by J. D. Robb
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.
“I was so tired,” she said quietly. “I had to put the car on auto. I felt so weighed down and punchy and stupid. I had a pretty crappy day in a really crappy case. It’s not just the victims, not just the women. It’s like he’s pointing a finger at me when he kills them.”
“And that makes you one of them.”
Thank God, was all she could think. Thank God he understands. “One of them, and not . . .” she said, thinking of her dream. “One of them, and the one who’s standing for them when it’s too late.”
“Eve.” He lifted his head, looked into her eyes. “It’s not, it’s never too late. You know that better than anyone.”
“Usually. Usually I do.”
There was something in her tone that had him sitting up, drawing her with him, then cupping her face so he could study it. “You know who he is.”
“Yeah, I know. But the trick’s stopping him, proving it, putting him away. I knew, in my gut, from the start. I needed to clear my head out so I could start taking the right steps.”
“You need to eat, and tell me about it.”
“I guess I need to eat, then I have to tell you about something else.” She scraped her hair back with both hands. “I want to take a shower and pull myself together first.”
“All right.” He knew her well enough to give her room. “We’ll have something up here. I’ll take care of it.”
Her throat filled, and she dipped her head so her brow rested on his. “You know something handy about you? You take care.”
He wanted to gather her in then, to push her to tell him what troubled her mind. But he let her go.
She would run the water too hot, he thought, as he rose to get robes for both of them, to select the sort of meal that would do her the most good. Then she would stand under the spray, willing it to beat the energy back into her.
She wouldn’t waste ti
me with a towel, but step directly into the drying tube, and more heat.
No, she wouldn’t sleep again, he knew as he set the meal in the sitting area. Not yet, not for a time yet. She would fuel, then she would work, then she would collapse. It was one of the most fascinating and frustrating things about her.
She came back wearing the robe he’d hung on the bathroom door, a thin and simple black robe he doubted she knew she owned.
“What is that green stuff?”
“Asparagus. It’s good for you.”
She thought it looked like something you’d whack out of a cartoon garden, but the fish and rice with it looked pretty good. So did the glass of straw-colored wine.
She went for the wine first, hoping it would make the green stalks go down easier. “How come stuff that’s good for you always has to be green and funny looking?”
“Because nutrition doesn’t come in a candy bar.”
“It ought to.”
“You’re stalling, Eve.”
“Maybe.” She stabbed one of the stalks, shoved it into her mouth. It wasn’t half bad, but she made a disgusted face for form.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” She flaked off a bite of fish. “I had a dream about my mother.”
“Dream or memory?”
“I don’t know. Both.” She ate, scooped up rice. “I think both. I was in an apartment, or a hotel room. I don’t know which, but apartment, I think. Some dump. I was three, four. How do you tell?”
“I don’t know.”
“Me, either. Anyway . . .”
She told him of being alone, of going into the bedroom, playing with the enhancements, the wig, though she’d been forbidden.
“Maybe kids always do what you tell them not to. I don’t know. But I . . . it was irresistible. I think I wanted to look pretty. I thought all that junk would make me look pretty. Dolling up, that’s what they call it, don’t they? I was dolling up because once, when she was in a good mood, she told me I looked like a little doll.”
“Children,” Roarke said carefully, “must, I think, have an instinctive need to please their mothers. At least during those early years.”
“I guess. I didn’t like her, I was afraid of her, but I wanted her to like me. To tell me I was pretty or something. Hell.”
She shoveled in more food. “I got so into it I didn’t hear them come back. She walked in, saw me. She belted me. I think she was jonesing—that’s the cop talking, but I think she was. There were works on the dresser. I didn’t know what they were. I mean as a kid I didn’t, but . . .”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“Yeah.” She kept eating. She was afraid the food would stick in her throat, but she kept eating. “She was screaming at me, and I was crying. Sprawled on the floor bawling. She was going to clock me again, but he wouldn’t let her. He picked me up . . .” Her stomach roiled at the memory. “Shit. Oh shit.”
When her fork clattered to her plate, Roarke reached over, gently eased her head down between her knees. “All right then, long and slow. Take long, slow breaths.”
His voice was gentle, as was the hand on her head. But his face was murderous.
“I can’t stand him putting his hands on me. Even then, it made my skin crawl. He hadn’t touched me yet, hadn’t raped me yet, but some part of me must’ve known. How could I have known?”
“Instinct.” He pressed his lips to the back of her head as his heart ripped to pieces. “A child knows a monster when she sees one.”
“Maybe. Maybe. Okay. I’m okay.” She sat up, let her head lean back. “I couldn’t stand to have him touch me, but I sort of curled into him. Anything to get away from her. From what I saw in her eyes. She hated me, Roarke. She wanted me dead. No, more. She wanted me erased. She was a whore. It was a whore’s tools on the dresser. A whore and a junkie, and she looked at me as if I were dirt. I came out of her. I think she hated me more because I did.”
Though her hand wasn’t quite steady, she reached for the wine, used it to wet her dry throat. “I don’t understand that. I thought . . . I guess I figured she couldn’t be as bad as he was. I grew inside her, so there had to be something. But she was as bad as he was. Maybe even worse.”
“They’re part of you.” She jerked when he said it, and he closed his hands over hers, kept his eyes fierce on hers. “What makes you, Eve, is the fact that you are what you are despite that. In spite of them.”
Her voice was strangled, but she had to speak. “I love you a hell of a lot right now.”
“Then we’re even.”
“Roarke, I didn’t know, didn’t realize, I wanted there to be something, to have something from her, until I realized for certain there wasn’t. Stupid.”
“It’s not.” His heart broke a little more as he brought her hands, one at a time, to his lips. “No, it’s not. Was tonight the first you’ve had the dream?”
He saw it, the combination of guilt and embarrassment that rushed into her face. His fingers tightened on hers before she had a chance to draw her hands away. “That wasn’t what this was about tonight.” His tone was flat, a warning that made her hackles rise in defense. “How long ago, Eve?”
“A while. A few days. Last week. How the hell do I know? I didn’t mark it on my damn calendar. Having a few dead bodies fall at my feet tends to prey on my mind. I don’t have some handy admin keeping track of my every move and thought.”
“You think turning this into a fight will distract me from the fact you’ve kept this from me for days? Before we went to Boston.” Too angry to sit, he pushed to his feet. “Before that, before I asked you what was wrong, and you brushed me off with a handy lie.”
“I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell you because . . .” She trailed off, shifted gears quickly. “I wasn’t ready, that’s all.”
“Bollocks.”
“I don’t even know what that means.” She speared another asparagus and ate determinedly.
“You made a decision not to tell me.” He sat again, crowding her. “Why?”
“You know, ace, maybe you could bag your ego for five fucking minutes so this isn’t about you. It’s my deal, so—hey!”
She nearly slammed him back when he gripped her chin, but he outmaneuvered her, nudging her back so he could stare into her eyes. “But it is about me, isn’t it? I’m following the path of your busy brain well enough now, I think. What I found out about my mother not long ago stopped you from letting me be there for you with this.”
“Look, you’re still messed up about it. You don’t think you are—not the big, strong man, but you are. You’ve got bruises all over you, and I can see them, so I didn’t figure dumping this on you would do any good.”
“Because thinking of your mother, who had no love for you, would only bring the grief for my own, who did love me, closer to the surface.”
“Something like that. Let go.”
He didn’t. “That’s a flawed and stupid logic.” He leaned in, kissed her long and hard. “And I’d have done the same, I imagine. I do grieve for her. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop completely. And I don’t know how I’d have begun to get through it without you. Don’t shut me out.”
“I was just trying to give us both some time to settle.”
“Understood. Accepted. But we seem to settle better together, don’t you think? Where did she hit you?”
Staring at him, she touched the back of her hand to her cheek, then felt her heart stumble when he leaned in, touched his lips gently to the spot as if it were still painful.
“Never again,” he told her. “We’ve beaten them, darling Eve. Separately, and together, we’ve beaten them. For all the nightmares and the bitterness, we’ve still won.”
She took a breath. “Are you going to be pissed off when I tell you I talked to Mira about this a few days ago?”
“No. Did it help?”
“Some. This helped more.” She toyed with her food again. “Cleaned me out. M
aybe my brain will start cooking again. I was so off when I got home. I couldn’t fling a decent insult at Summerset. And I’ve been saving up.”
“Hmm” was Roarke’s only response.
“I had some good ones stockpiled. They’ll come back to me. But my head’s crowded with this business, and the case. Then there’s Peabody driving me over the edge.”
“It’s tomorrow for her, isn’t it?”
“Thank God. I’ll hit Fortney and Breen tomorrow while she’s in exam. I can get Feeney to team with me. And then . . . oh, speaking of hitting, Fortney socked Pepper.”
“Excuse me?”
“Blackened her eye. She came in, filed charges, so that smooths the way to holding him. I’ve shuffled things so he won’t be able to whine for bail until tomorrow. I already had round one with Breen today. He started out smirky, but I wiped that off his face. I’ve got him shadowed until our scheduled interview tomorrow. Renquist is reportedly out of the city on business. I thought I might tug on one of my connections and see if that’s the case or just a runaround.”
“Would it be my ego talking again if I assume I’m that connection.”
She gave him a quick, toothy grin. “You’re pretty handy to have around, even after sex.”
“Darling, that’s so touching.”
“I’ve got Smith locked down, too. I want to know where all of them are 24/7 until I can push for a warrant.”
“And how do you know which of the four is your man?”
“I recognized him,” she replied, then shook her head. “But that’s gut, and you can’t arrest on gut. There’s only one who fits the profile, right down the line. Only one who’d have needed to feed himself by writing the notes. I need to eliminate the other three, build the case on the one. Once I tie the travel to the other murders, I’ll have enough for a search warrant. He’s got stuff—the paper, the tools, the costumes. He’s kept all that. Tomorrow, the next day, I’ll get in. And I’ll have him.”
“Are you going to tell me who it is?”
“I think we’ll work on the elimination process, do the travel and murder dates. See if you start leaning in the direction I’ve taken. You’ve got a pretty good gut yourself. For a civilian.”