“I saw her first!” His voice rang with sheer and sincere outrage. “You think I could let them get away with that, doing the same thing to me? You think I could let that bitch brush me off, give me the same line as Astra—I’m confused, she’s with Neville?”
“Playing the same game.” Eve expelled a long breath that signaled perfect agreement. “Teasing you, daring you. Holding out on you to stir you up. But you know how to wear the mask, right? The loving cousin, the solid business partner, the loyal friend.”
“There’s nothing I can’t do.”
“Because you learn, you don’t make the same mistakes. With Rosa, you didn’t make the same mistakes you’d made with Astra. You needed to show her, and you did.” Eve tipped back in the chair. “If she wanted to stay in that rut—with Neville—that was her loss, but she’d have a taste of a real man first. The Dracula bit, that was genius. Symbolic. The vampire—the king of vamps—he takes the woman he wants, takes her over, body, mind, soul, right?”
He smiled, shrugged, looked away.
“Come on, Kyle, take the credit. You earned it. The planning, down to the last detail. Using the robbery as cover—it worked. And beating the crap out of both of them. Especially Neville.”
“He deserved it. I saw her first.”
“But you thought of Astra when you raped Rosa.” Eve took Rosa’s photo out of a file, laid it beside Astra’s. “Look at them. Rosa could be Astra’s daughter.”
“You see that, too.”
“Sure. Just like I see she was meant to be yours. Both of them are. First Neville’s father’s in your way, and now Neville, after all you’ve done for him. I’m surprised you let him live.”
“Thought about killing him, but we’re family. And it was about making them live with it. About watching them try to live with it.”
“Oh, I get that. You were in a little bit of a hurry with Rosa and Neville. I get that, too. It had all built up, and you needed to have her, show her, make her admit she wanted it. You ripped her clothes. With the others, you had them strip. So much more seductive. And more humiliating for the man.”
When he said nothing, she shook her head. “We’ve got the evidence, Kyle. You’re not stupid, you know what we found in your loft. So we’ve got what we need. I’m just … well, I’ve got to admit, I’m pretty fascinated by how you played all this.”
“His lawyer’s going to fix it,” Peabody added. “He can afford a damn platoon of high-priced lawyers.”
Now Eve shrugged. “That’s not our problem. We did our job. I just like hearing how anybody could plan all this out, time after time. The precision, the planning, the smallest details. Well, it’s exquisite actually. Did you really decide on the woman at that gala? The ah, yeah, here it is. The Celebrate Art Gala? What pulled that trigger?”
“They couldn’t stop talking about wedding plans. Rosa and Neville going on and on and fucking on about them. Everybody we know who comes by the table starts up on the wedding. Can’t wait, how perfect they are together, what a beautiful bride she’s going to be. Made me sick to my stomach. Made me want to puke.”
“So you looked around, milled around, and began to see all the women you could have. All the married women. Women you’d show, men you’d punish. Did you already have the cameras in Neville’s place?”
“I did him a favor. He’s got the nerve to ask me if I can hang out at his place, wait for a delivery while they’re moving in together? The asshole doesn’t even notice.”
“You watched them whenever you wanted. Watched them in bed together.”
“So what? All it did was prove to me how much better I was at it.”
“Your timing was—bears repeating—exquisite. Right after their honeymoon. Just as they’re really starting the whole married gig together.”
“Now she’ll know, for the rest of her life, she settled. He’ll know she had the best sex of her life with another man.”
“And Lori, Lori Brinkman.” She pulled out the photo. “How did you pick her?”
“Ah, Lori. That face, that body, the laugh. It was her laugh that got me. The laugh said sex. Pulled one of her scripts out of the vault—not bad.”
“Astra’s a screenwriter, too, isn’t she?”
“It’s more a hobby, just like with Lori. And they wouldn’t need a hobby, would they, if they weren’t married to losers. If a man keeps a woman satisfied, she doesn’t need anything but him.”