by J. D. Robb
“You’re important to me now.”
“But I had to die for that.”
“They all do, don’t they.” Stella swiveled on a bar stool, a drink in her hand, blood dripping from the slice in her throat. “You don’t give a shit about anybody till they’re bleeding on the ground.”
“I have a man I love. I have a partner and friends. I have a cat.”
“You’ve got nothing, because there’s nothing inside you. You’re broken in there so nothing holds long.” Lifting her glass in a toast, Stella shook back hair matted with blood. “What you are is a killer.”
“I’m not. I’m a cop.”
“The badge just gives you an excuse. It’s your free fucking pass. You killed him, didn’t you? Hey, Richie.”
Her father turned on his stool. Blood poured out of countless holes in his body. Holes she’d put there as a battered, broken child of eight.
“Hi, little girl. Drink up! It’s a family reunion.”
He’d been handsome once, she remembered, hard and handsome before too many drinks, too many cons had softened him, worn at him. They’d made an attractive couple once, she imagined. But what lived in each of them had rotted them—rotten from the inside out.
She couldn’t be theirs. She wouldn’t be theirs. “You’re not my family.”
“You wanna check that DNA again.” Her father winked at her, sipped a foamy brew. “I’m your flesh and blood. I’m in your bones, in your guts, just like Stella here. And you killed me.”
“You were raping me. Again. Beating me, again. You broke my arm. You choked me. You pushed yourself into me and tore me. I was just a child.”
“I took care of you!” He threw the brew down, but no one stopped talking, stopped laughing. “I can still take care of you. Don’t you forget it.”
“You can’t hurt me anymore.”
He smiled, with teeth gone shiny and sharp. “Wanna bet?”
“She killed me, too,” Stella reminded him. “What kind of sick bitch kills her own mother?”
“I didn’t kill you. McQueen did.”
“You drove him to it. You tricked me, you used me. You think you can come back from that? You think you can just live your life after that?”
They could hurt her, she realized. Something hurt in her now. Deep in the center of her. “I can. I will.”
“You’re broken inside, and I’m inside you just like you were inside me. Live with that, bitch.”
“Hey, Stell. Show’s starting.”
All around them people screamed, stabbed, clawed, and bit. Some fell, bleeding, to be crushed or beaten. Crazed laughter joined the screams as a woman spun by in mad pirouettes while the blood fountaining out of her throat spattered faces, walls, furniture.
“Want to play?” Richie asked Stella.
“We got twelve minutes.”
“Why wait?”
She shrugged, tossed back the rest of her drink. Together they turned to Eve.
“Time for some payback,” Stella said.
Eve pulled her weapon, stunned them, and again, but they kept coming.
“Can’t kill what’s dead. You have to live with it.” Stella, hands curled like claws, leaped first.
She fought for her life, for her sanity. Slipping on the bloody floor, kicking out, crying out when her arm twisted under her. The pain spiked. She could all but hear the bone snap as it had when she’d been a child.
Her mind screamed, Wake up! Wake up!
Then she heard him, calling to her. Felt him, soothing her.
And turned her face into Roarke’s chest.
“Come back now, all the way, Eve. I’ve got you. I’m here.”
“I’m okay. I’m all right.”
“You’re not, but I have you.”
She kept her eyes closed. Just to smell him instead of the blood and Stella’s heavy perfume. Clean and hers. Roarke.
“It got mixed up, that’s all. I let it get mixed up.”
The cat bumped at her hip. More comfort. She made herself breathe until breathing no longer scored her lungs. And opening her eyes realized they were on the floor of her office, with Roarke cradling her in his lap.
“God. Did I hurt you?” She shoved back, panicked as she thought of how she’d clawed at him in Dallas in the throes of a violent nightmare.
“No. Don’t worry. Here now, just rest easy a minute.”
“I let them in. I let it happen.” It infuriated her, disgusted her. Terrified her. “I shouldn’t be thinking about them.”
“Bollocks to that.” Now he drew her back, and she saw there was more than concern on his face. There was temper, ripe and ready. “I can count the number of easy nights you’ve had since we got back from Dallas on my fingers. And it’s getting worse, not better.”
“It was a hard day, and—”
“Bloody bullshit, Eve. It’s enough. More than enough. It’s past time you talked with Mira about this, and seriously.”
“I can deal with it.”
“How, and for Christ’s sake why?”
“I don’t know how.” She shoved away because she felt tears burning her eyes. She’d be damned if she’d cry now, like the weak, like the helpless. “I did it before, with him. This had stopped. I made it stop. I can do it again.”
“And until, you’ll suffer like this? For what purpose?”
“It’s my mind, my problem. I told you I’d talk to her, but I’m not ready. Don’t push me.”
“Then I’ll ask. If you won’t do this for yourself, do it for me.”
“Don’t use my feelings to manipulate me.”
“It’s what I have, and they’re my own. I’m as honest and true as I’ve ever been with you, Eve, when I tell you this is killing me.”
Her belly, already raw, trembled. Because she saw, too clearly, he spoke the truth. “I said I’d talk to her. I will.”
“When?”
“I can’t get into this now.” Leave it alone. Push it back. “Jesus, Roarke, look at those boards, at those faces.”
He took her shoulders. “Look at me. And let me tell you what I’m looking at. You’re pale and shadowed. You’re still trembling. So look at me, Eve, and understand I love you beyond anything and everything there is. And I need this from you.”
She preferred the temper. Temper she could fight. But he defeated her with the restrained—although barely—calm. And the utter misery in his eyes.
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Tomorrow.”
“I have to—”
“Tomorrow, Eve. I want your word on it. For me.” He laid his lips on her forehead. “And for them,” he added, turning her to face her victim board.
He knew how to draw a weapon, and use it so skillfully you barely felt the blow. She’d beaten the tears, but she couldn’t beat him, not on this.
“All right. I’ll talk to her tomorrow. My word on it.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m a little pissed you maneuvered me into this.”
“All right, I won’t thank you. I’m a little pissed I had to maneuver you into it. Let’s go sleep it off. I’ll have you up early enough,” he began as she started to protest. “You can go over what you’ve got, and what I dug out for you well before the briefing. You’ll need a booster if you don’t get a few hours down. You hate taking them almost as much as you hate losing … let’s call it a debate, with me.”
He had that right. “Five-thirty should do it.”
“Five-thirty then.”
Without discussion, they walked to the bedroom. In silence they readied for bed. She slipped in, shut her eyes. And saw his face—the worry, the temper, the misery. Heard all that as she replayed his words to her.
“I know this is hard for you,” she said in the dark. “I’m sorry.”
His arm came around her. “I know it’s hard for you to talk of it even to someone you trust as you trust Mira. I’m sorry.”
“Okay. But I’m still a little pissed.”
&
nbsp; “It’s all right. So am I.”
She turned to him, curled to him, and let herself sleep.
6
She woke to the scent of coffee, And wondered if that was how mornings in heaven smelled. She opened her eyes to soft light, and Roarke sitting on the side of the bed.
Definitely had earmarks of heaven.
“Your wake-up call, Lieutenant.”
She grunted, shoved up, reached for the coffee he held. He moved it out of reach.
“What makes you think this is yours?”
“Because you’re you.”
“So I am.” He brushed at her hair, a light, easy touch, but his eyes took a deep and thorough study of her face. “You slept well enough, I think.”
“Yeah.” Taking the coffee, she breathed in the scent like air, then drank. Then gave her mind a chance to catch up.
He’d dressed, though he’d yet to put on his jacket and tie. The cat ignored them both, sprawled on the foot of the bed like a lumpy blanket.
A glance at the clock showed her it was precisely five-thirty.
She didn’t know how he did it.
He watched her come around, watched the sleep glaze fade until her eyes were alert, focused.
“And now you’re you,” he decided.
“If there wasn’t coffee, the entire world would shuffle around like zombies.”
She moved quickly now, and by the time she’d dressed he had breakfast set up in the sitting area. She eyed the oatmeal suspiciously.
“It’s what you need,” he said, anticipating her. Then trailed a finger down the shallow dent in her chin. “Don’t be a baby about it.”
“I’m an adult. I thought when you got to be an adult you could eat what you want.”
“You can, when your stomach also reaches maturity.”
Because arguing about it would waste time she didn’t have, she sat, spooned some up. Since it was loaded with apples and cinnamon, she tried to think of it as a weird apple Danish.
“I’ve copied the data I compiled and sent it to your computer,” he began, “but I can give you a summary.”
“Summarize away.”
“There are some life insurance policies large enough to be tempting.”
She loaded a piece of toast with some sort of jam. Enough jam, she thought, might disguise the weird apple Danish. “You have a different level of what’s tempting, monetarily, than the rest of the population.”
“It wasn’t always so, was it?” He ate his own oatmeal with apparent contentment. And probably actually thought of it as oatmeal. “While it’s true a certain type will kill for loose change, that’s not what you’re after here. We have a couple of victims who stood to inherit family money, and some substantially. There’s also the matter of salaries, pay scales, positions, bonuses. A large percentage of the victims were executives, junior executives, which means they certainly stood ahead of someone, or several someones on that corporate ladder.”
As he spoke he simply lifted a finger, and the cat—who’d been bellying over like some furry combatant, stopped.
Galahad stretched as if he’d had nothing more in mind.
“The admins, assistants—the support also takes a rung,” Roarke continued. “And all these positions can earn bonuses—often hefty ones—for bringing in accounts, clients, reaching or exceeding sales goals or running a successful campaign. There’s only so much bonus money to go around, so if someone’s rewarded—”
“Somebody else gets a hearty handshake.”
“Basically. Or may lose out on a desired promotion when the someone else lands that major client or account, has a good run of sales.”
“People get pissed when they get passed over, or somebody else gets the plum on top.”
“Cherry. The cherry’s on top. The plum’s in the pie.”
“Sometimes you want the plum, the cherry, and the whole damn pie. It doesn’t feel like greed, not simple, ‘I want it all’ greed. But it may be a factor. Ambition, greed, envy—it’s what starts wars. You want what the other guy has, so you fight to take it from him. It feels like a war. That’s why Summerset’s Urbans connection rings for me.”
“Not old-style, hand-to-hand or weapon-against-weapon,” Roarke put in. “But the more dispassionate, distant style of dropping a bomb from a great height, or launching a missile—or, more accurately, the cold science of germ and biological warfare.”
“That’s what it is—warfare. Cold, dispassionate, and distant. But to start a war, or wage a battle, you have to want something.”
“It’s possible all he wanted was to kill, and to see if his method worked, and how well.”
“Another factor, but if that was it, that was all, I think he’d take credit or taunt. I’m so smart, I’m so clever. Look what I did. Instead we’re into the next day, and there’s no contact. My sense is there’s a connection to the bar and/or somebody in it he doesn’t want coming back on him.”
She pushed to her feet, strode over to strap on her weapon. “Another high probability, according to the percentages: It’s a strike against a business or corporation whose suits frequent the place. He didn’t get that bonus or promotion, or more probable, got demoted or fired.”
“I’ve got most of that data as well—or will have by now as I left the search ongoing last night. By the time you compile all these names, you and your team are going to have more suspects—”
“Persons of interest—for now.”
“However you want to term it. It’ll take a week to run them, interview them, analyze.”
“I’m going to cross them with mine. Anyone who pops on both lists, that’s priority. We’ll work through elimination, go with the percentages. I’ll get more manpower for the drone work. Whitney’s going public, so that means we’ll have the cracks and loonies buzzing us—but there may be something in what comes in. We’ll sift through, follow up.”
She paused, pulled on a jacket. “I need to see the data, and I need my boards. There’s time to filter it down some before the briefing.”
“I’ll give Feeney, and you if you want it, time when and where I can.” He laid a hand on her shoulder as they walked out together. “You’ll contact Mira, make arrangements to talk to her.”
She actually felt her hackles rise. “I said I would.”
“Then I trust you will.”
Even as she walked into her office, Summerset stepped out of Roarke’s. The man had some kind of spooky radar, or he’d found a way to plant tracking devices.
Either way, it was creepy.
“I have some information you may want.” He offered her a disc. “There are names on there of people who trust me. Their identities must be protected.”
“Understood.”
“Some of the information can’t be officially confirmed, as the files have been sealed if not destroyed.”
She lifted the disc. “Is this speculation or fact?”
“The attacks are fact. There were witnesses, including the boy I spoke of last night—though he’s no longer a boy. You have his name now, and his statement as he related it to me. Others I spoke to, who were in the position to know or find out, state the initial investigation was able to identify most of the components of the substance used. The base was lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly called—”
“LSD. I know what it is.”
“The other components are on the disc, but as I said, can’t be confirmed. I have a connection who was, during the time, in the King’s Army. We weren’t acquainted during the war, but met some years after. He states a suspect was apprehended after the second attack, taken into custody. The investigation was subsequently closed, and deemed an accident.”
“An accident?”
“Officially, yes. Speculation, as he related the rumors that ran through the ranks. The suspect was transported to an unknown location. My acquaintance believes he was executed, but that can’t be verified. Others believe he was held and used to create an antidote, or still others say the military used hi
m to create more of the substance, perhaps others.”
“No ID on the suspect then?”
“The theory was, and remains, he—or they—were part of the fringe element who believed society had to be destroyed before it could be rebuilt. The Purging, they called it. They were, thankfully, small groups who used any means to destroy homes, buildings, vehicles—hospitals were a favorite target, as were children.”
“Children?”
“They abducted them. Those they abducted they indoctrinated, or attempted to indoctrinate into their ideology. Once they’d purged—people, culture, technology, finance—the children would repopulate and rebuild.”
“Why haven’t I heard of this?”
“The Purging is documented, though whitewashed and diluted. Study your history, Lieutenant. Past is prologue.”
“Shit.” She turned to her board. “Maybe this is some fringe group of terrorists, and I’m going in the wrong direction.”
“Has there been any contact with authorities? Any claim for credit?”
“No. And damn it, this type of group wants the credit.”
“I agree. Any attack during the Urbans initiated by these fringe groups was immediately followed by a message sent to the nearest military or police authority. It was always the same message: ‘Behold a Red Horse.’”
“Horse? What the hell does a horse have to do with it?”
“I remember this,” Roarke added. “I’ve read of this, of them. They didn’t have a specific leader or figurehead, and were for the most part scattered and disorganized. But fervent all the same. They believed the wars, and the social and economic upheaval before them, signaled the end-time. And they not only welcomed it, but sought to help it along to their own ends.”
“Great.” She shoved the disc in her pocket, then a hand through her hair. “Add possible whacked religious fanatic to the mix. What’s with the horse?”
“The Second Horseman of the Apocalypse,” Summerset told her. “‘And when he had opened the second seal I heard the second beast say “Come and See.’”
“‘And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.’”