“Thanks.

  The way was dim, a little twisty—but Eliza Lane’s dressing room—bold white door, her name in gold—showed clearly enough. They’d go through that, too, very soon. But for now …

  A dozen people stood onstage, most of them sweating in dancewear. Samantha stood doing a one-legged quad stretch. Eliza huddled on the other side of the stage with the choreographer and director.

  The director crossed over. “Okay, let’s take it from the top. And let me see some energy. The number’s ‘I’m the Talent,’ so prove it. Places.”

  Eve stepped out. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  Every eye turned to her. She wondered how they all felt when they knew every eye in the theater—hundreds of eyes—all focused on them.

  She supposed that’s why they got up onstage to begin with.

  “Take ten, everybody,” the director called. “Lieutenant, do you need Eliza?”

  “I do.”

  “Please tell me you have something.” Eliza strode across the stage. “Something real, something definite, something worth stopping rehearsal.”

  “I do,” Eve said again. “Eliza Lane, you’re under arrest for the murder of Brant Fitzhugh, a human being.”

  Gasps and cries of shock erupted around them, but Eliza only stared at Eve.

  “You’ve lost your mind.”

  “No, and I can warn you, that defense won’t work for you. You have the right to remain silent,” she began, and cuffed Eliza’s hands behind her back as she read off the Revised Miranda.

  Dolby had all but flown out from his seat in the audience and leapt onstage.

  “You can’t do this to her! That crazy woman killed Brant.”

  Desperate to get to Eliza, he shoved at Peabody.

  “Mr. Kessler, step back now.” Peabody blocked him. “It won’t help if we have to arrest you for interfering with police officers.”

  “But you can’t do this! Don’t worry, Eliza. I’m going to get your lawyer right now.”

  “Don’t, don’t bother. This is insane. I’ll straighten it out.”

  “I’m going with you!”

  “No,” Eve told him. “You’re not. You’re welcome to get yourself down to Cop Central and wait.”

  “Then you can just arrest me, too, because—”

  “Go back to the penthouse, Dolby.” Eliza gave the order, deadly calm. “Go straight there, and don’t talk to any reporters.”

  “But, Eliza!”

  “You do that for me, Dolby. That’s what I need you to do. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Eve told her.

  Eliza kept her head high. “Please, everyone, keep this horrible, desperate act inside our family. Not for me, no, not for me, but for Brant.”

  Don’t count on it, Eve thought again.

  They led her out the way they’d come in. Eliza didn’t speak until they were outside.

  “You’ll pay for this.” She said it quietly, coldly, bitterly. “You can’t imagine how much you’ll pay for this.”

  “I get paid for this.” When Peabody opened the back door, Eve put a hand on Eliza head, nudged her in and down. “But this is one of those times I’d do it for free.”

  23

  Before they got in the car, Eve turned to Peabody. “You’re going to take her straight into Interview.”

  “You don’t want to book her?”

  “Not yet. Take her in, uncuff her, offer to get her something to drink.”

  Peabody gave Eve the puppy dog eyes. “I’m going to play nice with her.”

  “You know how you played Debra? They’re the same, Peabody. Under the polish and money, the fame, they’re the same. Eliza here? She’s probably got more brains, and she’s a cold-blooded killer, but they run on the same fuel. You play her the same way.”

  “Yeah. All right. I see that.”

  With a nod, Eve pulled out her ’link and tagged Reo. “I’m bringing Lane in. You’re going to want to be there.”

  She got behind the wheel. “Text Mira, Peabody. Give her an ETA.”

  “I’ll bury you for this.”

  Eve flicked a glance in the rearview. There’s the face, Eve thought, the true face under the mask. Stone-cold.

  “You humiliated me, onstage, in front of the cast and crew. You wanted to.”

  “You happened to be onstage with the cast and crew at the time of your arrest. But yeah, that was an added perk.”

  “You think you’re important. You think because some marginally talented actor played you on-screen you’re somebody? You’re nothing.”

  “I think I’m a cop and you’re a murderer cuffed in the back of my ride. Maybe I’m nothing, but I’ve got one up on you, Eliza.”

  “You really don’t understand who I am.”

  Once again, Eve flicked a glance in the rearview. “That’s where you’re wrong. I understand exactly who you are.”

  “I’m Eliza fucking Lane.” Anger, deep and dark, brought hot color to her cheeks, and turned those icy eyes colder yet.

  “If I were to get out of this car right now, dozens of people would flock around me for a photo, for an autograph, for even three seconds of my time.”

  “If you were to get out of this car right now, I’d stun you. That would make a hell of a photo, wouldn’t it, Peabody? Eliza fucking Lane, sprawled on the sidewalk after being arrested for her husband’s murder.”

  “Jeez, Dallas.” Peabody hunched her shoulders.

  “Just saying.” Eve looked in the rearview a third time. Smiled broadly. “Want to test me?”

  “You married a rich, important man, so you think that makes you something.”

  “Uh-huh. Oh hey, Peabody, remember that building, the one where that asshole Teegan Stone has his club, lives over it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Looks like I bought it.”

  Sincerely stunned, Peabody twisted in her seat. “You did what!”

  “Well, my rich, important husband bought it for me. Now I have to figure out—or he will, because what the hell do I know?—how to beef it up. Of course, that means Stone has to find another place to house his business and himself.”

  “Okay, wow. This is beyond the mag. Oh, oh, you could ditch the slick and rock it out extreme. I bet Avenue A would play there, and you know Mavis would.”

  “There’s a thought. I have these rich, important friends,” Eve said casually to Eliza. “Funny how that works.”

  She pulled into Central’s garage.

  “Mavis Freestone is a flash in the pan, riding the wave on questionable style and no substance.”

  Eve got out, came around to pull Eliza out of the back. “I think that’s what they call mixing metaphors. Here’s today’s news for you, Eliza. Mavis will keep right on flashing while you’re sitting in a concrete off-planet cage wondering why nobody gives a flying fuck about your autograph.”

  In the elevator, Eve and Peabody flanked her.

  She decided to ride it all the way up to Homicide, no matter how often it stopped to let on more cops. Cops who did a quick double take at Eliza or shot Eve a what-the-hell glance.

  “Make a hole,” Eve ordered when they reached her level.

  After they escorted Eliza out, Eve stepped back. “Take her to Interview.”

  Eve veered off, went straight to her office, and tagged Berenski at the lab.

  “Christ’s sake, Dallas, it’s been five fucking minutes.”

  She stared into the beady eyes in his egg-shaped head. “Kid who could’ve found that bottle, downed it like soda pop? Her name’s Clara.”

  “Shit. I hate getting my heartstrings plucked. Yeah, it’s cyanide. It’s the same as what took out Fitzhugh and Bernstein.”

  “Why didn’t you just say so?”

  “You pluck my heartstrings to get me to push everything aside and do this, I yank your chain. Vodka in the bottle is the vodka Bernstein drank with the cyanide.”

  “I’m feeling very fond of you at this moment, Berenski. I’m grateful the feeling will pass, but at this moment, fond.”

  “Ah, kiss my ass.”

  “Not that fond,” she said, and made him snicker.

  “You’re gonna be fonder when I tell you what Harvo got for you.”

  Eve had counted on Harvo, the Queen of Hair and Fiber. “It’s the shoes.”

  “She ain’t finished with the rest, but you had it right on the shoes. Cheap-ass carpet, good treads on the shoes picked up some cheap-ass fiber that matches what the sweepers brought in from the crime scene.”

  “Maybe I’ll kiss Harvo’s ass. Those uniforms standing by?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “I need everything back here—Interview A—as soon as you can process it. She knew that kid played and slept in that room. She knew it and didn’t give it a thought.”

  “We’ll get them to you.”

  She clicked off and turned. She’d heard Reo coming down the short hallway.

  She’d smoothed her hair, sort of rolled it up at the back of her neck. A new look that showed off a pair of short, dangling earrings. Instead of a suit, she’d gone with a body-skimming dress in a color that wasn’t quite blue, wasn’t quite gray.

  And shoes with those needle heels that were absolutely blue and bold with it.

  “What’s this?” Eve wondered, and flipped a finger up and down.

  “You noticed.”

  “I’m a cop. I notice everything.”

  “Eliza Lane. I thought, Cher honey, it’s not every day you get to take on a multiple murderer, multiple Tony and Grammy winner, an Oscar winner. How about a sleek new look for this opportunity? You can’t tell me you didn’t think about that when you went with ‘I’ll kick every square inch of your ass before I hand it back to you’ black.”

  “It was two in the morning. I grabbed the handy. But now that you mention it. Let me catch you up and tell you how I want to play it.”

  Reo pointed to the AC; Eve held up two fingers.

  And with coffee, they got to work.

  Toward the end of it, Peabody came in carrying an evidence box. “From the lab. Uniforms said Dickhead sent the reports.”

  “He did.” Eve patted a file on her desk.

  “I settled her in, got her fizzy water—fizzy spring water. I’m playing nice,” Peabody told Reo.

  “You do it so well. You lull them the way Dallas couldn’t pull off.”

  “I told her I was sorry for the inconvenience, then went on about how I loved her in Beyond the Grave—that’s her Oscar winner—and which I really did. Now won’t ever be able to watch again. You look way uptown, Reo.”

  “Thanks. Well, ladies, shall we?”

  “We damn well shall.”

  They headed out with Reo going to Observation for the first act.

  Eliza sat, slowly sipping her water as they entered, as Eve started the record, read in the data.

  “You’ll verify you were read your rights?”

  “Read to me for the express purpose of embarrassing me in front of my people, yes.”

  “Actually, the express purpose is to inform you of your rights and obligations. You do understand your rights and obligations?”

  “I understand everything.”

  “Great.” Eve sat, put her file on the table beside the evidence box. “So, first question. Why the hell did you kill your husband?”

  “That’s a horrible, vicious, ugly thing to say.” Tears swirled, and a single one slid slowly, gracefully down her left cheek.

  “It’s a horrible, vicious, ugly thing to do. Like you told me, you’re a really important woman. So let’s not waste your important time. Why’d you do it?”

  “You know very well that monster Debra Bernstein killed my Brant. She took him away from me. She came into my home, stole my award, killed my husband.”

  “Here’s what I noticed, he came last on that list of offenses. Anyway—”

  “Don’t you dare demean my love for Brant! Don’t you dare.”

  Peabody, who’d anticipated, set a stack of tissues on the table, nudged them over.

  Eliza grabbed one, wiped at tears. “You told me she killed him.”

  “Did I?”

  “You came to my house, told me. Of course, at first you thought that crazy man, that stalker, did it. Now you’re going after me.”

  “It’s like they say—whoever the hell they are—third time rings the bell.”

  “The charm,” Peabody corrected.

  “Rings the charm?”

  “No. Is the charm. Never mind. Ms. Lane, there are some, well, discrepancies we have to clear up before—”

  “So you attack me?” She grabbed another tissue. “I lost the love of my life in such a horrible way. He’s gone because that vicious woman tried to kill me! I’ve tried to be strong, tried to think of what Brant would want me to do.”

  “Bet he’d say he wouldn’t want you to kill him.”

  “I see what you are,” Eliza tossed back. “Second-rate at best, overhyped because you got lucky here and there, because you married lucky on top of it. You want another notch in your belt, that’s what I am to you. Get your name and face splashed all over again, strut around like you’re a big deal.”

  “I don’t strut. Do I strut?”

  Peabody hunched her shoulders again. “You’ve been known to, on occasion.”

  “You just want the power,” Eliza went on. “The control. You just want to be on top, whatever it takes. Believe me, I’m going to see you crushed at the bottom when I’m done.”

  “Because you’re not half-bad at pretending to be somebody else? Because you can break into a song and dance on cue, like a puppet?”

  Fury full-blown, Eliza shoved to her feet. “Because I’m Eliza Lane. I can snap my fingers and thousands, millions of people will come for you. I’ve spent twenty-five years in the spotlight because nobody does it better. I’m admired. I’m beloved. My fans, my colleagues will swarm you like wasps. And when that’s done, I’ll sue you for every penny Roarke has.”

  “That’s a lot of pennies. Sit your ass down.”

  “You will speak to me with respect.”

  Eve got to her feet. “In this room, I am the power and the control. You’ll sit your ass down, or you’ll be sitting it down in a holding cell, where you can get acquainted with some of the unlicensed LCs, some of the junkies and other residents of that area. Some may be fans.”

  “Please, Ms. Lane. Take a seat. I asked the lieutenant to let me bring you straight in here so you avoid holding.”

  “Very well.” She sat. “But whether I stand or sit changes nothing. I’m innocent, and you know it. You’re doing this for your own advancement, your own press. My husband’s dead, taken away from the world in my place. Debra Bernstein came into my home, disguised, hid in my home, then snuck into my party. She poisoned my drink, and Brant…”

  She looked away, dabbing at tears. “He died in my place.”

  “Funny you didn’t even take a sip of that drink.”

  “I’m sure you’d be happier if I were lying in the morgue instead of Brant. Perhaps he’d be sitting here now, being accused and insulted by you. And I know why. You embarrassed yourself trying to pin this on that stalker. You couldn’t get your publicity-generating arrest there. You were all set to get that with Debra, and now you can’t because she’s dead.”

  Eve sat back, smiled, and said, “Oops.”

  Peabody winced. “Yeah, major oops.”

  Eve leaned forward. “How do you know Bernstein’s dead?”

  Eliza looked blank, but only for an instant. “Someone on the crew was talking about it.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know! Someone. I overheard. She committed suicide, poisoned herself. Clearly, she killed Brant, but you want the splash so you’re torturing me.”

  “First, nobody in the crew talked about it so you could overhear because at the time of your arrest her death hadn’t been made public.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Things like this leak all the time.”

  “Here’s what leaked, the ceiling in the unit below hers because she’d left the water running in the tub when you came to call. Didn’t know that, did you, Eliza? Changes things. We found her hours before you’d planned.”

  “It changes nothing. Crew gossip, that’s all. I could hardly have killed her when I had no idea where she was.”

  “You found out. It didn’t just piss you off—and boy did it—that she made bail, but opened an opportunity.” She nodded at Peabody, who took a ’link out of the evidence box.

  “Right after we left the theater, EDD went in,” Peabody explained. “This is Lin Jacoby’s ’link. The one you used to contact Maeve Spindal in London, where you pretended to be L. W. Jacoby, Carlton J. Greene’s admin’s assistant.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “Ms. Spindal was more than happy to confirm the contact by Greene’s office, about ten minutes after I left you yesterday. Of course,” Eve added, “Greene also confirmed he has no one by that name working for him, and no one contacted Spindal for his client’s address for the files.”

  “If Lin did such a thing—”

  “It was a female on the contact.”

  “I made no such contact, I had no idea where that woman was staying.”

  “You never went to the West End Hotel,” Eve asked, “to room 301?”

  “I certainly did not.”

  “Next,” Eve said to Peabody.

  “These are your shoes.” Peabody pulled them out. “Taken from your closet this morning.”

  “You had no right to—”

  “We had a warrant, Ms. Lane. Fibers taken from the treads of these shoes are from the carpet in Ms. Bernstein’s hotel room. Room 301.”

  “Then she planted them there.” Eliza pointed an accusing finger at Eve.

  “It’s all on the record, Eliza. We’re careful about things like that. Then there’s this.” This time Eve stood to take the vodka bottle out of the box. “You took this to her room, knowing she’d drink. She liked her vodka. And this is the good stuff—not like the swill she had in the room. We recovered this from the bag you carried it in. And this.” She took out the small vial. “With traces of cyanide inside.”

  “None of that is mine. I don’t drink vodka.”