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His girl, he thought as hands and lips began to stoke the first embers of passion. His strong, complicated, and resilient girl. He loved every corner of her mind, her heart, even when she maddened him. There was nothing he wanted or treasured more truly, nothing he had craved or dreamed of in those dark, often desperate years of youth that was as rich or as powerful as what she’d given him.
He’d believed in love despite the lack of it in those early years, or perhaps because of the lack. But it had taken her to show him what love meant, what it gifted, what it cost, what it risked.
Breath quickened as the fire built to a blaze. She moved over him, supple as silk, then under him when he turned her. When he filled her.
Once again he took her hands, once again their eyes met, then their lips. Joined, they let the fire take them.
•••
Later in her office, her board set up, her computer on the hum, she studied the faces, the facts, the evidence, the time line.
And felt as if she studied a blank brick wall.
“I don’t understand them. Maybe that’s why I can’t get a good hold on this. Acting, producing, directing—and all that goes into it. It’s a business, an industry, but it’s based on pretending.”
“You’re equating pretending with pretense,” Roarke responded. “They’re not the same. Imagination’s essential to the healthy human condition, for progress, for art, even for police work.”
She started to disagree about the police work, then reconsidered. She had to imagine, to some extent, the victim, the killer, the events in order to find the reality.
Still.
“These people—the actors. They have to become someone else. They have to want to become someone else. Playacting, isn’t that a term for it? Play. But they have to make a living at it. So you get agents and managers, directors, producers.”
She circled the board. “The director. He has to see the big picture, right? The whole of it even while he separates it into sections, into scenes. He calls the shots, but he’s dependent on the actors taking his direction, and being able to...”
“Become,” Roarke finished. “As you said.”
“Yeah. The producer, he’s got the financial investment and the power. He’s the one who says yeah, he can have that, or no, you can’t. He has to see the big picture, too, but with dollars and cents attached. So he needs more than what the actors and director put on-screen. He needs them to cultivate image and generate media so the public can imagine the real lives—the glamour, the sex, the scandals—of the actors who make their living being someone else.”
She circled again. “So specifically, you’ve got Steinburger as producer—and I imagine the suits that line up with him, because suits always line up—seeing to it the public are fed Julian and Marlo as an item. Because they consider the public largely made up of morons—and I don’t disagree—who’ll buy into the fantasy. More, who want that fantasy and will fork over the ready for more tickets, more home discs. Because, back to business, everybody wants a return on their investment.”
“What does that tell you?”
“For one thing, Julian, Marlo, and everyone involved went along with that angle. Most of their interviews are playful, flirtatious, without actual confirmation or denial. If one or both of them is asked if they’re involved romantically, they give clever varieties of the old ‘we’re just good friends’—with little teases about chemistry and heat. The same goes for Matthew and Harris.”
Eve stopped her pacing in front of the board. “That’s more low-key, as the investment in their fantasy isn’t as important. K.T. did more playing that up—chemistry again, how much she enjoys her scenes with Matthew. He talks more about the project as a whole, or the cast as a group. He’s careful, even in the interviews, not to connect himself too solidly with Harris. He doesn’t want that fantasy in his head, or the public’s. That’s strictly the work on the set. He’s careful,” she said again.
“And that tells you?”
“She wasn’t important to him, not really. People kill what—or who—isn’t important, but that’s not what we’ve got here. He and Marlo were upset, pissed off, but not murderous. If they’d argued, and it got physical, that would have been that. She was alive when she went in the water. She wasn’t important enough to either of them to kill, because over and above the invasion of privacy, some embarrassment, they’d both have gotten through that—and reaped public support—everybody loves a lover.”
“They’re happy,” Roarke added. “Happiness is exceptional revenge. If she’d played it through, she’d have looked the fool, not them. I agree, it doesn’t work.”
“There’s Andrea. K.T. threatened her godson, his hard-won peace, his reputation. Mothers kill to protect their young. She didn’t give me a buzz in Interview, but she’s a seasoned and talented pro. So she’s on. Then there’s Julian. If the relationship between Marlo and Matthew came out—now, before the end of the project, before he’d had any opportunity to walk back all that flirting and chemistry, some might see it as Marlo preferring the lesser star, the sidekick you could say, to the big guns. That could make him look like a fool, or less—chip that women-can’t-resist-me image he’s got going. Added, she embarrassed him at dinner. Added, he was drunk. A confrontation, a scuffle, temper, ego, pride, and alcohol. That’s got a solid ring.”
“I think you enjoy considering me—my counterpart in any case—as your prime suspect.”
“It has a certain entertaining irony. But more, he’s just not too bright, and the drunken stupor on the sofa afterward could read as burying his head in the sand. Let’s make this go away.”
She nodded as it played out in her head. “In the imagination portion of police work, I can see him killing her—mostly through accident followed by cover-this-up, followed by avoidance of reality.”
Eve eased a hip on the corner of her desk. “Steinburger, who I need to talk to again. She’s threatening his profits, the shiny gleam to the project. She’s a major pain in his ass. And, as she had something on several other players here, she may very well have had something up her sleeve on him. Same scenario. Confrontation, fall, cover up.
“She’s threatening Preston—same deal. This project’s a major break for him, working with Roundtree, major stars, major budget, and she wants to screw him because he can’t give in to all her demands. He doesn’t have the power, but she doesn’t care about that.”
“So far you’ve only eliminated Marlo and Matthew,” Roarke pointed out.
“And Roundtree. He just couldn’t have gotten out of the room, up on the roof, killed her, and gotten back in the time frame. He was too much front and center. But Connie wasn’t, and by her own admission left the theater. She was furious with Harris, and since my impression is Roundtree talks to her about the work, the ups and downs, likely already had a nice store of pissed-off going. Again, no buzz, but again, she’s a pro. And again, K.T. may have had something on her, or on Roundtree.
