“A ghra. You stagger me. You’re the beat of my heart, the breath in my body, and the light in my soul.” - Roarke to Eve when she shows him the Siobhan Brody Memorial Park, Indulgence in Death[1]
Plot Summary[]
First it was a limo driver shot through the neck with a crossbow. Then it was a high-priced escort stabbed through the heart with a bayonet.
Random hits, thrill kills, murderers with a taste for the finer things in life – and death – are making NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas angry. And an angry Eve can be just as an efficient and dangerous predator as the killer.
As time runs out on another innocent victim’s life, Eve’s investigation will take her into the rarified circle that her husband, Roarke, travels in – and into the perverted heart of madness...
- courtesy of Ingram Books
Map[]
Please reference the Indulgence in Death Map for locations or approximate locations of sites listed here.
Spoiler warning! This article contains plot details about an upcoming episode. |
Timeline[]
Approximate Story Date: July, 2060[2]
Day -14[]
Chapter 1[]
- After a nightmarish drive (the Journey of Death) on Murder Road, through the west Irish countryside, Eve grudgingly admits it’s beautiful even though the cows outnumbered the people, and the sheep outnumbered the cows. She’s sure the farm animals are plotting their war strategy in the stone ruins, but reminds herself that this detour on their anniversary trip was her idea so Roarke could visit his family after the harrowing events of Fantasy in Death.
- Sinead arranges a picnic for the family so they can catch up, and Eve is overwhelmed by all of Roarke’s relatives, especially the bloodthirsty Sean, whose father, Seamus, tells Eve is now hell-bent on being a cop so he can blast bad guys. Seamus tells her about the last murder they had in Tulla, about a dozen years ago, when old Mrs. O’Riley bashed her husband’s head in with a skillet when he came home drunk and smelling of another woman’s perfume… again. Eve learns that Irish picnics last into the evening and include music, dancing, and lots of pints. She also learns that the bed in their room has noisy springs, but Roarke is still able to talk her into a round of not dignified sex (because Eve says “if sex is dignified, it’s not being done right”).
Day -13[]
- After being startled awake by a rooster and some cock jokes, Roarke gets up to drive a tractor with Seamus and the other menfolk, while Eve goes back to sleep for a few hours.
Chapter 2[]
- After Eve showers and slums it by using a towel to dry off (no drying tube!) she is relieved to learn that she won’t have to suffer with tea, since Roarke had coffee sent ahead of them. Sinead serves her a full Irish breakfast, civilized portion, with more cock jokes. Sinead offers to take Eve to the anniversary gift ahead of Roarke even though Eve has seen the progress from pictures. Sinead tells Eve Siobhan would have liked her, because she liked the bright and the bold, and then asks Eve for details of the last murder she solved.
- Eve surveys the park/playground, which includes a younger version of the cherry tree that Sinead had planted at the farm for Siobhan, and decides “it completely rocks!” Roarke joins her after a morning of farming, and admires the digging equipment, telling Eve he doesn’t remember there being a park here but it’s a good spot for one. She all but shoves his face in the plaque at the fountain, which reads “Siobhan Brody Memorial Park Dedicated by Her Son” and tells him happy anniversary a few days early. He tells her she staggers him, and she’s the beat of his heart, the breath in his body, and the light in his soul. Eve is relieved she won’t have to return the present. As a bonus present, Brian Kelly has come from Dublin to play with Roarke (and make time with Eve).
- Sean comes up to Eve, tugging on her hand, and tells her the dogs have run into the woods and won’t come back. He says since she’s a detective she needs to investigate, and the four of them head to the woods, with Sean leading the way. He comes back out telling Eve she has to see, the dogs found her, and she’s awfully dead. Sure enough, a dead woman is in the woods, face-down with her bruised face turned toward Eve. Roarke calls the local police, and then Eve asks Sean to walk Roarke back to the road to find out how long it takes to walk it – it’s about two minutes to the road, and near the school so even at night the path would be well-lit. She tells Sean it’s not their case, but they are witnesses, and Officer Leary takes charge with a lot of guidance from Eve. Eve tells Sean he stood up for Holly Curlow, the dead woman, and that’s the first thing a cop has to do.
Chapter 3[]
- The doctor who served as ME confirmed Eve’s conclusion that Holly had been strangled, and Eve gave Officer Leary all of the steps he needed to take to notify the mother and find the killer. He stops by later to fill Eve in on the results. Kevin Donahue wanted to be Holly’s one and only boyfriend, she was trying to shake him off at a party in Ennis, they’d been drinking, they had a spat in the car, he pulled over, they shouted, it got physical, he snapped and says he didn’t remember killing her, but he realized she was dead and carried her body to the woods off the road he was on. Eve then fills Sean in, telling him that because he found the body so quickly, the police were able to find Donahue and arrest him. Sean’s disappointed that they didn’t cosh him before locking him in a cage, but Eve advises him not to say that out loud in front of the police. Eemon gets the fiddle going for the cèili and Eve dances with Brian.
Day -12[]
- The rooster once again wakes Eve and Roarke up at dawn, they say their goodbyes, and Roarke invites them all to New York again for Thanksgiving.
Day 1 (Tuesday)[]
Chapter 4[]
- Eve is glad to be back: “Vacations were great, but to Eve’s mind New York had it all and a bag of soy chips.” She shows Peabody her anniversary present, a nifty new Dick Tracy watch, neglecting to tell her she has another with diamonds for fancy do’s.
- She’s called out to investigate Jamal Houston’s murder – his body was found at LaGuardia Airport short-term parking, in his limo, with a crossbow bolt through his neck. Houston co-owned Gold Star Transportation Service with Michael Chin, had no adult criminal record (juvenile records sealed), and was clearly not robbed. She and Peabody visit Gold Star headquarters, notify Chin, who calls his wife, Kimmy, and the four of them notify Jamal’s widow, Mamie, of Jamal’s death.
Chapter 5[]
- Eve and Peabody visit the person who booked the limo, Augustus Sweet, at his company, Dudley and Son, and finds out that although his company credit card was used to book the limo, he was not the one who did that. He has his assistant cancel all his cards, and two other employees look for leaks. Eve interviews his PA, Mitchell Sykes, who is an arrogant snob, but not murderous. Since the card was used to book the limo, not pay for it, as long as an authorization code was used there wouldn’t be a flag for just placing a hold on it.
- A visit to the morgue yields no new information on the COD, but Morris pointed out many childhood injuries, indicating abuse. A trip to the lab yields considerably more information, including the fact that Dickhead is in love and therefore is smiling and giving out information without expecting bribes. Eve is, naturally, weirded out, but glad to get the make and model of the crossbow bolt, along with the names of the two New York outlets that carry it.
- Peabody runs the bolt owners, finding just one in New York, Iris Quill, and they re-listen to Jamal’s final transmission to Michael – he says the passenger is excited about this surprise for his wife. Eve decides to stop by Quill’s residence on the way home, and asks Peabody to get financials for Sykes and Sweet, along with running the rest of the bolt customers, offering to take half the list.
Chapter 6[]
- Back at home, Eve enjoys the evening insults with Summerset, sex with Roarke, and murder talk over dinner. She reviews Jamal’s juvenile record, which shows truancy, shoplifting, illegals, destruction of property, two stints in juvie, and, finally, when he was seventeen he beat his father and took off. After that he was put into a supervised halfway house, provided counseling, and given a chance to turn his life around, which he did.
- Roarke finds a hidden account for Sykes (“the little bastard”), and they figure out he’s been dealing drugs with his girlfriend/cohab, Karolea Prinz, who is a Pharmaceutical rep at Dudley, for almost three years. That means he’s probably not the killer (why call attention to himself?), but Eve looks forward to bringing him into Cop Central and sweating the snot out of him. She thinks the killer is a hunter, and will kill again soon.
- Meanwhile, in the House of Horrors at Coney Island, a disguised Winston Dudley III is scaring and then killing a licensed companion, Ava Crampton.
Day 2 (Wednesday)[]
Chapter 7[]
- Eve and Roarke head for bed, but just as they lay down, Eve is notified of Ava’s murder, while Roarke is also notified since he has a business interest in the Coney Island Amusement Center. Roarke describes the House of Horrors, and the minimal security, telling Eve it’s appropriately gruesome and terrifying, to which Eve replies that it wouldn’t scare her, she gets that every day when she comes home. The electronics employee, Gumm, leads Eve and Roarke to the dead body, telling them that normally they would have been notified at a loss of heartbeat, but there was a glitch, a blip, a wrinkle, in the security system – parts were blank. He speculated that the killer used a sophisticated jammer all along the way to and in the House of Horrors, so he knew where the cameras were. Roarke identifies the murder weapon as a bayonet, which could be shot from a rifle or used by itself as a sidearm; he thinks it would have been brought into the park in a sheath lined with magnetic fiber.
Chapter 8[]
- Eve and Peabody head to the West Village to visit Foster Urich, CEO of Intelicore, whose card was used to book the transportation for and services of Ava. Peabody is ecstatic because Eve has one of Roarke’s cars, a convertible, and puts the top down. Urich is puzzled and annoyed about somebody using his card for murder. His alibi, Julia, explains that they were out to dinner at Paulo’s and blushingly tells Eve and Peabody that this is the first night they’ve, you know… Foster cancels the account and begins a search on who might have used his card. Peabody thinks they’re sweet. Eve asks Peabody to find out who insures Intelicore and Dudley and Son, since that’s who would cover the charges once they’re disputed.
- Back at EDD, Roarke, McNab, and Feeney are all working on the Coney Island security discs. Roarke says the security system wasn’t just jammed, and in a pinpoint manner, but wiped with a virus. He thinks the device was very sophisticated, possibly military. The killer missed a nanosecond when he was switching his jammer from the outer to the inner camera of the spook house, showing a partial profile – the shoulder, the side of the body, one hand. The face shows evidence of a beard, presumably to disguise the fact that he doesn’t look like Urich, slightly longer hair, and he looks heavier than Urich. They also see one of his shoes, a very expensive loafer, so McNab should be able to track down the brand.
- She and Roarke walk to the vending machine to buy soy chips for everyone. Roarke is familiar with both Winston Cunningham Dudley the Fourth (“friends call him ‘Winnie’”) and Sylvester Bennington Moriarity the Third (“Sly”), and Roarke decides that if he and Eve have children, they will need to make up impressive names like “Bartholomew Ezekiel,” but Eve says she hopes if they have a kid they like him better than to do that to him. Roarke says he doesn’t have anything in common with Winnie and Sly, and there’s a difference between generational wealth and wealth more recently and personally acquired. Eve says that makes them ‘f-headed snobs.’
Chapter 9[]
- Peabody can’t find anywhere Sweet and Urich intersect, McNab is working on ID’ing the shoes, and Eve heads to Ava Crampton’s apartment, where she is treated well by the droid doorman since she still has Roarke’s convertible. She didn’t get much information at Ava’s, just that Foster Urich was listed as a new client, vetted and cleared, so Eve goes to the morgue for another look at Ava. Morris is already there, since he had a bad night, and he’s feeling especially sad about losing Amaryllis, so Eve invites him over for a cookout.
- Eve then goes to Charles and Louise’s townhouse for breakfast, where she is duly impressed by actual cooking of actual eggs, and the resulting fluffy omelet. Charles, of course, knew Ava, and said you couldn’t help but like her, that she was charming and bright and interesting. He had worked with her a couple of times, but not in BDSM. He told Eve she liked the edge, but would never have put herself in a situation where she didn’t know the client.
- When Eve gets back to Central, she finds Mira waiting for her in Eve’s office. They discuss the theory that the killer is buying his victims. Mira says he’s mature, interested in the unique, and likes to show off his knowledge and skill. Eve says she had been looking at people who worked under Sweet and Urich, but she thinks she should actually be looking up instead. The killer doesn’t take anything, or mutilate/rape/humiliate the victim, so it’s not personal or passionate, but he leaves the weapon so Eve can see how frosty he is. Mira phrases it as thrill kills, with no motive other than the kill, and thinks he is arrogant and confident.
- Peabody and McNab make the shoe – a leather loafer with high shine and a sterling buckle, Emilio Stefani, retailing for $3K, and McNab estimates the shoe size, so Eve runs down the New York outlets, while arranging for uniforms to bring Sykes and Prinz in for questioning. She takes a short nap, waking to find Roarke next to her (he bypassed the locks, natch). Still outraged about the price of Dudley's shoes, she tells him how much the loafers cost, and he decides against telling her how much her boots cost.
Chapter 10[]
- Peabody gets Karolea Prinz to roll on Sykes, while Eve gets him to confess. At the shoe boutique, the main salesperson is delighted to assist with their investigation, and Peabody gets to spend five minutes worshiping at the altar of the shoe. The happy salesclerk tells Eve they sold two pairs of those shoes in that color; Patrick sold a pair to Sampson Anthony, the producer, and Chica sold a pair to Winston Dudley, the pharma king.
- Eve and Peabody visit Dudley at his office, where he tells her he just finished Nadine Furst’s book. She gets his alibi for the night Jamal was killed and tells him she just arrested two of his employees on an unrelated matter. Eve confirms that he and Sly are good friends, that Moriarity wasn’t at the dinner party that was Dudley’s alibi, and that he spent a quiet evening at home reading Nadine’s book last night while Ava was being murdered. Eve thinks he’s a slick bastard and they head to interview Moriarity.
Chapter 11[]
- Moriarity decides to play the busy exec in contrast to the uber-helpful Dudley. He, of course, has an alibi for the previous evening, but not for the one before that. Eve stops at Mira’s office when they get back to Central and is ecstatic to find a temp, Macy, working the front desk, rather than the dragon who usually guards Mira, but sadly, it’s only for a couple of days. Eve runs the two killers theory by Mira, who agrees that it’s possible. On her way to report to Whitney, Eve is stabbed by a man with a sharpened plastic knife from the Eatery, and has to trash a very nice jacket after she uses the sleeve to field-dress her wound.
- Whitney calls in a medic, Carver, to fix up Eve’s arm while she fills him in on the case. He suggests that Eve research the bayonet to see if either of her suspects has an ancestor who served and would have been issued that weapon. Baxter tells Eve Trueheart’s still dating the cutie in Records, and lets her know he’s going to have him start studying for the detective’s exam, saying he’s quick, unless you’re talking about with women. Baxter says he’s made for Homicide because he looks at a DB and sees a person.
- On her way home, Eve calls Mavis and asks her to have Leonardo not to take any new bookings with unknown clients, and same for her. Mavis says they’re going to London so they will just extend their vacation a little bit. Eve and Summerset greet each other warmly, and she collapses into bed with Galahad on top of her butt. Roarke gets home, displaces the cat, and lays down next to her to sleep.
Chapter 12[]
- Eve wakes up from a dream and knows the killers are Dudley and Moriarity but not why. She remembers that neither of them had any kind of family photos in their offices. She showers and then when she comes into her home office for a steak dinner she remembers she promised Morris a cookout, so Roarke suggests Saturday and tells her she’s a good friend. Eve thinks the men are playing a game of Clue, but doesn’t know how they are picking their targets. Roarke suggests she just salt the butter and eat it with a spoon, skipping the baked potato. He thinks they specifically waited to start their game until Eve returned to work so they could have the best cop. Roarke looked up their interests, and they are all non-team sports – golf, yachting, baccarat, racehorses.
- Eve researches their exes – they each have one ex-wife, from prestigious, wealthy families, and Dudley was engaged to Moriarity’s ex-wife’s first cousin for about seven months; Eve thinks that’s how the two men met. She also finds Dudley’s great-uncle Joseph, who joined the army after he was kicked out of Harvard, dropped out of Princeton, and got a couple of knocks for drunk and disorderly. He served during the Korean War, earning a Purple Heart, and Eve thinks he brought a bayonet home with him.
Day 3 (Thursday)[]
Chapter 13[]
- Eve wakes up early, and since Roarke is still in bed they make love. She lingers over a breakfast of a bagel and berries, lamenting the 96 degree day and the humiture; Roarke says the city will be a steambath, and Eve is glad she’ll be in Connecticut interviewing Felicity VanWitt, Dudley's ex-fiancée. Eve noticed that even though they all run in the same circles, the evil twins are never in the same place as their exes, while their exes’ other exes sometimes overlap places.
- Dr. Felicity VanWitt reluctantly tells Eve how she was dazzled by Dudley, he was her first lover, and he was good at gaslighting her. She realized he enjoyed hurting and frightening her, and rough sex. She maneuvered him into breaking up with her so he would walk away rather than feel rejected, and they literally never spoke again, not even at Moriarity’s wedding to her cousin Patrice – he just looked through her as if she wasn’t there.
Chapter 14[]
- Eve is sure that slick and slicker have killed before, together, and wants to track missing persons, unsolved murders, or suspicious deaths in places they have traveled together. Meanwhile, Roarke decides to amuse himself by entertaining a business associate, David Su, with a golf game at Dudley and Moriarity’s club. Naturally they fall for the setup and end up playing a foursome.
- Dudley tells Roarke he met Eve and that she did him a service by uncovering a scam being run by two of his employees. Roarke says that he’s only involved in her cases when they have some meat to them, as in the Icove business – a dead limo driver, even with a loose connection to Dudley, hardly holds any interest to most people. By the fifth hole, Roarke had deciphered their cheating codes and signals. Since Su is no dummy, he wonders why Roarke is willing to put up with being dissed by slimy and slimier, telling Roarke they wear their rudeness as comfortably as their golf shoes. Roarke tells Su they are cheating, and tells him he can make that harder, so they decide to “bury the bastards.”
- When Eve gets back to Central, Baxter tells her Delaughter is waiting for her in the Lounge, and also Trueheart wants to bring a date to Saturday’s cookout. He says Casey will be excited, although she turns into Cassie at the party, and offers to being a dish, which baffles Eve since they have enough dinnerware for several homes already. Delaughter explains the dynamic between Dudley and Moriarity as the same side of a coin, where they didn’t want anybody on the other side of that coin.
- After Dudley and VanWitt broke off their engagement, Moriarity approached Patrice about a threesome – she said no if it was with Dudley, he pouted for two weeks, then said no, of course it wouldn’t be with Dudley. He hired Crampton, but during the course of the evening he gave Patrice Rabbit and Whore, and she had flashbacks for the next couple of weeks of Dudley raping her. She was at Chi-Chi’s waiting to meet friends for lunch when Crampton came over, told her what happened that night, and then left. Pat found the recording and used it to get a huge divorce settlement.
Chapter 15[]
- Since Crampton wasn’t random, and since Dudley killed him for Moriarity, Eve thinks Peabody is right that Jamal’s path somehow crossed with Dudley’s – probably when they were younger, probably something to do with illegals. Roarke swings by Central to take Eve to dinner at a pizzeria he owns and recounts his golf date. Psycho and Socio use doctored balls programmed to pocket directional devices, so Roarke had fun redirecting the balls beginning at the tenth hole; by the thirteenth hole they were playing it straight and he and David won by three strokes, whereupon the children threw temper tantrums and broke their toys.
Chapter 16[]
- Renowned chef Luc Delaflote is preparing a meal for a couple who flew him in from Paris, but it turns out instead to be for Moriarity, who harpoons him, grabs a bottle of champagne, and has his droid driver take it up to Dudley’s room, while he rejoins the party he is attending at Dudley's house for his alibi.
- Eve finds out about a cook who was killed in Zimbabwe at the same time the duplicitous duo were enjoying a safari there. Melly Bristow was an experienced wildlife photographer and grad student on her third trip with the outfit, yet somehow ended up about a mile from camp being eaten by a pride of lions. Eve thinks it was their first kill together, and Roarke thinks they felt entitled since it was day four and they hadn’t bagged a kill yet that trip.
- Roarke has also found another possible kill two months after that – a 23-year-old woman named Sofia Ricci went missing off the coast of Naples, after a public row with her boyfriend at a club. Coincidentally, the duo were at a sailing tournament there. The body was never found, despite them being part of the search party.
- Eve finds another one in Vegas seven weeks after Italy – they met up there for a baccarat tourney, and a 29-year-old woman, Linette Jones, was found dead in her own car on the side of the road in the desert north of Vegas. She had stun marks and was beaten to death with a tire iron conveniently left at the scene. She was a bartender at the casino holding the tourney, and they gave statements. They find several more mysterious and/or unsolved deaths/murders, including an architect whose wife, Carmandy Dewar, was an ex of Moriarity’s; Eve is sure he was happy to console her at the funeral.
Day 4 (Friday)[]
Chapter 17[]
- Eve wakes from a dream of a lion gnawing on her leg when her communicator goes off around 6 a.m. with news of another murder. Eve is mad at herself for not being clairvoyant and Roarke tells her he dreamed about a lion prowling the house looking for a snack. Eve says he found it in her dream. They shower and head out, with Roarke telling Eve he will be her Peabody until she arrives. The house belongs to the CEO of Marketing for Dudley and Son, Meryle Simpson, and her husband, Garrett Frost, and was sold to them by Moriarity six years ago; Moriarity lived there for five years.
- Roarke knows of the victim, Luc Delaflote, and is able to recognize the weapon as a harpoon. When they check the security discs they find that the chef was brought to the house by a droid in a stolen vehicle, and then the security was turned off, but a clone was used so the security company wouldn’t be alerted.
Chapter 18[]
- Eve and Peabody figure Delaflote was there for about two hours, and they head to Dudley’s house, which is a five or six minute drive, to get his alibi. One of his young, beautiful, shapely, red-uniformed servants tells them he was up late entertaining, that he had a garden party and the last guest, Moriarity, didn’t leave until almost 4 a.m. A chemically boosted Dudley greets them warmly, and Eve reads him the Revised Miranda and records their conversation as she tells him about the death of Delaflote at Meryle’s house the previous evening. Eve thinks he selects his facial reactions the way a man might pick the correct tie. She compliments him on his shoes, and Dudley preens as he extols the design of them. She gets the guest list from another of his red-uniformed servants, and then “remembers” to stop the recording.
- As Eve’s heading back to Central to give the recording to Feeney for a comparison of the murdering shoes to the Coney Island image, she gets tagged for another murder – Adrianne Jonas, the top facilitator for the rich, in Central Park, hanging from a tree by a bullwhip. She drops Peabody off, then goes to the park to talk to Reineke and Jenkinson, who caught the case and want in. After she sees Adrianne’s body and determines that Dudley took her purse as a souvenir, she calls Roarke for comfort, and he tells her he will meet her at the vic’s building.
Chapter 19[]
- At Adrianne’s apartment building, Eve learns from the doorman, Louis, that she was a genuinely nice person, and also that Roarke owns the building (actually just a majority share). Eve goes up to Adrianne’s apartment, where she tells her assistant, Bonita Wallace, that Adrianne is dead. Since she hadn’t come back from her 3 a.m. client meeting with Darrin Wasinski, the CFO of Intelicore, wasn’t answering her 'link, and Bonita recognized Eve as homicide, she wasn’t shocked, just really torn up. She tells Eve that she and Adrianne were at Dudley’s party the previous evening, but she left at 1:30, ahead of her boss.
- Peabody found out that Dudley’s mother had an affair with Delaflote 25 years ago while she was still married to his father, which broke up their marriage and caused serious embarrassment for the Dudleys. The shoe is almost at a 90% match but not quite, although McNab says he would eat it with barbecue sauce if it wasn’t the same shoe. Eve pointed out he would eat anything with barbecue sauce.
- Eve asks Roarke if there’s any point in asking him not to feed the cops when he comes in to help Feeney, and he says no, and asks if there’s any point in asking her to take an hour to sleep (there’s not). She swings by the morgue, where Morris thanks her for setting up tomorrow’s gathering, and asks her if he can bring Father Lopez [sic]. He agrees with Eve that Dickhead in love is a bit disturbing, but he did ID the harpoon weapon and sent the data to Eve. Morris says he will tell Adrianne’s parents the death was fast and painless, even though it was anything but – the bullwhip constricted her airway but didn’t break her neck, and Dudley dragged her to the tree to hoist her up on the branch.
Chapter 20[]
- Eve returns to Central and hands out orders for everybody in her bullpen. Peabody traced the wine to a vineyard Delaflote has a major interest in. He kept track of which bottles of champagne he brought, since they were numbered, limited edition ones. Jenkinson found out that Adrianne cancelled her return car service at 2 a.m., and didn’t book a new one, so they figure Dudley gave her a lift. The bullwhip is Australian and made from kangaroo. Jenkinson concurs that Dickhead in love is creepy. Uniform Carmichael found the connection between Moriarity and Adrianne – she used to work at the Kennedy Hotel, which his grandfather owned; after he died, his grandson sold it, and then about a year later Adrianne got a write-up in The New Yorker as one of the top concierges in New York, and then went out on her own. Trueheart found one of the parts in the spear gun was manufactured by a subsidiary of Moriarity’s SportTec arm, and Baxter finds a sport fishing and scuba club they belonged to, along with press on a couple of private parties they threw that featured sport and spear fishing.
- Feeney comes in to give her the 90.1% match for the shoes and tells Eve she needs to do something with her face. She contacts Peabody to borrow makeup, and returns to the conference room to find it full of food and cops. She goes through all of the victims, all of the connections and overlaps, and has everybody report their findings. Baxter gets a call, and it’s about the bullwhip – the person who bought the whip and accompanying lessons, Leona Bloom, gave it to Dudley as a gift, along with lessons in Sydney six years ago, and he signed up for more lessons until he was “damn good with a whip” by the end of it. After Eve finishes laying out all the evidence for search warrants, Mira says they plan to kill Eve as their endgame in New York.
Chapter 21[]
- Roarke had already guessed that, but Eve hadn’t: the trust fund bros view her as Roarke’s indulgence, as in, he bought and paid for her. But now… she can use herself as bait! Feeney suggests she and Roarke accidentally on purpose run into them somewhere public, have a spat because he’s pissed about all the time she’s spending on this case, she loses her cool, tell them they’re making her look incompetent, she’s got the commander breathing down her neck, they’re over budget (although she might need to explain ‘budget’ to them), she’s going to use her own money (that she earned by banging Roarke) to take them down. Roarke tells her they are going to the ballet at the Strathmore Center that evening, but meeting up at Lionel’s for drinks beforehand; she comes up with a plan, he helps revise it, and then they sleep for an hour on Mira’s therapy couch.
- Reo wants to go to Judge Dwier because he has no known connections with either of the families, but since he’s fly fishing in Montana, it’s taking a long time to get the warrants. Roarke brings her fancy clothes to change into (delivered by Summerset), and she gets to try out her anniversary watch, glitter style. A disguised Peabody and McNab go to the bar to be in position for the fireworks. Eve and Roarke argue loudly, and then she “notices” evil and eviler, walks up to them, picks a fight, Roarke leaves, she says she knows they’re guilty, she knows Delaflote was nailing Winnie’s mommy, and if the department won’t help, she’ll find a way to do it on her own. She’s asked to leave, and when she gets back to the surveillance van, Feeney tells her if she were his wife, he’d be divorced. Roarke says “she’s a bitch, but she’s my bitch.”
- Peabody reports that douche and douchier are deep in conversation. Baxter is in place for when the warrants come in, they come in, Eve tells him to wait until the boys make their move, and then he reports that the same droid they used for Delaflote is moving at Moriarity’s house, getting him a weapon.
Chapter 22[]
- Dudley and Moriarity arrive at the Strathmore Center, making sure their presence is given a lot of attention. Eve tells Peabody and McNab, now back in the van, to stop making sex giggles (Eve’s eye is twitching). McNab says they’re manly chuckles, and she tells them to be cops. Then Roarke asks Eve to sit on his knew so he can produce his own manly chuckle. Dudley calls Eve, she acts drunk and pissed off, he claims Moriarity is mad (crazy) and he thinks he killed all the others, but he can’t give her any more details over the ‘link. He says Sly was drinking too much and he will try to get away to meet Eve. Eve offers to call it in and have him arrested but Dudley is worried that he might be wrong, just overreacting, and this way he can save face. If he’s right, Eve will be the heroine, credited with stopping this madness. He asks her to meet him at Our Lady of Shadows church, so they can talk without being interrupted or overheard.
- Roarke brings up the floor plans; Eve tells Feeney Roarke thinks like a cop, but hates when she says that. She points out that Dudley’s eyes were the size of dinner plates and Moriarity is undoubtedly using as well. Peabody, McNab, and Roarke take inside positions, Carmichael and several unnamed officers are outside. Eve declines body armor from Feeney (saying it makes her look fat), but applies some eau d’ whiskey. Dudley is already at the church, and his voice shakes, although Eve can tell it’s with laughter, not fear. She agrees with him that she doesn’t get paid enough, but it’s not the money – it’s the power, and tells him he has five minutes before she’s leaving.
- Carmichael tells her Moriarity has arrived just as Dudley’s link buzzes in his pocket. Moriarity holds a stunner to her throat, they tell her it’s not a game – games are for children – this is adventure. Dudley is sad because they hoped to have more time with her, and to have their New York finale be at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and then he whips out an antique Italian fencing foil. She tells them they won’t get away with this, they confess/brag, saying it wasn’t work, it was pleasure, and they had originally planned another round before her. Dudley tells her the people they killed (four in New York, but other rounds elsewhere) were “old nobodies. New luxuries.” He tells Moriarity they have to do it at the same time so the score stays tied, Moriarity asks Eve who the asshole is now, she tells him who it is (them), and knocks the stunner away while she pivots, leaving Dudley to stab Moriarity (and graze Eve, which she blames on the shoes). When cops storm in, she indulgences herself with a vicious punch to Dudley’s face. Roarke tells her that’s two jackets she’s ruined this week, she says it’s not her fault, and he asks whose fault it is, then?
- Bentley Sorenson, Dudley’s lawyer, tells Eve he plans to file formal complaints about her treatment of his client and her use of excessive force, entrapment, and harassment. He also says he’s contacted the governor, who will be speaking with the prosecuting attorney about falsifying information for an improper search, and he wants Dudley released immediately. Eve offers him the choice of allowing her to speak with Dudley now or having him stay in jail all weekend. She can’t figure out if the attorney is an idiot or just doing his job, but gives him the benefit of the doubt and picks the latter.
- Dudley is weeping, coming down from his high, and jonesing for another hit. He can’t believe this is the way he is being treated after saving her life. She shows him her clean tox screens from throughout the evening, tells him Roarke says hi, that he might not have noticed him at the church. He rolls on Moriarity because he thinks he’s dead (and also because he's a bad friend), Eve tells him not to worry, Moriarity is very much alive and is pretty steamed about being stabbed. Dudley tells her she’s making everything up as part of her vendetta against him, and that she and Roarke will never be what he is, for which she’s grateful. Eve starts pulling out photos and evidence, and Dudley says he wants to go home. Eve tells him that’s never going to happen, and btw, his drug stash has been confiscated.
- Eve taunts him into confessing and has him arrested. Roarke tells her nice work for a temporary whore, and she tells him that’s saying something from a conniving, social-climbing nobody. She finishes the paperwork, says she will need a couple of hours with Moriarity in the morning, and agrees that they are a good fit.
[Note: In Possession in Death, which takes place the following day, Moriarity confesses everything to Eve, telling her the prize for the winner was a dollar.]
Character List[]
List of Main Characters Appearing in this Book[]
List of Secondary Characters Appearing in this Book[]
- David Baxter
- Detective Carmichael
- Uniform Carmichael
- Ryan Feeney
- Mavis Freestone
- Nadine Furst
- Galahad
- Jenkinson
- Leonardo
- Ian McNab
- Charlotte Mira
- Morris
- Delia Peabody
- Reineke
- Detective Santiago
- Summerset
- Troy Trueheart
- Jack Whitney
List of Recurring Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book[]
- Bella Eve
- Dickie Berenski
- Louise Dimatto
- Brian Kelly
- Sean Lannigan
- Sinead Lannigan
- Father Lopez [sic]
- Dennis Mira
- Charles Monroe
- Cher Reo
List of Minor Characters Appearing in this Book[]
- Aidan Brody
- Maggie Brody
- Carver
- Chica
- Kimmy Chin
- Michael Chin
- Marissa Cline
- Ava Crampton
- Luc Delaflote
- Patrice Delaughter
- Winston Dudley IV
- Gumm
- Mamie Houston
- Julia
- Kiki
- Seamus Lannigan
- Officer Jimmy Leary
- Louis
- Macy
- Detective Manson
- Chaz Manuel
- James Manuel
- Officer Milway
- Mizzy
- Sylvester Moriarity III
- Anna Munson
- Iris Quill
- Bentley Sorenson
- David Su
- Augustus Sweet
- Mitchell Sykes
- Foster Urich
- Felicity VanWitt
- Bonita Wallace
List of Peripheral Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book[]
- Sampson Anthony
- Annaleigh Babbington
- Catrina Bigelo
- Leona Bloom
- Melly Bristow
- Connor Brody
- Devin Brody
- Siobhan Brody
- Casey (becomes Cassie in the next book, Possession)
- Celia
- Tige Chin
- Amaryllis Coltraine
- Holly Curlow
- Carmandy Dewar
- Kevin Donahue
- Joseph Dudley
- Winston Dudley I
- Winston Dudley III
- Sergeant Duffy
- Judge Dwier
- Wanda Fickle
- Garrett Frost
- Willow Gantry
- Christian Gavin
- Gemma
- Gorem
- Carrie Grace
- Benji Houston
- Jamal Houston
- Lea Houston
- Adrianne Jonas
- Bill Jonas
- Julie Jonas
- Linette Jones
- Katie
- Kelsey
- Kit
- Eemon Lannigan
- Larson
- Lilian
- Lyle
- Maribelle
- Della McLaughlin
- Sylvester Moriarity I
- Detective Sergeant Moynahan
- Officer Newkirk
- Mrs. O’Riley
- Patrick
- Peter
- Officer Ping
- Karolea Prinz
- Quentin
- Sofia Ricci
- Meryle Simpson
- Emilio Stefani
- Richard Troy
- Marilee Urich
- Larinda Villi
- Darrin Wasinski
- Hanna Wender
- West
- Bradford Zander
- Zoe
Trivia[]
- Uniform Carmichael and Detective Santiago are introduced.
Other Covers[]
Additional covers here
UK edition cover | German 1st edition cover | German Book Club edition cover | |
UK edition cover | German 1st edition cover | German Book Club edition cover | Brilliance Audio unabridged edition cover |