“We’re fine. You’re acquainted with Trey Ziegler?”
“Trey, of course.” Robbins opened the small, built-in friggie, took out a ta
ll bottle. “I heard about what happened to him last night, and more when I went to the gym this morning. It’s terrible, of course. He was a terrific trainer. but I didn’t expect to have the cops come to my door about it.”
She plopped ice in a long, slim glass, poured the lemon drink over it. “Sure?”
Eve only shook her head. “You don’t seem too broken up about it.”
“Why would I be? He was a terrific trainer, but there are others. And he was kind of a shit otherwise.” She carried her drink to the sofa, sat down, leaned back. “Have a seat.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“Personally? Not really. He was great to look at. I mean that body was a killer. And he knew how to work me so I kept mine in shape. But he was smug, arrogant, and not terribly smart.”
“But you slept with him anyway.”
Robbins lowered the glass she’d started to bring to her lips. Her voice went as cold as the ice in her glass. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Sex can often lead to murder.”
“Is that so? I hadn’t thought of it. For me, it generally leads to release, or what’s the point. Am I actually a suspect? Seriously? Because I slept with him once, against my better judgment, I’ll add. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”
“Day before yesterday, between five P.M. and seven. Where were you?”
“Here, working. I’m nearly finished with a new book, and I have the blog. I’ve been putting in a lot of day hours on both as I spend most evenings out. Holiday parties, events—they’re my fodder.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, alone.” She gestured. “I prefer to work alone, without distractions. I have an assistant, but I’ve got her out most days right now, scouting the stores and boutiques, sending me pictures.”
She drank now. “God. I’m supposed to have an alibi. I have a January one deadline on the book I want to meet, then I’m going to Milan and Paris, doing coverage of spring trends. I didn’t kill a man because I was stupid enough to have sex with him. It was good sex, for that matter. Even though he’s not my type. He was an asshole—on a personal scale, I mean.”
“How much did you pay him?”
Robbins hissed through her teeth, “What the hell? I gave him five thousand. He didn’t come out and say—exactly—that some of the competition in my field might find it amusing that I’d slept with my trainer, but why take the chance? It wouldn’t make that much difference, I know how to spin it. I could probably do a series of blogs on it, but . . . the asshole factor.”
She sighed, drank. “I was embarrassed,” she admitted. “Embarrassed I had sex with a man I didn’t like, on a personal level. So I gave him five thousand, said this was nice, but let’s keep it between us, and that was that. I figured next spring when my membership’s up, I’d switch gyms.”
“He hinted at blackmail?”
“I guess that’s the term for it, yeah.”
“When did this happen?”
“A couple of months ago. No, more like six weeks, I guess. Not my finest moment.”
“He came here? An at-home massage? Training session?”
“A combo. We’d done that—not the sex—a couple times before. My assistant, too. I gave him extra to work with her a couple times. It was fun.”
“Was your assistant here for this one?”
“No.”
Her right leg, crossed over the left, began to swing. Eve read irritation and nerves in the movement.
“Look, do we have to go over every damn detail? I had sex with him, I paid him. It’s humiliating. But I didn’t kill him.”