"That's just it, Lieutenant, it's going to have to be at my convenience. My doctors don't want me to travel again just now. I need you to come to me."
"You want me to come to Rome? Ms. Angelini, even if the department would clear the trip, I need something concrete to justify the time and expense."
"I'll take you," Roarke said easily.
"Keep quiet."
"Who else is there? Is someone else there?" Mirina's voice trembled.
"Roarke is with me," Eve said between her teeth. "Ms. Angelini – "
"Oh, that's fine. I've been trying to reach him. Could you come together? I realize this is an imposition, Lieutenant. I hesitate to pull strings, but I will, if necessary. The commander will clear it."
"I'm sure he will," Eve muttered. "I'll leave as soon as he does. I'll be in touch." She broke transmission. "The spoiled rich irritate the hell out of me."
"Grief and worry don't have economic boundaries," Roarke said.
"Oh shut up." She huffed, kicked bad-temperedly at the desk.
"You'll like Rome, darling," Roarke said and smiled.
Eve did like Rome. At least she thought she did from the brief blur she caught of it on the zooming trip from the airport to Angelini's flat overlooking the Spanish Steps: fountains and traffic and ruins too ancient to be believed.
From the rear of the private limo, Eve watched the fashionable pedestrians with a kind of baffled awe. Sweeping robes were in this season, apparently. Clingy, sheer, voluminous, in colors from the palest white to the deepest bronze. Jeweled belts hung from waists, coordinating with crusted gems on flat-soled shoes and little jeweled bags carried by men and women alike. Everyone looked like royalty.
Roarke hadn't known she could gawk. It pleased him enormously to see that she could forget her mission long enough to stare and wonder. It was a shame, he thought, that they couldn't take a day or two so that he could show her the city, the grandeur of it, and its impossible continuity.
He was sorry when the car pulled jerkily to the curb and yanked her back to reality.
"This better be good." Without waiting for the driver, she slammed out of the car. When Roarke took her elbow to lead her inside the apartment building, she turned her head and frowned at him. "Aren't you even the least bit annoyed at being summoned across a damn ocean for a conversation?"
"Darling, I often go a great deal farther for less. And without such charming company."
She snorted and had nearly taken out her badge to flash at the security droid before she remembered herself. "Eve Dallas and Roarke for Mirina Angelini."
"You're expected, Eve Dallas and Roarke." The droid glided to a gilt-barred elevator and keyed in a code.
"You could get one of those," Eve nodded toward the droid before the elevator's doors closed, "and ditch Summerset."
"Summerset has his own charm."
She snorted again, louder. "Yeah. You bet."
The doors slid open into a gold and ivory foyer with a small, tinkling fountain in the shape of a mermaid.
"Jesus," Eve whispered, scanning the palm trees and paintings. "I didn't think anybody but you really lived like this."
"Welcome to Rome." Randall Slade stepped forward. "Thank you for coming. Please come in. Mirina's in the sitting room."
"She didn't mention you'd be here, Mr. Slade."
"We made the decision to call you together."
Biding her time for questions, Eve walked passed him. The sitting room was sided on the front wall in sheer glass. One-way glass, Eve assumed, as the building was only six stories high. Despite the relatively short height, it afforded an eye-popping view of the city.
Mirina sat daintily on a curved chair, sipping tea from a hand that shook slightly.
She seemed paler, if possible, and even more fragile in her trendy robe of ice blue. Her feet were bare, the nails painted to match her robe. She'd dressed her hair up in a severe knot, secured with a jeweled comb. Eve thought she looked like one of the ancient Roman goddesses, but her mythology was too sketchy to choose which one.
Mirina didn't rise, nor did she smile, but set her cup aside to pick up a slim white pot and pour two more.
"I hope you'll join me for tea."
"I didn't come for a party, Ms. Angelini."
"No, but you've come, and I'm grateful."
"Here, let me do that." With a smooth grace that almost masked the way the cups rattled in Mirina's hands, Slade took them from her. "Please sit down," he invited. "We won't keep you any longer than necessary, but you might as well be comfortable."
"I don't have any jurisdiction here," Eve began as she took a cushioned chair with a low back, "but I'd like to record this meeting, with your permission."
Mirina looked at Slade, bit her lip. "Yes, of course." She cleared her throat when Eve took out her recorder and set it on the table between them. "You know about the… difficulties Randy had several years ago in Sector 38."
"I know," Eve confirmed. "I was told you didn't."
"Randy told me yesterday." Mirina reached up blindly, and his hand was there. "You're a strong, confident woman, Lieutenant. It may be difficult for you to understand those of us who aren't so strong. Randy didn't tell me before because he was afraid I wouldn't handle it well. My nerves." She moved her thin shoulders. "Business crises energize me. Personal crises devastate me. The doctors call it an avoidance tendency. I'd rather not face trouble."
"You're delicate," Slade stated, squeezing her hand. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"In any case, this is something I have to face. You were there," she said to Roarke, "during the incident."
"I was on the station, probably in the casino."
"And the security at the hotel, the security Randy called, they were yours."
"That's right. Everyone has private security. Criminal cases are transferred to the magistrate – unless they can be dealt with privately."
"You mean through bribes."
"Naturally."
"Randy could have bribed security. He didn't."
"Mirina." He hushed her with another squeeze of his hand. "I didn't bribe them because I wasn't thinking clearly enough to bribe them. If I had, there wouldn't have been a record, and we wouldn't be discussing it now."
"The heavy charges were dropped," Eve pointed out. "You were given the minimum penalty for the ones that stood."
"And I was assured that the entire matter would remain buried. It didn't. I prefer something stronger than tea. Roarke?"
"Whiskey if you have it, two fingers."
"Tell them, Randy," Mirina whispered while he programmed two whiskeys from the recessed bar.
He nodded, brought Roarke his glass, then knocked back the contents of his own. "Cicely called me on the night she was murdered."
Eve's head jerked up like a hound scenting blood. "There was no record of that on her 'link. No record of an outgoing call."
"She called from a public phone. I don't know where. It was just after midnight, your time. She was agitated, angry."
"Mr. Slade, you told me in our official interview that you had not had contact with Prosecutor Towers on that night."
"I lied. I was afraid."
"You now choose to recant your earlier statement."
"I wish to revise it. Without benefit of counsel, Lieutenant, and fully aware of the penalty for giving a false statement during a police investigation. I'm telling you now that she contacted me shortly before she was killed. That, of course, gives me an alibi, if you like. It would have been very close to impossible for me to have traveled cross-country and killed her in the amount of time I had. You can, of course, check my transmission records."
"Be sure that I will. What did she want?"
"She asked me if it was true. Just that, at first. I was distracted, working. It took me a moment to realize how upset she was, and then when she was more definite, to understand she was referring to Sector 38. I panicked, made some excuses. But you couldn't lie to Cicely. She pinned me to the wall. I was angry, too, and we argued."