In Death 30 - Fantasy in Death

couldn’t possibly be on time.”
    “Hah. Who knew? I’m almost always fashionable.” She held out her hand. “Come on, man-flesh. We’ve got to rock.”
     
    Music rang from the rooftop and into the deepening skies. People glittered and gleamed and glided, bussing each other’s cheeks, chattering happily over bubbling wine. Candles, already lighted, flickered. The wind was picking up, Eve noted.
    They were likely to get that storm before it was done.
    “They’re going to want to close the dome before long,” Eve said to Roarke.
    “We might as well enjoy the night air while we can. You’ll want to congratulate Nadine.”
    “She’s surrounded.” And Trina had been right. Nadine looked abso fab in siren red, her hair artfully tumbled and scattered with sparkling pins that caught the last light of the sun. “I’ll wait until she’s got some breathing room.”
    “You’re here!” Peabody, her hand caught in McNab’s, hurried over on the famous shoes. They were silver, opened at the toe to show off pale pink toenails, strapped multiple times at the ankles, and as sparkly as Nadine’s pins.
    “Isn’t this mag? Total. Everybody’s here, and Nadine’s so happy. The music’s completely hot, and Mavis said she’s agreed to do a number later. Gosh,” she said after she’d taken a moment to breathe. “You guys look beautiful. Seriously.”
    “You couldn’t look lovelier.” Roarke took Peabody’s hand and kissed it. “You’re a lucky man, Ian.”
    McNab grinned. “Damn right, and if things go my way I’ll get luckier later.”
    Peabody giggled and elbowed him.
    Eve heard the squeal and turned. No one squealed like Mavis Freestone squealed. Her hair, summer blond and cotton-candy pink, bounced down her back as she bulleted—on the towering toothpicks held on her feet by two skinny crisscrossing straps— toward Eve. Her pink gown, caught at the hip with an enormous jeweled pin, flowed and flared with a slit that showed her pretty leg right up to the hip.
    “I knew that dress would be Triple T on you!” She danced into Eve’s arms, then back again. “This is the juiciest party, and look at us! We’re the juice. Moonpie! Come see what your dress does for Dallas.”
    Moonpie—or Leonardo—walked over in his version of a tux. The long, smoked silver coat suited his coppery skin and his considerable size. That same silver wound here and there through the rich copper curls that fell around his wide, fascinating face.
    “It’s what Dallas does for the dress. I hope you like it.”
    “It’s terrific. Thanks for the pockets.”
    He smiled at her, kissed her cheek. “I thought you’d like having them. Let me get you all a drink.”
    “I’ll help you with that,” Roarke said, and after another Peabody elbow poke, McNab went with them.
    “Hey, there’s Trina. Be right back,” Peabody said. “I need to ask her a hair question.”
    “You sicced Trina on me, didn’t you?”
    Mavis rounded midnight blue eyes in innocence. “Don’t you have to read me my rights before you question me?”
    “Another smartass. Speaking of reading you your rights, we go back.”
    “Yeah, to when you first arrested me on the grift. Now look at me. I’m a married woman and a mommy, and I’ve got a career. I didn’t have to steal any of it. Life’s twisty keen.”
    “At least. I’ve been friends with you longer than I’ve been friends with anyone.”
    “Double back at you.”
    “So, we’re tight, and we know each other about as well as people ever do. You could say we love each other, in a nonlesbian lifestyle way.”
    “We might’ve done the les, if we’d gone a really long time without men. If we, like, washed up on a deserted island for months, or—”
    “Yeah, yeah, you’d be the first I’d jump,” Eve said and made Mavis snicker. “But what I’m wondering is, what would it take, what would I have to do to make you want to kill me. Literally kill, not think ‘I could kill Dallas for that.’”
    “Oh, easy. If you did the steamy pretzel with my honey bear, I’d stick the first sharp implement I could find in your heart, and in his balls. I’d probably be sorry after, but too late.”
    “That’s it? Sex with Leonardo is the only reason you’d want me dead? Think about it,” Eve insisted. “What if I stole from you, or insulted you, made fun of you on a regular basis.”
    “Okay.” Mavis tipped her head side-to-side in thinking mode. “If you stole from me you’d need