The In Death Collection, Books 16-20

by J. D. Robb

  “You can’t coach me through it if you’re in Queens, Dallas. You gotta have a backup coach, somebody who takes the class, learns about the breathing and the positions and the . . . stuff. Daddy Bear’s first string, but you have to have one on the bench.”

  “Can I just stay on the bench? Outside?”

  “I need you there.” Tears swam into her eyes until they shimmered brighter than her boots. “You’re my best friend in the whole universe. I need you with me.”

  “Oh man. Okay, okay. Don’t flood. I’ll do it.”

  “We feel,” Leonardo said, and offered Mavis a green cloth to dab at her eyes, “that first for friendship there’s no one who we want to share this miracle with more. Added to that, you’re the most steady and solid people we know. In a crisis, you’d keep your heads.”

  “Our heads?” Eve repeated.

  “We want Roarke there, too.” Mavis sniffed into her cloth.

  “Me? There?”

  Eve turned her head and saw—with pleasure—the rare sight of utter panic on his face. “Not so damn funny now, is it, ace?”

  “We’re permitted, even encouraged, to have family present,” Leonardo explained. “You’re our family.”

  “Ah, I’m not sure it’s quite proper for me to be . . . to see Mavis in that condition. Under those . . . circumstances.”

  “Get out.” Sniffles forgotten, Mavis giggled and tapped Roarke playfully on the arm. “Anybody with a vid player’s seen me mostly naked. And this isn’t about the proper. It’s about family. We know we can count on you. Both of you.”

  “Of course.” Roarke swallowed a great deal of wine. “Of course, you can.”

  When they were alone, sitting in the soft light of dusk with the candles Summerset had lit flickering, Roarke reached out, gripped Eve’s hands in his.

  “They could change their minds. It’s still months away, and they could easily change their minds and want this . . . event to be a private one between them.”

  She looked at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. “Private? Private? This is Mavis we’re dealing with.”

  He shut his eyes. “God pity us.”

  “And it’s just going to get . . . more.” She pulled away, sprang up. “Before you know it, before you know it she’s going to want us to deliver the thing. They’ll want to do it here, in our bedroom or something, with cameras—live feed to her fans. And us pulling the thing out of her.”

  Utter and genuine horror leaped into his eyes. “Stop it, Eve. Stop it now.”

  “Yeah, live feed, that’s Mavis to the ground. And we’ll do it.” She spun back to him. “We’ll do it because she’s just sucking us in. Sucking us in like some . . .” She windmilled her arms. “Like some big sucking thing. Some big pregnant sucking thing.”

  “Let’s just calm down.” With the images Eve painted playing in his head, Roarke took out a cigarette. Lighting it, he ordered himself to think rationally. “Surely you’ve done this sort of thing before. You’re a cop. You must have at least been on hand during a birthing.”

  “Uh-uh. Nope. No. Once, when I was still on patrol, we had to take this woman into a health center. Jesus, she was screaming like somebody was ramming steel spikes into her crotch.”

  “Merciful Jesus, Eve, could you dispense with some of the imagery?”

  But she was wound up now. “And something gives way in there, and stuff’s pouring out of her. Fluids, you know?”

  “I don’t, no. And I don’t care to.”

  “Made a hell of a mess in the cruiser. But at least she had the decency—the common courtesy—to wait until she was inside, with the doctor or midwife or whoever the hell, before she pushed it out.”

  For a moment, Roarke pressed his fingers to his temples. “We can’t think about this anymore. We’ll go mad if we do. We have to think about something else.” He stabbed the cigarette out. “Entirely.”

  She drew one long, shaky breath. “You’re right. I’ve got work.”

  “Murder. Much better. Let me help. I beg you.”

  She had to laugh. “Sure. It’s the least I can do. Step into my office.”

  She took his hand, filling him in as they went inside and up.

  “How much do you intend to use this Celina Sanchez?”

  “I’d like to keep it minimal.” She sat at her desk, kicked back to prop her feet on the edge. “She’s got the Dimatto seal of approval, and she’s even likable enough. I’d even call her steady. But it’s not a good fit for me. Still, she’s cued in to this, so I can’t ignore what she can give me.”

  “I knew a man who kept a sensitive on staff and wouldn’t make a decision without her. Worked well enough for him, as it happened.”

  “You got any?”

  “I do. Precogs, clairvoyants, sensitives. I don’t dismiss what they’ve been given, or what they can offer. But I prefer making my own decisions in the final run. You’ll do the same.”

  “So far, her—let’s call it intel—isn’t adding much to my basic, nonsensitive cop work. But it matches it.”

  She frowned, mentally picking her way through the data and speculation. “Impressions we could pick up at the kill site, and the ones we got leading to the dump site, indicate a size fifteen shoe. We may be able to make the tread, or at least a partial, if Dickhead in the lab works some magic. Ground and grass were dry, but when he added her weight, he left some impressions.”

  “Well, that’s a large foot you’ve got there, but not all men with big feet are big men.”

  “Big enough to leave impressions on dry grass, strong enough to lift and carry a hundred and thirty pounds of deadweight. You’ve got to speculate, do the probabilities. And when you do, you come up with a man between two hundred and seventy and eighty pounds. My guess would be a height of between six four and six eight.”

  He nodded, imagined he was building a picture in his mind similar to the one in hers. “And if you take it further, you assume that kind of strength and body type comes from discipline and dedication.”

  “Body sculpting procedures can give you the build, but they can’t give you the strength.”

  “Hence, your foray into the world of musclemen.”

  “Reminded me I like my guys more on the lanky side.”

  “Lucky for me.”

  “I can’t find any connection between the two missing and presumed and my vic, other than their predilection for fussy stuff and frequenting at least some of the same outlets for supplies.”

  “I could spare you time and look deeper there.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “You can’t buy a fifteen shoe just anywhere,” Roarke continued. “You’d have to special order, or use a specialty outlet. For that matter, if your man is as described, he wouldn’t be able to buy anything off the rack.”

  “Right. He’d need Enormous Guys ‘R’ Us, or the like.”

  “Catchy,” Roarke mused. “I’ll keep it in mind if I ever open a specialty retail outlet of that nature.”

  “I’m going to do a search and locate on specialty retail outlets of that nature,” she said, mimicking his accent and making him grin. “Tonight.”

  “Well then, we should both be busy enough to keep our minds off things best not thought about. Before we go to our respective corners, tell me this: Why does he do it?”

  “Control. Abuse is always about control. Rape is about control, and at its core, so is murder. Even if the motive for murder is greed, jealousy, self-preservation, rage, or entertainment, it still comes down to control.”

  “All crime comes down to it at its base, don’t you think? I’ll take this from you, be it your wallet or your life, because I can.”

  “Why did you steal when you did?”

  A hint of a smile played around his mouth. “All manner of selfish and entertaining reasons, Lieutenant. Certainly to possess something I hadn’t had, before I took it for myself. And the pleasure of doing so successfully.”

  “To punish the person who possesse
d it first?”

  He inclined his head, acknowledging the point. “No. They were, in most cases, purely incidental to the goal.”

  “There’s the difference. Doesn’t paint the thief white, but murder often roots in punishment. I think it does here. Someone controlled him, punished him. A female, and now he’s showing her who’s boss. That’s why he left her naked. She probably wasn’t naked when he raped her. Tore her clothes—fibers still on her indicate—but he wouldn’t have bothered to strip her down. He bothered after because it added humiliation.”

  She paused, considered. “He didn’t mutilate the female part of her, which expresses another kind of rage and control. It wasn’t sexual, but it was personal. He strangles, not with his hands—and odds are he could have snapped her neck like a twig—but he uses the ribbon. So it means something to him. The red cord is also personal. He takes her eyes, carefully, so he can blind her. Naked and blind, more humiliation. But he takes them so he can have that part of her. Does she watch him? I think, somehow, he wants her to watch him. Because he’s in charge now.”

  “Endlessly fascinating,” he replied.

  “What?”

  “Watching you work.” He came around the desk, lifted her chin, kissed her lightly. “And there’s nothing nonsensitive about it. I’ll just put together a meal before we settle in.”

  “That’d be good.”

  While he went into the kitchen off her office, she set up a second murder board. To this one she added pictures of Marjorie Kates and Breen Merriweather.

  She was standing, studying them, when Roarke came back in. He set a plate on her desk. “They’re yours now, too.”

  “Yeah. I’m afraid they are.”

  “Attractive women. Comfortably attractive rather than stunning. It’ll be the hair, won’t it? It’s the hair that’s the greatest similarity.”

  “Build’s close, too. Average build. Caucasian women around thirty with a nice average build and long light brown hair. That’s a big pool for him to fish in.”

  “Not so big when you add in the other factors.”

  “No, that shrinks it. They have to poke around craft shops, and they have to be out, alone, sometime at night. He works them at night. Still gives him plenty to choose from.”

  She stepped back. “I’d better get to it before he picks another one.”

  When she went to her desk, she was delighted to see he’d brought out a burger and fries—even though there were a few little broccoli trees alongside them. She could ditch the broccoli—how would he know? But then she’d feel guilty. Since she was more ambivalent toward broccoli than guilt, she ate it first, to get it out of the way, while she started a search for retail shops that specialized in large men.

  More than she’d expected, Eve noted as she poured coffee from the pot Roarke had set beside her plate. Upscale—well, think about it, she reminded herself—where else did the Arena Ball players, the basketball dudes, and tall or porky rich guys drop their fashion bucks?

  There were midline and discount and, she discovered, design and tailoring services offered by a couple of the major department stores and a number of boutiques.

  Didn’t exactly narrow the field.

  When she altered the search to shoes, it bounced a few out, and tossed a few new sources in.

  He could buy primarily or even exclusively online, she thought as she bit into her burger. A lot of people did. But wouldn’t he—a man who worked hard to build his body, who was proud of the results—want to select his clothes in real life? Check himself out in the mirror, have some fawning clerk tell him how good he looked?

  A lot of projection, she admitted, out of a scarcity of solid facts.

  But when she did a geographic run, she found a shop called The Colossal Man was two crosstown blocks from Total Crafts.

  “Isn’t that interesting?” She nabbed a fry. “Computer, list any gyms currently in this case file located within a six-block parameter of Total Crafts.”

  WORKING . . .

  She ate another fry.

  HEALTH AND FITNESS FACILITIES IN THAT SECTOR INCLUDE JIM’S GYM AND BODYBUILDERS.

  “Display map on wall screen, applicable sector. Highlight locations of retail shops and gyms.”

  She rose, the burger in one hand, to walk closer to the wall screen. Sometimes, she thought, you saw a pattern because you wanted to, and sometimes it was just there.

  He’d walked those streets, she was sure of it. Walked from gym to shop to shop. Because he lived or worked, or both, in that sector. This was his neighborhood. People saw him there, knew him there.

  And so would she.

  She walked into Roarke’s office, where he sat at his desk enjoying what looked like seafood pasta while he worked. His laser fax was humming, and his comp signaled an incoming.

  “You’ve got stuff coming in.”

  “Project reports I’m expecting,” he said without looking up. “They can wait. I don’t have anything for you yet.”

  “Put that on hold a minute, come take a look at this.”

  He brought his coffee with him, went with her into her office.

  Eve gestured to the wall screen. “What do you see?”

  “A sector of the West Village. And a pattern.”

  “So do I. I want to start with residences in this sector. Before you say anything, no, I can’t even guess how many there must be. It’s a long shot, a really long shot, but . . .”

  “He may live there. So you start with residential, get owner and tenant lists, eliminate families, couples, single women, and fine-tune it down to men who live alone.”

  “You should’ve been a cop.”

  He shifted his gaze from the screen to her face. “Don’t I have enough horror in my head with potential midwifery without you heaping more in there?”

  “Sorry. It’ll take a lot of time. He may live a block outside my parameter. Hell, he may live five blocks out and work inside it. Or work one block out. Or he could just do his shopping and bodybuilding there and live in fricking New Jersey.”

  “But you go with the percentages, and the percentages say here.”

  “It’d go quicker if you gave me a hand with the runs.”

  Nodding, he continued to study the screen. “Your place or mine?”

  When Eve crawled into bed just after one in the morning, she knew she was on the scent. And hoped, could only hope, he waited long enough for her to track him down.

  “Two months between Kates, Breen, and Maplewood. If he sticks with that schedule, I’ll have him before he kills another one.”

  “Shut it down, Lieutenant.” Roarke drew her in so her head settled against his shoulder. She rarely had the dreams when he kept her close. “Shut it down, and sleep.”

  “I’m close. I know I’m close,” she murmured and drifted off.

  He was waiting for her. She would come. She always walked this way. Briskly, her head down, her steps nearly soundless in her gel-soled shoes. She’d have put them on after her shift, after she’d taken off the whore shoes she wore to serve the men who leered at her over their drinks.

  Whatever she wore, she remained a whore.

  She’d walk by, head down, and the streetlights would shine on her hair. It would look almost gold. Almost.

  People would think: That’s a pretty woman, a nice, quiet pretty woman, going about her business. But they didn’t know. He knew what was inside the shell. Bitter, black, and dark.

  He could feel it rising in him now as he anticipated her. Rage and pleasure, fear and joy. You’ll look at me now, you bitch.

  And we’ll see how you like it, see how you like it.

  Thought she was so pretty. Liked to parade and pose in front of the mirror without her clothes. Or parade and pose for the men she let touch her.

  Won’t look so pretty when I’m done.

  He slipped a hand into his pocket, felt the long length of ribbon.

  Red was her favorite. She liked to wear red.

  He saw her, as he once h
ad. Screaming, screaming, naked but for the red ribbon she’d worn around her throat. Red as his blood when she’d beaten him. Beaten him until he’d passed out.

  Only to wake in the black. In the dark, in the locked room.

  She’d be the one to wake in the black now. Blind in hell.

  There she was . . . there she was now, walking along in her brisk way, head down.

  His heart thundered in his chest as she came closer.

  She turned, as she always did, through the iron gates and into the pretty park.

  For an instant, just one trip of that heart, her head came up. And there was fear and shock and confusion in her eyes when he leaped out of the shadows.

  She opened her mouth to scream, and his fist broke her jaw.

  Her eyes rolled back to white, to blind, as he dragged her away from the lights.

  He had to slap her several times to bring her around. She had to be awake for it, awake and aware.

  He kept his voice down—he was no fool—but he said what he needed to say as he used his fists on her.

  How do you like it now, bitch? Who’s the boss now, whore?

  And there was both shame and unspeakable delight in ramming his body into hers. She didn’t fight, only lay limp, and that was a disappointment.

  She’d struggled before, and sometimes she’d begged. That was better.

  Still, when he pulled the cord around her neck, when he yanked it tight and saw her eyes bulge, the pleasure was so keen he thought he, too, might die of it.

  Her heels drummed, soft little thumps on the grass. Her body convulsed, and brought his—at last, at last—to completion.

  “Go to hell.” He panted it out while he stripped off her clothes. “Go to hell now, where you belong.”

  He stuffed her clothes in the bag he’d brought with him, then hooked the strap crossways over his massive chest.

  He picked her up as if she weighed nothing. And he reveled in his strength, in the power it gave him.

  He carried her to the bench he’d selected, so lovely under the big, shady tree, so close to the dignified fountain. There he laid her out, carefully bringing her hands together, tucking them up between her breasts.