Celebrity in Death (5 page)

Eve started to speak when a man stepped to Peabody’s other side. He wore his blond hair pulled back in a long tail, leaving his thin, attractive face unframed. His suit, shirt, tie were all the color of night fog, and fit his slim frame perfectly.

“McNab, that’s what you’d look like—almost—if you dressed like an adult human.”

“Pretty tight, huh?” McNab said and chomped into the canapé he’d snagged from another tray.

“Matthew Zank, in the role of Detective Ian McNab.” He held out a hand to Eve. “Sir.”

The quick charm made Eve smile. “Dallas will do.”

“Hey, everybody!”

As Eve turned at the familiar voice, Mavis flashed a camera. “Mag! I’m making an a-s-s of myself, but I want pictures.”

“The kid’s not here,” Eve reminded her. “You don’t have to spell ‘ass’.”

“Habit. Ass, ass, shit, fuck. God that felt good. Anyhow, Leonardo’s huddled with Andi about her dress for the premiere. Did you meet her yet?” Like McNab, Mavis snagged a canapé. “Andrea Smythe aka Doctor Mira. She doesn’t look so much like Mira tonight ’cause, wow, I’ve never seen Mira wear a black skin-suit, or heard her curse in Brit.”

“Andi’s got the pottiest of potty mouths,” Marlo explained. “Part of her charm, which she has in spades. Everybody adores Andi.”

“She makes Leonardo blush. It’s so totally cute.” Mavis popped the canapé in her mouth.

“That’s a Leonardo, isn’t it?”

At Marlo’s question, Eve looked blank.

“Yes,” Roarke answered for her.

“It’s fabulous. I know from my research clothes aren’t your thing, which is where we part ways. I love them. Clothes, shoes, bags, shoes, and more shoes. Just can’t get enough.”

“We can never be friends,” Eve said solemnly, and made Marlo laugh.

“I’m not half the clotheshorse Julian is.”

“Something else he and Roarke have in common.” Eve glanced around. “He’s not here? I don’t think I’d miss him.”

“Always late. He’s bringing Nadine.”

“Really?”

“Who knows,” Marlo said with a shrug. “K.T.’s not here yet either, so—”

“Both our stars. Valerie, get a picture. Joel Steinburger.” The tall, robust man with steely hair and hard black eyes pumped Eve’s hand like a well handle, then turned, gripped her shoulder, bared his teeth at the woman with the camera. “This is a pleasure, a pleasure.” Baring his teeth again, he hooked his free arm around Marlo’s waist, pulled her in. “How did you enjoy your visit to the set today—better late than never! Preston tells me Detective Peabody is going to do a cameo for us. Delighted. We’ll get you in there, too.”

“No,” Eve said.

“It’ll be fun. We’ll see you get the full glamour treatment. Who doesn’t want to be a vid star for a day?”

“Me.”

“We’ll talk.” He winked at her, but those black eyes bored in. “Valerie’s handling the public relations and media for the project. The two of you have to set up lunch, discuss promotion.”

“No,” Eve repeated, glanced at the pretty woman with milk chocolate skin and tiger’s eyes. “Sorry, but I don’t do lunch or promotion.”

“Valerie will handle everything, make it fun for you. Word is you don’t have an agent or manager. Saves some time without the middlemen. We’re going to need you for a couple of days for the extras for the home discs, but the cop look. No glamour there. The audience wants the real you.”

“Does the word
no
ring any bells?”

“Now, now, honey, no need to be shy. Valerie will walk you through it. And get those photo ops we missed on set today rescheduled. Asap.”

“Joel.” Smiling easily, Roarke put a hand on Steinburger’s arm. “Why don’t we find somewhere to talk?”

“Roarke, of course. Another pleasure. The businessman,” he said with another wink at Eve, “the husband. The helpmate.”

“Do you think he knows Roarke just saved his life?” Peabody wondered.

“Did he really call me
honey?
I think my ears deceive me.”

“Apologies, Lieutenant.” Valerie offered a coolly professional smile with the apology. “Mr. Steinburger’s giving a hundred and ten percent to this project. He expects the same from everyone involved.”

“Where does he get the extra ten?”

Valerie’s smile tensed at the corners. “And promotion is part of the whole. If you find you have any time, any at all, please contact me. I promise I’ll vet everything, and only make the best possible use of your time.”

“I wonder if she called him ‘Mr. Steinburger’ when they used to
bang like hydrohammers in his Hollywood office,” Marlo murmured when Valerie walked away.

“No, she called him God,” Matthew said, “as in, ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God yes!’ I’ve heard her. Sadly, the office has been quiet since we got to New York.”

“Oh, they ended it months ago, before we left the Coast.”

“Got Publicity Chief on the project out of it. Sorry.” Matthew flashed that quick, charming smile at Eve again. “We’re shallow, overly obsessed about who’s doing who.”

“Like high school,” Eve suggested.

He laughed. “Afraid so. Plus gossip passes the time between takes.”

“Darling Eve!”

The Irish was a bit more ripe in the voice, and no, the eyes not as stunningly blue. But Julian Cross hit the gorgeous mark, and moved well.

In fact he moved straight to Eve, yanked her into a quick, hard kiss, with a hint of tongue.

“Hey!”

“I couldn’t help it.” The not-quite-blue-enough eyes twinkled at her. “I feel like we’re close.”

“Think that again and they’ll have to write a fat lip into your next scene.” She caught Roarke, eyes narrowed, across the room. “And possibly a broken jaw.”

“Julian, behave.” Nadine Furst sent Eve a sympathetic eye roll as she latched firmly onto Julian’s arm. “Are we the last ones here?”

“K.T. hasn’t showed up,” Marlo told her, and tipped her face up as Julian leaned over to kiss her. “Julian, you haven’t met Detectives Peabody and McNab.”

“Peabody!” With enthusiasm, he reached up, popped her right off her feet. She let out a kind of
woo
before he kissed her. Then she said, “Um.”

“My girl,” McNab said.

“McNab!” Julian didn’t pop McNab off his feet, but he did plant one on him.

Eve wondered if tongues were involved this time.

“Hollywood.” Matthew laughed, lifted his hands. “We’re a bunch of assholes.”

“Some of us more than others,” Marlo murmured as K.T. walked in and scowled at everyone.

DINNER TURNED OUT TO BE LESS FORMAL AND
more freewheeling than Eve expected. She figured that was Connie’s deal—the menu of plenty, the variety of wine, the spikes and rolls of conversation.

Since she was cornered between Roundtree and Julian, Eve noted the pattern of the seating arrangement plugged what she thought of as actual people beside or across from their true and fake connections. Peabody between Matthew and McNab, Dennis between Mira and Andrea Smythe—who had an appealingly dirty laugh she used often.

Roundtree, a man who obviously enjoyed his life and took his position at the helm as a matter of course, owned an endless supply of stories. She’d heard of most of the people he talked about, but wondered if she should have taken a who’s-who-in-Hollywood primer before the evening.

“I read that you and Roarke met because he was a suspect in a
murder.” Julian smiled at her in a way she imagined made a woman feel she had his entire focus and admiration.

Maybe it was even sincere.

“He was a person of interest.”

“It’s romantic.”

“Most people don’t find being a person of interest in a homicide investigation romantic.”

“A man would when the interest is coming from a beautiful investigator. He’s a lucky man.”

“He’s lucky he didn’t do the murder,” Eve said and made Julian laugh.

“I’d say you both are.”

“You’re right.” And she liked him better for saying it.

“How did you become a cop?”

“I graduated from the Police Academy.”

“But why?” He angled toward her, his mostly untouched glass of wine in his hand. “And a murder cop—that’s the term, right? Did you always want to be one?”

Well, hell, it did seem sincere. She eased off the sarcasm. “As long as I can remember.”

“That was Marlo’s take, and how she’s playing you. With that intensity and drive, that cop-to-the-core attitude. I’m trying to bring the same sort of package to Roarke—a man of power, wealth, mystery. Marlo and I agreed, early on, that the two of you are the heart of the story. The center of it.”

“I’d say the Icoves were the center.”

“I think of them more as the guts of it. What was it Marlo said, the cancer in the belly. I think.” He shrugged. “But your love story is the heart.”

“Our—” She found herself tongue-tied between horror and embarrassment.

“That shouldn’t throw you.” Julian laid a hand over hers. “Real love is beautiful. And … elusive, don’t you think?”

“Julian has a romantic’s soul.” Seated between Roundtree and Roarke across the table, Marlo sent Julian a twinkling smile. “But he’s not wrong.”

Julian twinkled right back at her, shifting that you’re-my-world focus on a dime. “Romance makes everything sweeter.”

“And you’ve got a serious sweet tooth,” Marlo countered.

“I do. The love story aspects of the script are my favorite scenes to play.”

“Oh God” was all Eve could manage.

“These two have the chemistry,” Roundtree commented. “They’re going to burn up the screens.”

“Oh God,” Eve repeated, and this time Roarke laughed.

“Steady, Lieutenant.”

“See how he says that.” Obviously delighted, Julian squeezed Eve’s hand before he leaned forward, his gaze riveted on Roarke now. “Lieutenant,” he repeated, giving the word Roarke inflection. “It’s loving and hot and intimate all at the same time.”

“It’s my rank,” Eve muttered.

“He respects your rank. You respect her rank,” he said to Roarke, wound up now, “as much as you love her.”

“Not quite,” Roarke corrected.

“No, you’re right, you’re right, but it’s up there. And you
like
each other. And the trust. The two of you going down into that secret lab, risking your lives—”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, give the ass-kissing a rest, Julian.” K.T.
knocked back a slug of wine, then slapped her glass on the table. She actually snapped her fingers at one of the servers so he would deal with the refill. “Even your mouth ought to be tired of puckering up by now.”

“We’re having a conversation,” Julian began.

“Is that what you call it? You act like you and Marlo are the only ones in this goddamn vid, and the two people you’re trying so hard to mimic are the only ones who count. It’s insulting. So why don’t you give it a fucking rest, set up your threesome with Marlo and Dallas on your own time? Some of us are trying to eat.”

In the beat of horrified silence, Eve studied K.T. down the length of the table. “Peabody?”

“Yes, sir,” Peabody said, shoulders hunched.

“You know how I occasionally mention the possibility of kicking your ass?”

“I’d term that as regularly, but yes, sir, I do.”

“You may get the chance to watch me kick your fake ass while you sit comfortably on your own. That’s an opportunity that doesn’t come around every day.”

“You don’t worry me.” K.T. sneered at her.

“I ought to. Anybody who shows their ass that big in public’s just asking to have it kicked. But maybe it’s better to just leave it hanging out there, all pink and shiny while the grown-ups talk.”

“Well done,” Roarke said when Eve shifted back again, picked up her fork.

Julian grabbed his wineglass, drank deep as conversation circled the table in fits and starts. “I’m sorry.” The instant the server topped off his glass, he drank deep again. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I wasn’t—”

“It’s okay, pal.” Eve tried more of the fancy lobster on her plate. “If
you had been Roarke would have kicked your ass already.” She gave Roarke a grin across the table. “Real love’s beautiful, elusive, and mean as a snake.”

“I’ll deal with her,” Roundtree said, and in a cool, flat tone that told Eve he meant it.

“No big. Actually, all this feels less weird now.”

“Can I ask you something?” Marlo leaned toward Eve, kept her voice low.

“Sure.”

“If you decide to kick instead of hang, can I watch, too?”

“The more the merrier.”

A
fter dinner came a buffet of desserts, brandy, liqueurs, coffee, all set up with style in Roundtree’s lower-level theater.

“Hell of a deal here,” Eve commented.

“It is, yes.”

She watched the way Roarke studied the massive screen, the arrangement of thick, cushioned leather chairs, cozy sofas, the lighting, the bar. “I can see the wheels turning.”

“I’ve thought of doing one, but hadn’t decided on design, layout, or location.”