Eternity in Death Read Free Page A

ass up—and cover your tits, for God’s sake—or we’re going to take the rest of this downtown.”
    “That’s not funny.” Slowly now, Daffy lowered the cup. “That’s seriously un.” The hand holding the cup shook as Daffy reached out for Martine with the other. “Martine, call Estella. Call her right now and have her put Tiara on the ’link.”
    “She can’t come to the ’link.” Peabody spoke now, more gently. “Ms. Kent was killed last night in her apartment.”
    “My sister,” Martine said even as she gripped Daffy’s hand.
    “Your sister’s fine,” Peabody told her. “You can go ahead and contact her.”
    “Miss Daffy.”
    “Go on,” Daffy said stiffly, and the bored young party girl was gone. In her place was a stunned young woman clutching her robe together at her throat with a trembling hand. “Go on, go on. This isn’t a joke, this isn’t Tee taking a slap at me? She’s dead?”
    “Yes.”
    “But…I don’t see how that can be. She’s only twenty-three. You’re not supposed to be dead at twenty-three, and we’re fighting. We can’t be fighting when she’s dead. How…Killed? Did you say somebody killed Tee?”
    Now Eve sat, choosing the glossy white table in front of the sofa so she and Daffy were on a level. “She’s been seeing someone recently.”
    “What? Yeah. But…” Daffy looked around blankly. “What?”
    Reaching out, Eve took the cup of mocha from Daffy’s limp fingers, set it aside. “Do you know the name of the man she’s been seeing recently?”
    “I…She called him her prince. Lots of times she had names for her men. This one was Prince. Dark Prince, sometimes.” Daffy pressed her hands to her eyes, then dragged them up over her face, through her hair. “She’s only been into him for a week or so. Maybe two. I can’t think.” She put her hand to her head, rubbed her temple as if she couldn’t keep her fingers still. “I can’t think.”
    “Can you describe him?”
    “I never met him. I was supposed to, but I didn’t. We’ve been fighting,” she repeated as tears spilled down her cheeks.
    “Tell me what you know about him.”
    “Did he hurt her?” Her voice broke on the question as the tears started to gush. “Did he kill Tee?”
    “We’re going to want to talk to him. Tell me what you know about him.”
    “She…she met him at some underground club. I was supposed to go, but I got hung up, and I forgot. I was supposed to meet her there.”
    “Where?” Eve prompted.
    “Um…a cult club, underground, near Times Square, I think. I can’t remember. There are so many.” When Peabody offered tissues, Daffy sent her a pathetically grateful look. “Thanks. Thanks. She—Tee, she tagged me about eleven when I didn’t show, and we got into it because I’d forgotten, and this guy I hooked up with and I decided to zip down to South Beach for the night. I was already down there when she tagged me.”
    On a long breath, she bent forward to retrieve the cup of mocha, and now sipped slowly. “Okay. Okay.” She breathed in and out. “It was my screw-up, about the club, so I mea culpa’d the next day. She was all about this guy, this Prince. But she looked out of it, so I knew she’d been using.”
    Daffy pressed her lips together. “I’m clean, and I’ve got to stay clean. My father still holds some of the purse strings on me, you know? If I get in any trouble like that again, he said he’d cut me off. He means it, so…Shit, you’re cops. I’m not going to impress you, so the straight deal is this: Besides the edict from my dad, I’ve had enough of chems.”
    “But Tiara hadn’t,” Eve said.
    “Tee’s always going to go over the top, it’s just her way. Always going to push the limits, then look for the next big thing.” As Daffy mopped tears, she managed a wan smile. “But she knows I’ve got to stay clean. She’d been using, and she’d sworn off six months ago, like a solidarity deal? We took an oath, so I was