In Death 39 - Festive in Death by J. D. Robb

Author:J. D. Robb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Kira Robbins let Eve in herself. She looked heavy-eyed, strained, and wore baggy flowered pajama pants and a gray NYC sweatshirt. A far cry, Eve thought, from the smart red dress and heels of the day before.

“You want to go over it all again.” She didn’t ask Eve to sit, didn’t offer her a drink, just flopped down on the sofa. “That’s how this works. Just going over and over it again.”

“You said you were alone, no outside contact, during the time Ziegler was murdered.”

“Yeah. Damn book. I haven’t written a word since I talked to you yesterday. I’m not going to make deadline. I just want to sleep, but . . .”

“How many times did Ziegler come here for a private session?”

“Four—no, five. Twice with me and my assistant, three times just me. I think.”

“How much extra did you give him for adding in the assistant?”

“Ah . . . five hundred.” Robbins rubbed the spot between her eyebrows with two fingers. “Yeah, five.”

It jibed with Ziegler’s accounting.

“How many times were you intimate with him?”

“It wasn’t intimacy. There’s nothing intimate about having your choice taken away. He had sex with me—once. He raped me. Once.” Something fired in her eyes. “It wasn’t intimacy.”

“You’re right.”

“You’re wondering—I’m wondering—did I ask for it? Did I open the damn door to it? I had him in here, I paid him to come here. I knew he was a user. I heard the talk, but I kept going to him, I had him come to me.”

“Why?”

“He was a really good trainer.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Oh God. He was tough on me, and charming about it. He helped keep me in shape. Fashion blogger,” she said with a bitter half laugh. “You have to look good. You’re not competing with the people you’re writing about—the stars and butterflies and trust-fund babies—but you absolutely are. I didn’t want to go to a body sculptor—wanted to do it myself. That’s something to feel smug about when you know who’s getting work done, and how often. So I stuck with him. I stuck with Trey.”

She let her head fall back. “So I’m asking myself did I ask for it. When it happened before, I was in love with the bastard. Just a kid, and in love the way you are at sixteen. After, he said I’d wanted it. I’d teased him. So he’d given me a little something to relax me, so he’d held me down when I said no, when I said stop. But I’d wanted it, and if I made a big deal about it, everybody would know I’d asked for it.”

“No one asks to be raped, Kira.”

“No, and I know better. I just can’t get to it yet. I thought I could handle Ziegler—no problem. I’m smart, I’m strong, I learned how to take what happened before and get smarter, get stronger. But knowing’s one thing, feeling’s another.”

Her eyes filled; she pressed her fingers to them as if to push the tears back in.

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