“And you certainly don’t. Should I apologize for doubting you?”

“You get a free one, seeing as it’s five in the morning and we’ve put in a long night.” She felt generous enough to give him the coffee, and program another mug for herself. “Classy frame job for the most part, though. Whoever did it had to know your girl-what she does for a living, how she reacts. Had to be dead-sure she’d rush over to her pal’s house with blood in her eye. That she’d bypass security. Might have figured she’d just beat on the door first, but that she wouldn’t turn around and slink off home when nobody answered. But they missed a few.”

“Which were?”

“If she’d walked in with a big, nasty knife in her hand, she wouldn’t have dug into her bag of tricks for a minidrill to go at the jacket. If she washed up, why’d she use the other upstairs bath to get sick? Why leave her prints there? How come there’s no blood in her hair? Spatter hits the lamp, some of the wall, and to do what she did, she’d have been right on top of them, but there’s no spatter in her hair. She wash that, too? Then why didn’t the sweepers find any of her hair in the bathroom drains?”

“You’re very thorough.”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks. Whoever did this knows her, Roarke, and the victims. Wanted one or the other of them dead, maybe both. Or maybe just want Reva Ewing doing life in a cage. That’s a puzzler.”

She sat on the corner of her desk sipping her coffee. “I’m going to turn her life inside out, and do the same job on the victims. At least one of them is the key. Whoever did it surveilled the vics, got the photos, the discs. Good quality. And they got into the house as slick as Reva did, so security’s no problem for them. Had a military-style stunner. I need it analyzed yet, but I’m betting it’s no black market knockoff. They think the cop’s going to step into that scene and gobble all that shit right up, then go eat a fricking doughnut.”

“Not my cop.”

“Not any cop in this division or that cop deserves a boot up the ass,” Eve said with feeling. “When something looks that perfect on the surface, it never is down below. Whoever set this up was just a little too creative. Maybe he figured she’d run. That when she woke up, she’d panic and run. But she didn’t. I’m having the medicals go over her, see if she was knocked out, or given a dose of something that knocked her out. She doesn’t strike me as the fainting type.”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

Still sipping, she looked at him over the rim of her mug. “You’re going to get in my face on this again?”

“I am, yes.” He touched her arm, ran his hand down it, then let her go. “Both Caro and Reva are important to me. I’ll ask you to let me help. If you refuse, I’ll go around you. I’ll be sorry for it, but I’ll do it. Caro isn’t just an employee to me, Eve. She’s asked me for help, and she’s never asked me for anything before. Not once in all the years she’s been with me. I can’t step aside on this, not even for you.”

She took another contemplative sip. “If you could step aside on this, even for me, you wouldn’t be the man I fell for in the first place, would you?”

He set his coffee down, stepped over to frame her face in his hands. “Remember this moment, won’t you, the next time you’re furious with me? And I’ll do the same.” He lowered his head to press his lips to her forehead. “I’ll send you my files on both Caro and Reva, which contain considerable personal data. And I’ll get you more.”

“That’s a good start.”

“Caro asked me to do so.” He eased back. “I would’ve done it anyway, but it’s easier all around that she asked. You’ll find, in your dealings with her, she is scrupulous.”

“How’d she get that way working for you?”

He grinned now. “A paradox, isn’t it? You’ll call Feeney in?”

“I’m going to need ace EDD men, so yeah, it’ll be Feeney-and he’ll bring in McNab.”

“I could help with the electronics.”

“If Feeney wants you, he can have you. I’ll clear it with the commander. But you know it’s going to be touchy, your connection to the suspect. If I don’t convince Commander Whitney this is a frame, he’s not going to go along, even unofficially.”

“My money’s on you.”

“Let’s take it a step at a time. Get Caro home.”

“I will. I’m going to clear my calendar as much as possible until this is finished.”

“You paying for the lawyers?”

“She won’t let me.” A shadow of annoyance rippled over his face. “Neither of them will budge in that particular area.”

“One more. Did you and Reva ever tango?”

“Do you mean were we ever lovers? No.”

“Good. Slightly less sticky that way. Clear out,” she ordered. “I’ve got to round up my partner and drive to Queens.”

“Could I ask a question first?”

“Make it snappy.”

“If you’d walked into that scene tonight, and there’d been no connection, would you have looked at it the same way?”

“There was no connection when I walked onto the scene,” she told him. “That’s how I could see it for what it was. I couldn’t take you in with me, not literally, not in my head. You’d’ve done the same.”

“I like to think so.”

“You would have. You know how to be cold when you have to be. I mean that in a good way.”

“I believe you do,” he said with a half laugh.

“I did let you in a minute after I stepped out of it.”

“Did you?”

“I thought: If Roarke had set this up, nobody would’ve seen the frame. Whoever did it should’ve taken lessons.”

This time he did laugh, and she was pleased to see some of the worry warm out of his eyes. “Well now, that is high praise.”

“Just calling them as I see them, and another reason I’ve agreed to use you. I want to find out the how and why of a classy frame, I might as well make use of somebody who’d know the hows and whys. Start thinking about what Reva’s working on for you-or what she has been working on, or will be.”

“I already am.”

“See, just one more reason. You’re going to want a bodyguard for Caro, just in case. She’d prefer private to a cop.”

“It’s already done.”

“And the reasons just keep on ticking. Beat it.”

“Since you ask so nice.” He kissed her first, a soft touch of mouth to mouth. “Get something decent to eat,” he called out as he left.

And though her gaze went to the ceiling tile where she was currently hiding her candy stash, she didn’t think that was quite what he had in mind.

She was expecting a midlevel suburban house. The Ewing-Bissel place was several steps up from mid. It was a very contemporary streamlined white box-on-box behind a recycled-stone riot fence. Lots of one-way glass and sharp angles.

The entrance area was that same recycled stone, tinted a strong red. There were ornamental trees and shrubs growing out of large pots and several odd metal sculptures she attributed to Blair Bissel.

But it struck her as cold, and more pretentious than gingerbread and gilt.

“Ewing knows her security,” Peabody commented after they’d dealt with the layers of it just to get through the riot wall. “Fancy digs, too, if you go for this kind of thing.”

“You don’t?”

“Uh-uh.” Peabody grimaced as they walked over the red stone lawn. “This kind of design makes me think of a prison, and I can’t quite figure out if it keeps people in, or keeps them out. And the art.”

She stopped to study a squat metal shape with eight spindly legs and an elongated triangular head, lined with sparkling teeth.

“We’ve got a lot of artists in the family,” Peabody went on. “A couple who work primarily in metals, and some of the stuff’s odd. But it’s… interesting odd and usually kind of fun or poignant.”

“Poignant metal.”

“Yeah, really. But this, I guess it’s a cross between a watchdog and a spider. It’s creepy, and a little mean. And what about that?”