by J. D. Robb
He went out with Eve, took a few steps away from the door. “She has anxiety attacks if she tries to remember any more, any real details. And every time she sleeps without aid, she has nightmares. Right now she trusts me, so I can calm her down.”
“Mira will help there.”
“I know it. Physically, she’s healing well. Emotionally, it’s going to be a longer road.”
He glanced back at the door, toyed with the stethoscope hanging out of his pocket. “She won’t give me permission to contact her family. Her parents were killed when she was a kid, but she was raised by friends of theirs, grew up with their daughter like a sister.”
“I know. I’m a cop.”
“But she won’t budge on that. She could use family, but my hands are tied.”
Eve lifted her eyebrows. “And you’re implying mine aren’t.”
“I’m just saying that maybe, during the course of your investigation, you’d have reason to contact them.”
“Actually, it’s on my list. I’d prefer that she give the nod, but I’ve got some questions.”
“Sooner the better. That’s my medical and personal opinion. She’ll have to be released in a couple days, even if I postpone it. She shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’ll feel out the family, get a gauge.”
“Great. Now, speaking as a medical professional, I advise you to go home, get some sleep. You look like hell.”
“Good advice. Bill me,” Eve said and walked away to take it.
7
Eve started her drive on auto to do a quick search of Olsen’s and Tredway’s files for a mention of the caterer. If she stayed on auto, she’d likely nod off, then end up sleeping in the car parked outside the house.
She’d rather be in bed.
She drove across town, cursing the traffic to help stay alert. Then let out a long sigh of relief when she drove through the gates.
Night had fallen when she’d done her second round in the crime scene, and low, sulky clouds smothered moon and stars. But the house, with all its turrets and towers, its dignified gray stone, glowed in welcome.
She wound up the drive, parked in front of the entrance, and let out one more sigh before grabbing her file bag. She stepped out of the car into the bitter wind and thought: Winter sucks. Pushed her way through the wind to the door, and stepped inside to warmth and light and quiet.
Where the bony figure of Summerset loomed in the foyer with the pudge of a cat at his feet.
Galahad trotted to her to slip and slide through her legs.
As she shrugged out of her coat, she eyed Summerset and thought of the ghoul costume.
“Where were you on the night of November twenty-eight?” she demanded.
He arched one elegant eyebrow. “I’ll have to check my calendar.”
“Never mind.” She pulled off her hat, her scarf, tossed them on the newel post with her coat. “That asshole needed makeup to pull off the ghoul. You’re a natural.”
Ridiculously pleased she’d had the energy and brainpower for some decent snark, she started upstairs. The cat bounded up with her.
She thought of her newly redone office with its already beloved command center—with an AutoChef that would provide coffee right there. But calculated she didn’t have the energy or brainpower to so much as set up her murder board, much less review her notes or add to them.
Instead, she aimed for the bedroom.
And there it was, the big, glorious bed.
She’d been fine with the way the bedroom looked before. Hell, a lot more than fine, she thought now, plus she’d gotten used to it.
But she couldn’t fault the newly painted walls in their soft, relaxing gray, the deeper tones used on the thick molding of the ceiling to sort of showcase the height of it, the punch of the sky window. She could hardly bitch about the deep blue sofa in the sitting area—the longer, wider sofa.
She didn’t know squat about floor plans and decor, really, but she couldn’t dig up a complaint about the arrangement of chairs—and the rich tones of them—that all but insisted you sit down, relax, and let the world go somewhere else for a while.
Even she could appreciate the intricately carved doors closing off a slick little bar, including AutoChef and friggie. Maybe she thought the expansive closet/dressing room was over the top, but it didn’t detract from the whole. And she knew both she and Roarke would enjoy the addition of a terrace outside of what the decorator called atrium doors.
But the real star of the room, in her book, was that big bed with its fancifully carved head- and footboard, all dressed in soft bronze and copper tones with mounds of fluffy pillows.
She didn’t stumble to it, but it was close. Then fell across it, facedown, and dropped straight into sleep.
Galahad gathered himself, leaped up. He padded across the duvet, sniffed at Eve’s hair. Apparently satisfied, he stretched himself across her waist as if to hold her in place. And began to purr.
Roarke walked in moments later.
“Down for the count, is she?” he said as Galahad blinked his bicolored eyes.
Shaking his head, Roarke moved to the bed, crouched, pulled off Eve’s boots. She didn’t so much as stir.
He lit the fire, sat to pull off his own boots. Snagging the cashmere throw from the foot of the bed, he tossed it over his wife. Waited for the cat’s head to pop out.
Then he stretched out beside Eve, and slept.
* * *
Dreams broke down defenses. For hours she’d blocked out the echoes, the murmurs, the emotions. But sleep undermined boundaries.
She was a child, lost and frightened, bloody and broken. Though she kept it cradled against her body, the arm her father had snapped before she’d killed him jarred with every step, wept with pain. It burned where he’d raped her; her face throbbed where he’d struck her.
Yet it seemed she floated, like a ghost. Like the dead.
She feared the dark. Terrible things hid in the dark, waited there, watched from there.
Would they swallow her whole, would she fall into the bottomless pit where the rats and spiders would eat her as her father had said?
Everything around her looked like something she’d seen through a dirty window, all smudged and blurry. And all the sounds came from far, far away.
Was he coming after her? Would he find her and drag her back to that cold, cold room with the flashing red light?
He would hurt her, he would hurt her, he would hurt her. Kill her. Kill.
She wanted to hide, wanted to sleep.
She tried. But they found her. She couldn’t fight, even when they made everything inside her scream at the pain, shriek with the terror.
Then the lights were too bright, burning her eyes, and the voices were too loud, banging in her head. Someone told her she was going to be all right, that she was safe. But she knew about lies.
Someone asked her for her name, but she had none to give.
There were hands on her, everywhere, and she smelled her own blood. Even as she screamed again, the dark came and took her in.
“Dreaming, just dreaming. You’re home, you’re safe. I’m here.”
Roarke gathered her close, and his voice, his scent, broke the hold of the past.
“I’m all right.”
He brushed his lips to her brow. “I wondered how long it would take. You held it back all day.”
“I could see it in her face, in her eyes.” Because she could, Eve burrowed into him while the cat bumped his head against her shoulder. “I know what she felt, I know what it is to be trapped in that kind of shock, to run with that kind of fear. It echoed inside me, all day, but I couldn’t do the job if I listened.”
“I know it.” He held her close, held her tight. “I know it.”
“You heard them, too. I can’t let it break me.”
“You haven’t, and you won’t.” He tipped her face to his, met her eyes. “You won’t. But it had to be acknowledged.”
“It took me years to rememb
er, and there are still blank spots. She’s not a child, Roarke, but there’s something defenseless about her. I don’t know how much she’ll remember, if she’ll be able to give us details we can use.”
“She’s alive.”
“Yeah, she’s alive. Mira’s already seen her, and Daphne seems okay with that. She trusts Nobel, that’s clear, and seems all right talking to me. It helped her, I think, when I could tell her the man who did this wasn’t a devil. It was makeup, a disguise. A false face.”
“She’ll know, as well as you and I, there was a monster under the false face.”
“Yeah. Yeah, but she knows he’s real. Flesh and blood.” Steadier now, she reached back to scratch the loyal Galahad between the ears. “Did you get any sleep?”
“I’d say we both got a bit more than an hour. Or rather the three of us did.”
“That’s good. And it’s one checked off.”
“Checked off?”
“We slept in the fancy new bed.”
“On more like, but check.”
She brushed back his hair. “How about we check off number two?”
He smiled at her. “I’m always in favor of finishing off a checklist.”
He continued to smile when she pressed her lips to his, as he stroked a hand over her. “You’re still armed, Lieutenant.”
She slid her own hand down, found him. “You, too.”
He laughed as she rolled over, straddled him. Studying his face, she pulled off her jacket, hit the release on her weapon harness. “You know, the first time I walked in here and saw the bed—the other one—it was: Wow. This one’s an even bigger wow,” she continued as she tossed the jacket aside, draped the harness over the footboard. “But I liked that bed.”
“It’s still in the house.”
“Is it?”
“In one of the guest rooms. I have very fond memories of that bed as well,” he reminded her. “We can visit it whenever you like.”
“Huh.” Considering, she pulled off her sweater, tossed it after the jacket. “You know how they have those pub crawls?”
“I do, yes. Have participated more than once in my time.”
“I’ve always been more find a bar, stay there, and do the drinking you came to do in one spot. But … one of these days we should have a bed crawl through this house. We’ll see how you hold up, ace.”
He laughed again. “Challenge accepted.”
He drew her down to him.
And there it was, she thought, the real deal. Her place, her man, her heart, all right here. Wherever she’d been, whatever brutal the beginnings, however lost, however broken she’d once been, she’d found this. And this, this was worth every painful, bleeding step of the journey.
Overwhelmed by it, she cupped his face in her hands, poured herself into the kiss.
“Eve,” he murmured.
“I’m alive.” She pressed his hand to her heart. “I love you.”
“You’re everything. All. Only. Everything.”
He shifted her so they lay facing each other, so he could glide his hands over her to soothe, to awaken. Gently, tenderly.
His only.
Every sigh, every murmur, every small tremble of response took him deeper into the beauty. The way she drew his sweater away to run warm hands over his skin, the way her mouth fit perfectly to his. He counted the pulse beats in her throat when he tasted there, felt the way her warrior’s body softened.
How she looked watching him, with firelight in her whiskey-colored eyes.
He could make her want simply by existing. There’d been no one else who could ever hold her heart with no more than a look, a word. He’d given her a life beyond survival, beyond even the badge that had been her world, and the symbol of that survival.
He’d given her love when she hadn’t truly believed in it, had never felt worthy of it.
And he’d made her believe, absolutely, she’d given him the same.
Now there was pleasure, pure and theirs. Flesh against flesh, hands and lips stoking that warm, glowing fire until it snapped and burned.
She arched when he undressed her, offering. She wrapped tight around him, giving. Her lips sought his, taking.
And when, as breath quickened, as pulses tripped, he slipped inside her, they shuddered together.
“A ghrá,” he said, and her pounding heart melted.
With every rise and fall, it poured out for him.
When they lay quiet, bodies slack and tangled together, she sighed again. “It’s official. I really like this bed.”
He turned his face into the curve of her shoulder, brushing warm skin with his lips. “Here’s to many hours of checking off both one and two on the list.”
“I’m for that. But God, now I need a shower. It feels like days.”
“A shower, some wine, a meal, I’d say.”
“All over all of that.” Lazily, she combed her fingers through his hair. “I need to set up my board. Not much more I can do at this point, but I need to do at least that.”
“Wine and food in your office then. And you can fill me in on the details.”
“I wish there were more of them, but I’d like your take.”
It was amazing, she thought, what a solid hour’s sleep, really nice sex, and a long hot shower could accomplish. And when you topped that off with a glass of really superior wine, a thirty-six-hour stint didn’t seem too bad.
She let him choose the meal—it seemed fair—even resigned herself to eating whatever vegetables she found on her plate. And since he set it all up while she worked on her board, she drafted herself to do the cleanup.
Comfortable in flannel pants, a sweatshirt, and skids, she stepped back to study the board.
“You might wish there were more details, but that’s a comprehensive murder board at this early stage.”
“Maybe.” Now she walked away from it, to the stylish new table by the new balcony doors. “What’s for dinner?”
He lifted the warming domes.
Her heart sang a happy tune when she saw steaks, salted-skinned potatoes, and …
“What are those purple things?”
“Carrots.”
“Carrots are orange.”
“And purple.” He didn’t mention the turnips and cauliflower in the mix. He knew his quarry.
“Why would somebody dye a harmless carrot purple?”
“They’re not dyed, they’re natural. Have some more wine,” he said, topping off her glass, “and try them out.”
She went for the steak first, she was no fool, but cut off a small bite of the little purple thing. “It tastes like a carrot, herbed and buttered up or something, but carrot-like.”
“Because it is one.”
She shrugged, added enough butter for her potato to swim in. “I forgot. I brought you dessert.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah, a cinnamon bun. It’s in an evidence bag—in my file bag.”
“Yum.”
She shook her fork at him before dipping it into the pool of butter. “Trust me. It’s from the caterer—Jacko—who did the dinner party.”
“He has a fine reputation. Is he a suspect?”
She shook her head. “Alibied, and no way he fits or his wife or his daughter or any of the catering team I interviewed. Same with the rental company.”
“That’s a lot to eliminate in one day. So again, considerable progress.”
“I guess it is.” She glanced back at the board. “A lot of threads to be tied together or snapped off. I did find a connection.”
“What connection?”
“Both the caterer and the rental company have done jobs for the first vic—or rather his company. The vic himself didn’t use them, but it’s a link from the company to the latest victims. And his partner used them personally a couple times. I need to see if I can make that link to the second victims. The SVU detectives didn’t go there because there wasn’t a there to go to then. Now there is.”
“Wouldn’t that un-elim
inate the caterer and the rental company?”
“It’s an avenue to explore,” she admitted, “but … I just don’t think so. Not directly. But somebody who’s used them, done some work for them, knows someone—or more than one person on the crews. It also links to the hospital. Strazza was a big wheel at St. Andrew’s, and Daphne volunteered there for a time. I can link both companies to the hospital for events. So that adds hospital staff to the mix. I’m going to talk to the first four victims tomorrow, and something may shake there.”
She applied herself to the steak. Sleep, sex, shower, wine, and red meat. It was enough to bring a tear to the eye.
“Daphne thinks she smelled sulfur during the attack. So did he add that—let’s give them the full hell treatment? Or did she imagine it as he’d set the stage? Either way, this fucker gets fully in character—that’s the term, right—he likes to be the monster he wraps himself in. So maybe he’s an actor, or a wannabe actor. Actors connect to first vic’s company.”
“So they do.”
“Actor, performance, reviews,” she said as she ate. “Plus, if we go by the wit statements, the disguise is first-rate, so he’s either talented there or he’s practiced a lot. Do actor types do their own makeup and costumes?”
“I imagine some do, and others might pick up some of the steps.”
“That’s how I see it. He had to do some stalking, some research on the vics, on the locations. The attacks went too smooth for him not to have planned them. He had to have known when to move in. Those are all upper-level neighborhoods, all the locations had solid security. Single-family residences, that’s a key. Wealthy married couple, that’s another. Seriously good-looking female vics, so he has a type. That could work a couple ways.”
“He’s jealous of the looks and wealth as he’s had neither,” Roarke suggested, “or he’s of the same social strata and sticks to his own kind, so to speak.”
Again, she wagged her fork at him. “Don’t blame me for saying you think like a cop when you do.”
“I think like a criminal—reformed. It’s basically the same.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “He likes to steal.”
“Well now, I can relate.”
Since she knew he could, she took it a step further. “Can you relate to taking valuables and not cashing in?”