In Death 07 - Holiday in Death

someone fun who she could enjoy art -- no, no, it was theater, I believe." She tapped one perfectly shaped nail against her bottom lip. "She was a romantic, rather sweetly old-fashioned."
    It seemed to come to her all at once, and Piper's hand dropped limply to her side. "She's been murdered? Oh, Rudy."
    "Sit down, dear." He came gracefully around the console to take her hand, pat it. to lead her to a long sofa with deep air cushions. "Piper becomes very personally involved with our clients," he told Eve. "That's why she's so marvelous at her work. She cares."
    "So do I, Rudy."
    Though her voice was flat, his eyes flicked over her face and whatever he saw had him nodding. "Yes, I'm sure you do. You suspect that someone in our system, someone she might have met through our service, killed her."
    "I'm investigating. I need names."
    "Give her whatever she needs, Rudy." Piper patted her fingers under her eyes to dry tears.
    "I'd like to, but we have a responsibility to our clients. We guarantee privacy."
    "Marianna Hawley was entitled to privacy," Eve said shortly. "Someone raped her, sodomized her, and strangled her. I'd say they pretty much violated her privacy. I doubt any of your clients would enjoy sharing in that experience."
    Rudy took a deep breath. His face was paler now, if that was possible, so that his eyes seemed to burn against a field of glossy white. "I trust you'll be discreet."
    "You can trust I'll be good," Eve said in return and waited for him to call up the list of matches.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Sarabeth Greenbalm wasn't having a good day. First off she hated working the afternoon shift at the Sweet Spot. The clientele from noon to five consisted primarily of junior execs looking for a long lunch and cheap thrills. With the emphasis on cheap. The climbing-the-corporate-ladder crowd didn't have a lot of money to toss to a stripper.
    They just liked to gawk and hoot.
    Five hours of hard work had netted her just under a hundred in cash and credit chips, and a half a dozen drunken propositions.
    None of which included marriage.
    Marriage was Sarabeth's Holy Grail.
    She wasn't going to find a rich husband in the afternoon set of a strip club. Even a high-class club like the Sweet Spot. There was potential in the night hours, when the VPs and CEOs sauntered in, bringing important clients for an hour or two of titillation. She could make a thousand easily, and when you added in some lap dancing, double that. But the best was collecting business cards.
    Sooner or later one of those corporate suits with their big, white smiles and perfectly manicured and grabby hands was going to put a ring on her finger for the privilege of groping her.
    It was all part of the career plan she'd carefully mapped out when she'd moved from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to New York City five years before. Stripping in Allentown had been a dead-end situation, netting her just enough per week to keep her from becoming another sidewalk sleeper. Still, moving to New York had been risky. There was more competition for the same recreation dollar.
    Younger competition.
    The first year she'd worked two shifts, three if she could still stand. She'd worked as a roamer, sliding from club to club and shelling out the hard-line forty percent of take to the managers. It had been a gruesome year, but she'd earned her nest egg.
    The second year she'd focused on nailing a regular spot at an upscale club. It had taken nearly all of those twelve months, but she'd carved her niche at the Sweet Spot. During her third year she'd fought her way up the food chain to shift headliner, cagily investing her profits. And, she admitted, she had wasted nearly six months considering the cohabitation offer of the club's head smasher.
    She might have done it, too, if he hadn't gone and gotten himself sliced into six separate pieces in a bar fight at a dive where he'd been moonlighting because Sarabeth had insisted he needed a bigger bank account if he wanted her to sleep with him on a permanent basis.
    She'd decided to consider it a lucky escape. Now, well into year four, she was forty-three years old and running out of time.
    She didn't mind naked dancing. Hell, she was a damn good dancer and her body -- she studied it as she turned in front of her bedroom mirror -- was her meal ticket.
    Nature had been generous, gifting her with high, full breasts that hadn't required augmentation. So far. A long torso, long legs, a firm ass. Yes, she had all the necessary weapons.
    She'd