In Death 26 - Strangers in Death

nodded to the screen. “Do you figure she makes enough in a dive like this to pay for a private coach?”
    “Not in a thousand rides on the pole, not here.”
    “She’s going to tell us where she’s getting the money for the coach, how many favors she’s done for Ava. And I’m going to know if one of those favors was killing him.”
    “There she is.”
    Roarke looked away from Eve’s fierce eyes to the screen where a tall blonde in a short green robe swayed through the tables on glossy, high-platform heels. As she passed, one of the men at a table for three reached out, stuck his hand under her robe.
    The blonde backhanded him, knocking him out of the chair without breaking stride.
    “Well now, there’s another woman who can take care of herself.” He smiled at Eve. “That sort never fails to appeal to me.”

18
    IT WAS CERTAINLY INTERESTING, TO ROARKE’S MIND, sharing a small room with the outsized personalities of two women. Cassie Gordon shoved herself into the room, a provocatively dressed Amazon with annoyed eyes the same hard brown as her roots. The eyes latched on Eve, and the wide, mobile mouth curled.
    “You got ten minutes. I’m on in twenty. I don’t dance, I don’t get paid, so unless the freaking NYPSD plans on compensating me for my…”
    Her gaze tracked over to Roarke, zeroed in. Annoyance one-eightied to pleasure; the lips rearranged themselves from curl to curve. “Well, hello, Officer Incredible. Are you here to search and manhandle me? I hope.”
    Roarke didn’t have time to decide if he felt amusement or insult at being mistaken for a cop before Eve stepped into Cassie’s face. “You’re going to want to talk to me.”
    “I’d rather talk, and lots and lots of other things, with him.” But she shrugged, dropped into a chair, crossed her long, bare legs. “What’s the beef?”
    “Let’s start off with your whereabouts between one and five A.M. on the morning of March eighteenth. Tuesday morning.”
    “Home.” She skimmed back her hair, gave Roarke what he considered a rather masterful eye-fuck. “In my big, lonely bed.”
    “Cut the crap, Cassie, or we’ll be having this conversation at Central.”
    “What’s your twist? That time of night I’m home. I work days.”
    “A lot of people in your profession put in overtime. You were acquainted with Thomas Anders?”
    “Not especially. I know who he is—was,” she corrected. “My little girl’s in the Anders sports program. She’s a figure skater. She’s a champion. But I didn’t hob with the nob.”
    “Ever been to the Anders home?”
    “Are you fucking kidding me?” Cassie reared back her head and laughed. “Is she fucking kidding me?” she said to Roarke.
    “She’s not, no. Why is the question so amusing?”
    “I take my clothes off and turn tricks for a living. Not the kind of dinner party guest I expect the Anderses entertain regular.”
    “But Mrs. Anders did indeed entertain you,” Roarke continued. “At retreats, spas, hotels.”
    “That’s different. Those things were for mothers of kids in the programs. I’m a goddamn good mother,” she snapped, pointing at her own partially concealed breasts. “Nobody can say different.”
    “No one is,” Roarke said smoothly as Eve appeared to be giving him the line. “But you did socialize with Ava Anders.”
    The sound she made combined snort with Bronx cheer. “If you can call it that.”
    “What would you call it?”
    “Same kind of arrangement I just concluded upstairs.”
    “She fuck you, Cassie?” Eve asked.
    “Not literally. I got no problem doing the girl-on-girl if the fee’s right, but I don’t think she’s into that.” A shrug shifted the robe so her right breast peeked out coyly. “She wanted something, I gave it, and I got paid. That’s how I look at it.”
    “What did she want?”
    “I figure I got the invite so she could show how—what’s the word—democratic she is. And I figure that’s bull. But my kid? She’s a freaking jewel, so I can take the bull or anything else gets thrown at me if it’s for her.”
    “What did Ava throw at you?”
    “Look, I gotta get in costume. It’s my last round this shift, and I can’t afford—”
    “You’ll be compensated.” Roarke remained relaxed, answered his wife’s stony stare with the mildest of glances while Cassie studied them both.
    “I can earn five hundred on the last round.”
    “Talk about bull,” Eve began.
    “You’ll be compensated,” Roarke