by J. D. Robb
“Baby doll, my butt,” Pepper uttered. “He sent the transmission silent, about six-fifteen. He knows I’m never up before seven-thirty, never sleep past eight. He never came home last night, but he was covering himself. I went to his office, but he’d called that bimbo he’s probably been doing and told her he wouldn’t be in all day. She was surprised to see me as apparently he’d told her that I was having some sort of emotional crisis and he needed to stay with me. I’ll show him an emotional crisis.”
She rose, saw there wasn’t room to pace, then dropped down again. “I postponed the promo spot, went home, and went through his office. That’s how I found out he’s been sending flowers and tasteful little gifts to his fucking harem, and I found receipts for hotel rooms, names and dates on his personal calendar. He showed up about three, looking all surprised to see me, all delighted.” Her bruised eye flashed fury. “He’d had a couple of cancellations, and wasn’t this lucky? Why didn’t we go upstairs to bed, and get lucky again.”
“I’m assuming you told him his luck had run out.”
“In spades. I hit him with not being home all night, and he tried to make me think I’d been dreaming or sleepwalking. When I showed him the copies I’d made of his personal receipts and date book, he had the nerve, the fucking nerve, to act hurt and insulted. If I didn’t trust him, we had a serious problem.”
She paused, lifted a hand to indicate she needed a moment. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing coming out of his mouth. So smooth, so practiced. Well. Well.”
“I don’t have any alcohol in here,” Eve said into the silence. “How about a hit of coffee?”
“Thanks, but just some water, if you don’t mind.”
While Peabody moved to take care of it, Pepper picked up her shades by the earpiece, twirled them. “No point in going into all the ugly details, but when he realized I wasn’t buying, when I explained to him that it was done, he was out—out of the house, the office, the expense account, and my life—the shit hit the fan. And his fist hit my face.”
“Where is he now?”
“I have no idea. Thanks,” she said when Peabody handed her some water. “I expect you to find him, Dallas, and arrest him. I’d have worse than a black eye if I hadn’t had a security droid on standby. I’d done that because I wanted the droid to escort him upstairs, wait while he packed up what belonged to him, and escort him out. Instead, when I called out, it came in while Leo was coming toward me, ready to hit me again. It hauled him up and heaved him out.”
She drank, slow sips, until the glass was empty.
“He said vicious things to me,” Pepper continued. “Crude, vicious, horrible things. It was my fault he was seduced—his term—seduced by other women because I was so controlling, even in bed. How it was past time he showed me who was in charge around here because he was through taking orders from . . . from some bossy cunt.” She shuddered. “He was screaming that sort of thing at me before the droid came in. I was terrified. I didn’t know I could be terrified, not really. I didn’t know he could be the way he was in those few awful minutes.”
“Get her some more water, Peabody,” Eve ordered when Pepper started to shake.
“I’d rather be mad than scared.” She dug into the bag again, found a lace-edged handkerchief, and mopped at her streaming eyes. “I’m all right when I’m just mad. I know about the woman who was attacked last night, and the report speculated it’s connected with two murders—the ones you asked me about. And I thought, Oh God, oh God, I thought, Leo could have done it. The Leo I saw today could have done it. I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re going to file a complaint, and we’re going to bring charges of assault. We’ll track him down and bring him in. He won’t touch you again.”
This time she only stared into the water Peabody gave her, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m afraid to be alone. I’m ashamed that he’s made me a coward, but—”
“You’re not a coward. You just had some guy who outweighs you by a good thirty sock his fist into your eye and threaten to do more. If you weren’t shaken up, you’d be stupid. You’re not stupid because you came in and you’re bringing charges.”
“What if he killed those women? I slept beside him, I made love with him. What if he did those horrible things, then came home to me?”
“Let’s take it one step at a time. Once we’ve done the paperwork, I can arrange for an officer to stay at home with you if you’d feel safer having a cop as well as your security droid.”
“I would. I very much would. But I’d need him, or her, to come to the theater. I have a performance at eight.” She smiled wanly. “The show must go on.”
By the time she’d sent Pepper and her police escort off to Broadway, the stress and fatigue had a headache swirling behind Eve’s eyes. She’d put out an APB on Fortney, and the dragnet was already spreading.
She met with Breen’s attorney, let the preliminary complaints roll off her. But when he demanded his client be allowed to return home and tend to his minor child, she didn’t argue. In fact, she surprised the attorney by postponing further questioning until nine the next morning.
And she assigned two men to stake out Breen and his house overnight.
She sat back down in her office, already past the end of shift, and thought about coffee, about sleep, about work.
When McNab jogged in, he looked so bright and energetic, it hurt to look at him.
“Can’t you ever wear anything that doesn’t glow?” she demanded.
“Summertime, Dallas. Guy’s gotta glow. Got some news should put a glow back in your cheeks. Fortney booked a first-class seat on a shuttle to New L.A. He’s en route.”
“Quick work, McNab.”
He shot out his index finger, blew on it. “Fastest EDD man in the east. Lieutenant, you look well and truly beat.”
“Nothing wrong with your vision, either. Take Peabody home. Make sure she gets a good night’s sleep, which is my delicate way of saying restrain yourself from rabbiting together half the night. She needs a clear and alert mind tomorrow.”
“You got it. You might try that good night’s sleep yourself.”
“Eventually,” she mumbled, then started the process of extraditing Fortney and arranging for local authorities to meet him when he stepped off the shuttle.
Peabody bounced in. “Lieutenant, McNab said you said—”
“I should just put in a revolving door because everybody just walks in and out as they damn well please anyway.”
“The door was open. It’s almost always open. McNab said I was relieved, but I haven’t yet contacted authorities in New L.A. re Fortney, or transmitted the warrant.”
“It’s done. They’ll pick him up, ship him back, and have promised to take just enough time to ensure he’ll spend the night in a cell. He won’t wrangle a bail hearing until morning.”
“It’s my job to—”
“Shut up, Peabody. Go home, get a meal, get some sleep. The exam starts oh eight hundred, sharp.”
“Sir, I believe it might be necessary to postpone the exam as this case is at a crucial point. Fortney—and I see that my initial instincts there were right—will have to be interviewed, and you’ll want to interview Breen and try to arrange an interview with Renquist to tie the matter up. I feel it’s inappropriate for me to take a half day, minimum, for personal business during this stage of the investigation.”
“Got the jitters?”
“Well, yeah, that, too, but—”
“You’ll take the exam, Peabody. If you have to wait another three months to take it, one of us will jump off the nearest building, or more likely, I’ll just pitch you off. I think, somehow, I can muddle through the day without you.”
“But I think—”
“Report at Exam Room One, oh eight hundred, Officer. That’s an order.”
“I don’t believe you can actually order me to take . . .” She trailed off, swallowed hard when Eve lifted her gaze. “But, ah, I understand the s
pirit of the statement, sir. I’m going to try not to let you down.”
“Jesus, Peabody, you’re not going to let me down whatever you do on the exam. And you’ll be—”
“Stop.” Peabody squeezed her eyes closed. “Don’t say anything that’ll jinx it. Don’t say it, or any sentence with the word luck in it.”
“You’d better go take a pill.”
“I might.” She gave a shaky smile. “Don’t wish me the ‘L’ word, okay, but maybe you could do like a signal or a sign. You could do this.” Peabody showed her teeth in a grin, widened her eyes to show enthusiasm, and punched out her fist with her thumb sticking up.
Leaning back, Eve cocked her head. “What is that? I’m supposed to signal you to stick your thumb up your ass?”
“No! It’s thumbs-up. Jeez, Dallas. Thumbs-up. Never mind.”
“Peabody.” Eve rose, halting her aide before she could stalk out of the office. “Commencing at oh eight hundred hours, I expect you to kick exam butt.”
“Yes, sir. Thanks.”
Chapter 20
When Eve dragged herself home, there was one thought uppermost in her mind. To get herself horizontal on a flat surface for one blessed hour.
Fortney was on his way back to New York, under wraps, and by God he could stew in a cage for a few hours. She’d deal with Breen in the morning, and Renquist. Though Smith was down on her list, he’d be watched for the next little while. But she couldn’t watch anyone with eyes that felt like a couple of burnt cinders stuck in her face.
She just needed to stretch out, she told herself, give her head a chance to clear. She walked through a fog of fatigue into the cool and gorgeous quiet of the house.
The fog shimmered and tore apart. And Summerset stepped through it.
“You are, as usual, late.”
She stared for a moment while her numbed brain struggled to process. Tall, bony, ugly, annoying. Oh yeah, he was back. She found the energy to peel off her linen jacket and tossed it on the newel just to irritate him.
It was amazing how much better the act made her feel.
“How’d you get through airport security with that steel pike up your ass?” Ordering herself not to stagger, she bent to pick up the cat who was busy threading himself between her legs. She stroked Galahad’s head. “Look, it’s back. Didn’t I tell you to change the security code?”
“The disgrace you call a vehicle does not belong in front of the house, nor,” he added, picking up her jacket with two thin fingers, “is this the proper place for articles of clothing.”
She started up the stairs, stifling a yawn. “Bite me.”
He watched her go, smiled thinly at her back. It was good to be home.
She went straight to the bedroom, managed to make it up to the platform, where she dumped the cat on the bed seconds before she fell facedown onto it herself.
She was asleep before Galahad padded his way over and curled up on her butt.
Roarke found her there, as he’d expected from the brief report from Summerset. “Finally hit the wall, have you?” he murmured, noting she hadn’t removed her weapon harness or boots. He gave the cat an absent scratch between the ears, then settled down in the sitting area to work while she slept.
She didn’t dream, not at first, but simply lay at the bottom of a dark pool of exhaustion. Only when she began to surface did the dreams come, in vague shapes and muffled sounds. A hospital bed, with a pale figure on it.
Marlene Cox, then herself as a child. Both battered, both helpless. Then the darker shapes that swirled around the bed. The cop she was, staring down at the child she’d been.
There were questions to be answered. You have to wake up and answer the questions or he’ll do it again, to someone else. There’s always another victim.
But the figure in the bed didn’t stir. The face changed: from her own to Marlene’s, to Jacie Wooton’s, to Lois Gregg’s, then back to her own.
Something began to rise up inside her that was both anger and fear. You’re not dead, not like the others. You have to wake up. Damn it, wake up and stop him.
One of those swirling shapes coalesced, stood on the opposite side of the bed. The man who’d battered the child, and haunted the woman.
It’s never really over. His eyes were bright with humor in his bloody face. It never ends. There’s always going to be another, no matter what you do. You might as well sleep, little girl. Better to sleep than to keep walking with the dead. Keep walking, and you’ll be one of them.
He reached over, pressed his hand over the child’s mouth. Her eyes opened, full of pain, full of fear. Eve could only stare, unable to move, to protect, to defend. Only stare into her own eyes as they glazed over, and died.
She woke with a strangled gasp, and in Roarke’s arms.
“Ssh. You’re just dreaming.” His lips pressed against her temple. “I’m right here. Hold on to me. Only a dream.”
“I’m okay.” But she kept her face buried against his shoulder until she got her breath back. “I’m okay.”
“Hold on to me anyway.” For he wasn’t, never really was, when she wandered through nightmares.
“No problem.” She could already feel her pulse begin to level off and the ugly smear of terror over her mind fade. She could smell him—soap and skin, and there was the lovely brush of his hair against her cheek.
Her world steadied.
“What time is it? How long was I out?”
“It doesn’t matter. You needed to sleep. Now you need food, and more sleep.”
She wasn’t going to argue. She was starving. More, she recognized that tone in his voice, and it meant he’d find a way to pour a soother down her throat if she gave him the smallest opening.
“I could use a meal. But I could use something else first.”
“What?”
“You know how sometimes you get in a mood when you touch me, when you love me, and it’s all tender. Like you know I’m feeling raw inside.”
“I do.”
She tipped her head back, touched his cheek. “Show me.”
“Here now.” He feathered his lips over her brow, her cheeks, her mouth as he released her weapon harness. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”
She nodded. “Just be with me first. I need . . . I just need you.”
He eased her back on the bed, slipped off her boots. He hated to see the shadows under her eyes, the shadows in them. She looked so pale, as if he could pass a hand through her, and if he did, she’d vanish like one of his own dreams.
He didn’t have to be told to be gentle, didn’t need her long, quiet sigh to know it was love that would feed her now.
“When I came in and you were sleeping, I thought: There’s my soldier, exhausted from her wars.” He lifted her hand, kissed her fingers. “Now, I look, and I think: There’s my woman, soft and lovely.”
Her lips curved as he undressed her. “Where do you get this stuff?”
“It just comes to me. I’ve only to look at you, and the world comes to me. You’re my life.”
She reared up, threw her arms around him. The sob wanted to leap out of her throat, but she feared if she let it out, it would never stop. With her lips pressed to the warm curve of his neck, she rocked. Take me away, she silently begged. Oh God, take me away, just for a little while.
As if he heard her, he began to stroke. Gently, to soothe, to comfort. Whatever he crooned quieted her troubled soul until she relaxed in his arms, and let him lead the way.
His lips were soft, soft and warm when they found hers. He took the kiss deep, but slowly, so she could drift into it, and into him, degree by degree. He felt her surrender to it, his strong and valiant soldier until she was pliant as wax, fluid as water.
Her mind misted over. There were no nightmares here, no shadows lurking in the corners. There was only Roarke, and those almost lazy caresses, those soft and dreamy kisses that took her under, into a quiet eddy of peace. Sensations layered, each one tissue thin, coating over the fatigue and
the despair she hadn’t realized had bloomed inside her.
His mouth cruised over her breast, stirred up her heartbeat as his tongue circled her, tasted her. She ran her hands over his back, tracing the shape of him, the muscle and bone. Death, with its infinite faces, was a world away.
When his mouth, his hands became more demanding she was ready, ready for those first shimmers of heat. Those long, liquid pulls inside her belly turned her sigh into a moan.
He took his time, endless time, arousing, fascinating, and being fascinated. Her body was a joy to him with its long, sleek lines, the supple skin, the surprising curves. He could watch the pleasure bloom on her, feel it spread through her with little quivers and shifts.
And at last, when they were both ready, he felt it burst through her, that gorgeous throaty moan, that lovely and helpless shudder.
The orgasm was a long hot wave that flooded body, heart, mind. The sheer release of it was glorious—like life. She would have folded herself around him then, wrapped him tight, taken him in, but he linked his fingers with hers and used his mouth to give her more.
She couldn’t resist. He weighed her down with tenderness. And when a sob did escape, it was one of stunned joy as she crested again.
A thousand pulses beat, thickly. Nerves danced over her skin, shivering at every brush of his lips. Her muscles had gone lax, and everything she was lay open to him.
He watched her face as his lips rubbed lightly over hers. Her fingers tightened on his, and her lips curved before she said his name. Before she rose up to meet him.
When they were still and quiet, he lay with his head on her breast. He thought she might sleep again, more peacefully now, but she lifted a hand, threading her fingers through his hair.