"Pays shit." This was from Trina. The beauty consultant circled Peabody as a sculptor might with a flawed piece of marble – with interest, caution, and faint derision.

Trina was wearing eyebrow rings today, a fact that made Eve wince when she looked at the tiny gold hoops pinned to the outer line. Her hair, a deep plum purple, was slicked up in a foot-high cone. Her choice of outfit was a somewhat conservative black jumpsuit with the holiday touch of naked Santas dancing over each breast.

And this, Eve thought as she pressed her fingers to her eyes, this was the pair she'd convinced Whitney to budget into the case account.

"I want to keep it simple," she told them. "I just don't want her to look like a cop."

"What do you think, Trina?" Mavis leaned over Peabody's shoulder, pulling at her own curls so they lay over Peabody's cheeks. "This color'd rock on her. Festive, right? Holiday time. And wait till you see the wardrobe I got Leonardo to lend us." She bounced back, grinning. "There's this peekaboo skinsuit that's really you, Peabody."

"Skinsuit." Peabody paled, thinking of bulges. "Lieutenant."

"Simple," Eve said again, ready to desert her aide.

"What do you use on your skin?" Trina demanded, taking a firm hold of Peabody's chin. "Sandpaper?"

"Um – "

"You got pores like moon craters here, girlfriend. You need a full facial treatment. I'm starting with a peeler."

"Oh God." Panicked, Peabody tried to jerk her chin free. "Listen – "

"Are those tits yours or enhanced?"

"Mine." Instantly, Peabody crossed her arms over her chest and grabbed her own breasts before Trina could. "They're mine. I'm really happy with them."

"They're good tits. Okay, strip. Let's have a look at them, and the rest of you."

"Strip?" Peabody swiveled her head until her terrified eyes latched onto Eve's. "Dallas, Lieutenant. Sir?"

"You said you could handle undercover, Peabody." After one sympathetic shudder, Eve turned and started out. "You've got two hours with her."

"I need three," Trina called out. "I don't rush my art."

"You got two." Firmly Eve shut the door on Peabody's shocked squeak.

It seemed best all around, Eve thought, if she stayed as far away from what was happening to her aide as possible. She decided to pay a visit to an old friend.

Charles Monroe was a licensed companion, as slick and attractive a prostitute as Eve had encountered, on or off the force. He'd once helped her with a case – and then offered her his services for free.

She'd taken the help, and politely refused the offer.

Now she pressed the buzzer outside his elegant apartment in a high-priced midtown building. A building Roarke owned, she thought with a roll of her eyes.

When the security beam blinked green, she lifted a brow, aiming a look at the peephole and holding up her badge in case Charles had forgotten her.

When he opened the door, he proved she needn't have worried about his memory. "Lieutenant Sugar." He caught her off guard with a strong hug and a quick, slightly too intimate kiss.

"Hands off, pal."

"I never got to kiss the bride." He winked at her, a sleepy-eyed, handsome man with an elegant face. "So how do you like being married to the richest man in the universe?"

"He keeps me in coffee."

Charles cocked his head, studied her. "You're in love with him, all the way. Well, good for you. I see the two of you on screen now and then. At some glitzy do. I wondered how it was with you. Now I see, and I have to assume you're not here to take me up on that offer I made some months back."

"I need to talk to you."

"Okay, come on in." He stepped back, gesturing. He wore a black unisuit that showed off a very well-disciplined body. "Want a drink? I doubt my blend of coffee compares to what Roarke can supply. How about a tube of Pepsi?"

"Yeah, fine."

She remembered his kitchen. Neat, spartan, clean lined. A great deal like its tenant. She took a seat while he took two tubes out of the cold box and poured each into a tall clear glass. He rolled the tubes, slipped them into the recycle slot, then sat down across from her.

"I'd drink to old times, Dallas, but… they sucked."

"Yeah. Well, I've got some new times for you, Charles. They suck, too. Why is a successful LC using a dating service? Before you answer," she continued, lifting her glass, "I'll inform you that using such services for professional solicitations is illegal."

He blushed. She wouldn't have believed it possible, but his strong, handsome face colored painfully and his gaze dropped to his glass. "Jesus, do you know everything?"

"If I knew everything, I'd know the answer. Why don't you give it to me?"

"It's private," he muttered.

"I wouldn't be here if it was. Why have you gone to Personally Yours for consults?"

"Because I want a woman in my life," he snapped. His head came up, and now his eyes were dark and angry. "A real woman, not one who buys me, all right? I want a goddamn relationship, what's wrong with that? In my line of work, they don't happen. You do what you're paid to do, and you do it well. I like my job, but I want a personal life. There's nothing illegal about wanting a personal life."

"No," she said slowly, "there's not."

"So I lied about what I do on the form." He moved his shoulders restlessly. "I didn't want to match up with the kind of woman who'd get some purient thrill out of dating an LC. You going to arrest me for lying on a fucking dating video?"

"No." And she was sorry, sincerely, to have embarrassed him. "You matched up with a woman. Marianna Hawley. Do you remember her?"

"Marianna." He struggled to regain his composure, drank deeply of the iced drink. "I remember her video. Pretty woman, sweet. I contacted her, but she'd already met someone." Now he smiled, shrugged again. "Just my luck. She was exactly the type I was looking for."

"You never met her?"

"No. I went out with the other four from my first match list. Hit it off with one of them. We saw each other off and on for a few weeks." He blew out a breath. "I decided if it was going to go anywhere, I had to tell her what I really did. And that," he finished, toasting Eve with his glass, "was the end of that."

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, there are more where she came from." But his cocky smile didn't reach his eyes. "Too bad Roarke took you out of the running."

"Charles, Marianna is dead."

"What?"

"Haven't you caught the news lately?"

"No. I haven't been watching any screen. Dead?" Then his eyes sharpened, focused in on Eve. "Murdered. You wouldn't be here if she'd died quietly in her sleep. She was murdered. Am I a suspect?"

"Yeah, you are," she said because she liked him enough to be straight with him. "I'm going to want to do a formal interview, just to keep it all official. But tell me now, can you clear yourself for last Tuesday night, for Wednesday, and for last night?"

He stared at her for a long time, just stared with eyes dull with horror. "How do you do what you do?" he demanded. "Day in and day out?"

She met those eyes levelly. "I could ask you the same thing, Charles. So let's not get into career choices. Can you alibi?"

He broke the stare, pushed away from the table. "I'll get my book."

She let him go, knowing she could trust her gut on this one. He wasn't a man who had murder inside him.

He came back carrying a small, elegant date book. Opening it, he plugged in the dates she'd asked for. "Tuesday, I had an overnight. Regular client. It can be verified. Last night I had a theater, late supper, and seduction here. The client left at two-thirty a.m. Got thirty minutes overtime out of it. And a handsome tip. Wednesday I was home, alone."

He slid the book across the table to her. "Take the names, check it out."

She said nothing, merely copied the names and addresses into her own book. "Sarabeth Greenbalm, Donnie Ray Michael," she said at length. "Either ring for you?"