Maybe you need to hear it again.” Eve replayed, letting it run under Copley’s increasingly hysterical rants.
“You’re doing this. It’s you, it’s you! You have it in for me. I knew it the minute you came into that meeting. You’re trying to frame me. Someone else was there. I was upstairs.”
“JJ, we’re done,” McAllister said, all but physically holding him down in the chair. “Not another word. Do you hear me?”
“Maybe it was more than rage, more than panic. Maybe you saw your chance. Kill her, kill them both, make it seem like they fought. It clears the path for you and Felicity.”
“I didn’t . . . How do you know? . . . It was you! You’re the reason Felicity moved out, you’re the reason she won’t answer her ’link. You bitch! I could kill you!”
“No handy blunt object.” Like Copley, Eve surged to her feet. She leaned in, leaned hard. “Ziegler knew, blackmailed you, and it’s never enough. It would never stop. You made it stop. Taught that ungrateful bastard a lesson. Catiana knew, wouldn’t listen to reason. You lost your temper, shoved her. Then it’s Natasha. It’s time to finish it. Just finish it. So you fractured her skull. You thought you’d finished it, would have finished it, but the cop’s at the door so fast, too fast.”
She kept going, raising her voice over his rants, his lawyer’s shouts. “Girl cop at your door, stupid cunt, what the hell does she know? But she gets in your way, she won’t do what you tell her to do. You have to make your best pitch, it’s how you make your living. But it won’t work, Copley. It’s all right here.”
She slapped her hand on the file. “It’s all right here. Ziegler.” She dug out the crime scene photo. “Catiana.” Slapped hers beside it. “Natasha.” Added the last. “But you left Natasha breathing. And she’s going to bury you.”
His face glowed red. His eyes literally bulged. Eve half expected him to just explode, spewing flesh, brains, and fury all over the room.
Instead, he collapsed, wheezing, with sweat slicking those bright red cheeks.
“Get a medic!” McAllister ordered, and leaped to kneel beside him.
Eve glanced toward the two-way glass, turned to the door, wrenched it open. In seconds Mira rushed in.
“I’m a doctor. Lieutenant, some water?”
“Shit. Mira, Dr. Charlotte, entering Interview to treat suspect. Dallas, exiting Interview for—”
She broke off, took the bottle of water Roarke offered from the doorway.
“Correction, Dallas remaining in Interview.”
She cracked the water open, offered it to Mira.
“Slow your breathing, Mr. Copley. Look at me now, you’re having an anxiety attack. Slow your breathing. Sip some of this.”
“Can’t breathe.” He wheezed, staring out with eyes the size of moons. “Can’t.”
“Slowly. You need to take slow breaths. Lieutenant, send for a medic.”
“Already done,” Roarke told Eve when she reached for her comm.
“We’re going to get you some oxygen, Mr. Copley. That will help. We’re going to help you, and take you to the Infirmary.”
“His heart,” McAllister began.