Rapture in Death

by J. D. Robb

  Our personalities are programmed at conception. Reeanna’s voice floated in, cool and sure. We are what we are made. Our choices are already set at birth.

  And she was a child, in a terrible room, a cold room that smelled of garbage and urine and death. And there was blood on her hands.

  Someone was holding her, pinning her arms, and she fought like a wild thing, like a terrified, desperate child would fight.

  “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”

  “Ssh, Eve, it’s a dream.” Roarke gathered her closer, rocked, while the clammy sweat on her skin soaked into his shirt and broke his heart. “You’re safe.”

  “I killed you. You’re dead. Stay dead.”

  “Wake up now.”

  He pressed his lips to her temple, struggling to find the right way to soothe her. If he’d had the power, he would have gone back in time and cheerfully murdered what haunted her.

  “Wake up, darling. It’s Roarke. No one’s going to hurt you. He’s gone,” he murmured when she stopped fighting him and began to shudder. “He’s never coming back.”

  “I’m all right.” It humiliated her, always, to be caught in the grip of a nightmare. “I’m okay now.”

  “I’m not.” He continued to hold her, stroking until her tremors eased. “It was a bad one.”

  She kept her eyes shut, tried to concentrate on the scent of him: clean and male. “Remind me not to go to bed after gorging on spiced spaghetti.” She realized he was fully dressed and the bedroom lights were on low. “You haven’t been to bed.”

  “I just got in.” He eased her back to study her face and brushed a drying tear from her cheek. “You’re still pale.” It tore at him, and his voice was edgy. “Why the hell won’t you take a soother at least?”

  “I don’t like them.” As usual, the nightmare had left her with the dull throb of a headache. Knowing he would see it if he looked too closely, she shifted away. “I haven’t had one in a while. Weeks really.” Calmer now, she rubbed her tired eyes. “That one was all jumbled up. Strange. Maybe it was the wine.”

  “And maybe it’s stress. You will work until you collapse.”

  She angled her head, glanced at the watch on his wrist. “And who’s just coming in from the office at two A.M.?” She smiled, wanting to erase the worry from his eyes. “Buy any small planets lately?”

  “No, just a few minor satellites.” He rose, stripped off his shirt, then lifted a brow when he caught the considering look she gave his bare chest. “You’re too tired.”

  “I don’t have to be. You could do all the work.”

  Laughing, he sat to take off his shoes. “Thank you very much, but why don’t we wait until you have the energy to participate?”

  “Christ, that’s so married.” But she slid down in the bed, exhausted. The headache was just on the edge of her brain, cannily waiting to strike. When he slipped into bed beside her, she rested her tender head on his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re home.”

  “So am I.” He brushed his lips over her hair. “You’ll sleep now.”

  “Yeah.” It soothed her to feel the rhythm of his heart under the palm of her hand. She only felt slightly ashamed of needing it there, needing him there. “Do you think we’re programmed at conception?”

  “What?”

  “I wonder.” She was drifting into that twilight sleep already, and her voice was thick and slow. “Is it just the luck of the draw, the gene pool, what slips in with egg and sperm? Is that it? What does that make us, Roarke, you and me?”

  “Survivors,” he said, but he knew she was asleep. “We survived.”

  He lay awake a long time, listening to her breathe, watching the stars. When he was certain she slept without scars, he let himself follow.

  * * *

  She was awakened at seven by a communiqué from Commander Whitney’s office. She’d been expecting the summons. She had two hours to prep for the face-to-face report.

  It didn’t surprise her that Roarke was already up, dressed, and sipping coffee while he scanned the stock reports on his monitor. She grunted at him, her usual morning greeting, and took coffee into the shower with her.

  He was on the ’link when she came back. His broker, she imagined from the bits and pieces of conversation she caught. She snagged a muffin, intending to stuff it into her mouth as she dressed, but Roarke grabbed her hand, pulled her down on the sofa.

  “I’ll get back to you by noon,” he told his broker, then ended transmission. “What’s your hurry?” he asked Eve.

  “I’ve got to meet Whitney in an hour and a half and convince him there’s a link between three unrelated victims, talk him into letting me pursue the matter, and to accept data I accessed illegally. Then I’m due in court, again, to testify so that a lowlife pimp, who ran an unlicensed stable of minors and beat one of them to death with his hands, goes into a cage and stays there.”

  He kissed her lightly. “Just another day at the office. Have some strawberries.”

  She had a weakness for them and plucked one out of the bowl. “We don’t have any—you know—thing scheduled for tonight, do we?”

  “No. What did you have in mind?”

  “I was thinking we could just hang.” She moved her shoulders. “Unless I’m in Interview being kicked because of breaching government security.”

  “You should have let me do it for you.” He grinned at her. “A little time, and I could have accessed the data from here.”

  She closed her eyes. “Don’t tell me that. I really don’t want to know that.”

  “What do you say to watching some old videos, eating popcorn, and necking on the sofa?”

  “I say, thank you, God.”

  “It’s a date then.” He topped off their coffee. “Maybe we’ll even manage to have dinner together. This case—or these cases—are troubling you.”

  “I can’t get a hook, a focal point. There’s no why, there’s no how. Other than Fitzhugh’s spouse and his associate, no one’s been even one step out of line. And they’re both just idiots.” She moved her shoulders. “It’s not homicide when it’s self-termination, but it feels like homicide.” She huffed out a disgusted breath. “And if that’s all I’ve got to convince Whitney, I’m going to be dragging my ass out of his office after he stomps it.”

  “You trust your instincts. He strikes me as a man who’s smart enough to trust them as well.”

  “We’ll soon see.”

  “If they arrest you, darling, I’ll wait for you.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Summerset said you had visitors last night,” Roarke added as she rose to go to the closet.

  “Oh, shit, I forgot.” Dumping the robe on the floor, she pawed naked through her clothes. It was a process Roarke never failed to enjoy. She found a shirt of plain blue cotton, shrugged it on. “I had a couple of guys over for a quick orgy after work.”

  “Did you take pictures?”

  She chuckled and found some jeans, remembered court, and switched to tailored slacks. “It was Leonardo and Jess. They’re looking for a favor. From you.”

  Roarke watched as Eve started to pull on the slacks, remembered underwear, and yanked open a drawer. “Oh-oh. Will it hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. And actually, I’m kind of for it. They were thinking you could throw a party for Mavis here. Let her perform. The demo disc is done. I watched it myself last night and it’s really good. It would give her a chance to, like, premiere it before they start hawking it.”

  “All right. We could probably do it in a week or two. I’ll check my schedule.”

  Half dressed, she turned to him. “Just like that?”

  “Why not? It’s not a problem.”

  She pouted a little. “I figured I’d have to persuade you.”

  Anticipation lit wickedly in his eyes. “Would you like to?”

  She fastened her slacks, kept her face bland. “Well, I really appreciate it. And since you’re being so accommodating, I guess this is a good time to hit you with part
two.”

  Idly, he poured more coffee, flicked a glance at the monitor as the off planet agriculture reports began to scroll. He’d recently bought a minifarm on Space Station Delta.

  “What’s part two?”

  “Well, Jess has worked out this one number. He ran it by me last night.” She looked at Roarke, making it up as she went along. “It’s a duet, really impressive. And we thought, if for the party—the live portion of the performance—you could do it with Mavis.”

  He blinked, lost all interest in crops. “Do what with Mavis?”

  “Perform it. Actually it was my idea,” she continued, nearly losing it when he paled. “You’ve got a nice voice. In the shower, anyway. The Irish comes out. I mentioned it, and Jess thought it was fabulous.”

  He managed to shut his mouth, but it wasn’t easy. Slowly he reached over to disengage the monitor. “Eve—”

  “Really, it would be great. Leonardo has a terrific design for your costume.”

  “For my—” Thoroughly shaken, Roarke got to his feet. “You want me to wear a costume and sing a duet with Mavis? In public?”

  “It would mean so much to her. Just think of the press we could get.”

  “Press.” Now he blanched. “Christ Jesus, Eve.”

  “It’s really a sexy number.” Testing them both, she walked over, began to toy with the buttons of his shirt as she looked hopefully up into his eyes. “It could put her right over the top.”

  “Eve, I’m fond of her, really I am. I just don’t think—”

  “You’re so important.” She trailed her finger down the center of his chest. “So influential. And so . . . gorgeous.”

  It was just a little too thick. He narrowed his eyes, caught the laughter in hers. “You’re putting me on.”

  Her laughter burst out. “You bought it. Oh, you should have seen your face.” She pressed a hand to her belly, yelping when he yanked her ear. “I would have talked you into it.”

  “I don’t think so.” Not at all sure of himself, he turned away, started to reach for his coffee again.

  “I could have. You’d have done it if I’d played it right.” All but doubled over with laughter, she threw her arms around him, hugged herself to his back. “Oh, I love you.”

  He went very still as emotion delivered a hard, bruising punch to his heart. Shaken, he turned, gripped her arms.

  “What?” The laughter died out of her face. He looked stunned, and his eyes were dark and fierce. “What is it?”

  “You never say it.” Swamped, he dragged her close and buried his face in her hair. “You never say it,” he repeated.

  She could do nothing but hold on, rocked by the emotions pulsing from him. Where had this come from? she wondered. Where had he hidden it? “Yes, I do. Sure I do.”

  “Not like that.” He hadn’t known how much he’d needed to hear her say it, just like that. “Not without prompting. Without thinking about it first.”

  She opened her mouth to deny it, then closed it again. It was true, and it was foolish, cowardly. “I’m sorry. It’s hard for me. I do love you,” she said quietly. “Sometimes it scares me because you’re the first. And the only.”

  He held her there until he was sure he could speak, then eased her back, looked into her eyes. “You’ve changed my life. Become my life.” He touched his lips to hers, let the kiss deepen slowly, silkily. “I need you.”

  She linked her arms around his neck, pressed close. “Show me. Now.”

  chapter eleven

  Eve started off to work humming. Her body felt soft and strong, her mind rested. She took it as an omen when her vehicle purred to life on the first attempt, and the temperature control hung at a pleasant seventy-two degrees.

  She felt ready to face her commander and convince him she had a case to pursue.

  Then she got to Fifth and Forty-seventh and hit the jam. Street traffic was stopped, air traffic was circling like vultures, and no one was paying any heed to the noise pollution laws. The horns, shouts, curses, catcalls screamed out and echoed. The minute she stopped, her temperature control gleefully pumped up to ninety-five.

  Eve slammed out of her car and joined the melee.

  The glide-cart hawkers were taking advantage of the moment, slipping and sliding through the pack and doing a monster business on frozen fruit sticks and coffee. She didn’t bother to flash her badge and remind any of them they weren’t allowed the vend off the curbs. Instead, she snagged a vendor, bought a tube of Pepsi, and asked what the hell was going on.

  “Free-Agers.” Eyes shifting for more customers, he slid her credits into his safe slot. “Protest on conspicuous consumption. Hundreds of ’em, stretched across Fifth like a pretty ribbon. Singing. Want a wheat muffin to go with that? Fresh.”

  “No.”

  “Gonna be here awhile,” he warned and stepped onto his cart to glide through standing traffic.

  “Son of a bitch.” Eve scanned the scene. She was blocked in on all sides by furious commuters. Her ears were ringing and heat was pumping out of her car like a furnace.

  She slammed back in, beat on the control panel with her fist, and managed to knock the temperature down to a brisk sixty. Overhead, a tourist blimp trundled by, full of gawkers.

  With no faith whatsoever in her vehicle, Eve rammed it into vertical lift and hit her official warning siren. The siren wheezed on, no match for the cacophony of noise, but she managed a shaky lift. Her wheels missed the roof of the car in front of her by at least an inch as her vehicle coughed and choked its way into the air.

  “Next stop, recycling heap. I swear it,” she muttered and she punched at her communicator. “Peabody, what the fuck is going on here?”

  “Sir.” Peabody popped on screen, eyes bland, mouth sober. “I believe you’ve encountered the jam incited by the protest on Fifth.”

  “That wasn’t scheduled. I know damn well it wasn’t on the boards for this morning. They can’t have a permit.”

  “Free-Agers don’t believe in permits, sir.” She cleared her throat when Eve snarled. “I believe if you head west, you’ll have better luck on Seventh. Traffic is heavy there, but it’s moving. If you check your dash monitor—”

  “Yeah, like that’s going to work in this piece of shit. Call Maintenance and tell them they’re meat. Then contact the commander, explain that I may be a few minutes late for the meeting.” As she spoke, she wrestled with the car, which tended to dip and cause both pedestrians and other drivers to stare up in terror. “If I don’t fall on someone, I should be there in twenty minutes.”

  She avoided, barely, the edge of a billboard hologram touting the delights of private air travel. She and the Jet Star headed in opposite directions with varying degrees of success. She nicked the curb as she set down on Seventh and couldn’t blame the suit and tie pumping up his air skates for flipping her the bird.

  But she’d missed him, hadn’t she?

  She was just indulging in a sigh of relief when her communicator shrilled.

  “Any unit, any unit. Twelve seventeen, roof of Tattler Building, Seventh and Forty-second. Respond immediately. Unidentified female, considered armed.”

  Twelve seventeen, Eve thought. Self-termination threat. What the hell was this? “Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, responding. ETA five minutes.”

  She beat her siren into life and hit vertical again.

  The Tattler Building, home of the nation’s most popular tabloid, was shiny and new. The buildings on its former site had been razed in the thirties for the urban beautification program, which was a euphemism for the decay of infrastructure and construction that had plagued New York during the period.

  It speared up in silvery steel, bullet-shaped, and was ringed by circling skywalks and glides with a fresh-air restaurant spilling out from its base.

  Eve double parked, grabbed her field kit, and pushed her way through the crowd gathered on the sidewalk. She flipped her badge at the security guard and watched relief drown his face.

  “Thank
Christ. She’s up there, holding everybody off with antimugging spray. Got Bill dead in the eyes when he tried to grab her.”

  “Who is she?” Eve demanded as he hustled his way toward the interior elevator banks.

  “Cerise Devane. She owns the fucking place.”

  “Devane?” Eve knew her vaguely. Cerise Devane, CEO of Tattler Enterprises, was one of the privileged and influential people who sauntered in Roarke’s circles. “Cerise Devane is on the roof threatening to jump? What is this, some sort of insane publicity stunt to bump up their circulation?”

  “Looks real to me.” He puffed out his cheeks. “She’s buck ass naked, too. That’s all I know,” the guard claimed as the elevator shot upward. “Her assistant made the call. Frank Rabbit. You can get more out of him—if he’s conscious by now. Guy keeled right over when she went out on the ledge. That’s what I heard.”

  “You call for psych?”

  “Somebody did. We got the company shrink up there now, and a specialist in self-termination is on the way. Fire department, too, and air rescue. Everything’s backed up. Bad traffic jam on Fifth.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  The doors opened onto the roof, and Eve stepped out into a brisk, cooling wind that hadn’t been able to find its way through the towering walls of buildings to the valley of the streets. She took a quick scan.

  Cerise’s office was built onto the roof, or more accurately, into it. Slanted walls of treated glass formed a peak and would afford the CEO a three hundred sixty degree view of the city and people she loved to dish up in her paper.

  Through the glass, Eve could see the artwork, decor, and equipment designed for a top-flight office. And on the U-shaped lounging sofa, a man was stretched out with a compress on his forehead.

  “If that’s Rabbit, tell him to pull himself together and get out here to fill me in. And get anyone who isn’t essential off this roof. Clear that crowd off the streets. If she goes off, we don’t need her squashing bystanders.”

  “I just don’t have the man power,” the guard began.