by J. D. Robb
“All women are beautiful,” he said and smiled for the first time.
“Including K.T.?”
“Sure. Well, she could be.”
“And did the two of you start something?”
“Not recently.”
“What would be ‘not recently’?”
“Oh, well, a couple of years ago, I guess. We had a little fun. And a couple months ago. She was feeling down, so I cheered her up.”
“Did she want more cheering up?”
He shifted, stared hard at his coffee. “The thing is, she didn’t really want that. She really wanted to complain about Marlo, or to get me to complain about her—Marlo, I mean—to Roundtree.”
He looked up then, met Eve’s eyes with his own dull, bloodshot blue. “I wasn’t going to do that. She got bent over it, really hammered at me. I finally went to Joel and asked him to get her off my back. I didn’t like to do it, but she was really putting me off, and screwing with my focus. I guess it just bent her more. I don’t know why she has to be that way.”
He looked away again, shook his head. “I don’t understand why people can’t just be nice, have a good time.”
“Why did you go up to the roof tonight?”
His gaze dropped again. “The view’s mag.”
“Were you alone with the mag view?”
He said nothing for a long moment. Peabody reached over, touched his arm, spoke gently. “Julian?”
He looked at her. “She didn’t really look like you when she wasn’t made up. You have a prettier mouth, and your eyes are nicer. I like your eyes better.”
“Thanks.”
Though Eve saw Peabody’s color come up, her partner maintained.
“Who was on the roof with you tonight?” Peabody asked him.
“When I went up, she—K.T. was there. I didn’t want to talk to her, not when she was in that mood. We’d both been drinking. I didn’t want to talk to her.”
“But you did?”
“A little. I asked her why she’d acted that way at dinner. Connie went to all this trouble. It was our job to be friendly, to make sure all of you had a good time. But she just started up about Marlo, you, Matthew, everybody. I didn’t want to be around her, so I came back downstairs.”
“You argued,” Eve prompted.
“I don’t like to argue.”
“But she did.”
“It’s like she just can’t be happy. I don’t get that when there’s so much to be happy about. Look what we get to do for a living. Yeah, sometimes it’s hard, but mostly it’s just fun. And they pay us a lot of money. Everything’s easier, it’s better when you let yourself be happy. It’s like she can’t.
“Do you have a blocker?” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Sober-Up always gives me a headache, a hangover, and makes me feel kind of dull. I don’t get like that if I just sleep it off. That’s what I was trying to do, just sleep it off.”
Roarke took a small case out of his pocket, offered one of the tiny blue pills.
“Thanks.” Julian smiled at Roarke. “I feel like crap.”
“When were you on the roof with K.T.?” Eve asked him.
“Tonight.”
Eve thought Nadine’s assessment of Julian being a little dim hit bull’s-eye. “What time?”
“Oh. I don’t know. I’d been drinking, and … after dinner. I know it was after dinner.”
“Did you watch the gag reel?”
He stared off into space, brow furrowed. “Sort of. I want to see it again, when I can focus. I just couldn’t. I guess I went up for some air before I watched, then I couldn’t focus anyway. I was falling asleep, so I went out and lay down on the couch.”
“When you came down, K.T. was still on the roof?”
“Yeah. She was still there.”
“Did you see anyone else go up?”
“I didn’t see anyone go up. I wanted to lie down, but Roundtree wanted us in the theater.” His gaze tracked back to Eve. “Are you sure she’s dead?”
“Yes, very sure.”
“It doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t feel real. Did you tell me how she died? I can’t remember. Everything’s mixed up.”
“It appears as if she drowned.”
“She drowned?” Julian dropped his head in his hands. “She drowned.” He shuddered. “K.T. drowned. Because she was drunk, and she fell in the lap pool?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Because she was drunk,” he repeated, “and she fell in the lap pool, and she drowned. God. It’s horrible.”
He lifted his head when Peabody came back with a glass of water.
“Thanks.” He laid a hand over Peabody’s. “I wish this hadn’t happened. I wish she’d never gone up on the roof. She wouldn’t let herself be happy. Now she never will be.”
She had Peabody take him out, and sat where she was a moment, sorting through her thoughts. Roarke shifted chairs to sit across from her.
Odd, she thought, really odd to have him in the same chair that Julian just vacated. Odd how clearly she could see the differences between them. The body language, the clarity of eye, the stillness—and the ease of being still.
“He’s a bit of a gobdaw, isn’t he?”
“I couldn’t say. What the hell is a gobdaw?”
“Slow-witted. I don’t think it’s just the drink or the abrupt sobering.”
“Not entirely. Gobdaw.” She shook her head at the term. “Even gob-daws kill.”
“He strikes me as more the harmless sort.”
“Even them. But he’s the only one, so far, who’s admitted to being up there, with her. Could be the gobdaw in him, or the harmless. Or just honest innocence. He goes up, thinks, ‘Hell, I’m not dealing with her again,’ staggers back down. Someone else goes up and does the deal with her. Or she stumbled on her stilts and deals with herself.”
“Roundtree finally talked Connie into taking a soother and going to bed,” Peabody announced as she came back in.
“Probably a good thing,” Eve decided. “I don’t need her—or him—anymore tonight.”
“What do you need?” Roarke asked her.
“To go home, I guess, and let this work through in my head. It’s rare to interview so many witnesses/suspects in one lump. We’re witnesses, too, and right now I feel like a lousy one.”
“Because you can’t zero in on the killer—if indeed there is a killer—almost before the body reaches the morgue?”
“We were right here.”
“I keep going over and over it.” Peabody blew out a breath. “Asking myself did I see, even sense, somebody sneaking out, sneaking in. But I was so into the show. It was funny and so iced. I remember different people calling out some remark, but can’t pinpoint the timing. Mostly it was just a lot of laughing or good-natured groaning. I’ve got nothing.”
“We’ll sort it out.” Eve got to her feet, wobbled a little. “I forgot I had these damn things on.” She scowled down at her shoes. “I’m going to make sure the sweepers blocked off the roof access.”
“They did,” Peabody assured her. “I already checked.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
“Ride with us,” Roarke invited. “The car can take you downtown once it drops us home.”
“Oh, boy, thanks. Limo ride! You know, if you take out the chunk where there’s a dead body and a couple hours of interviews, this was a mag evening.”
Eve stripped off the shoes the minute she stepped in the house. And winced. “Why do they hurt more when I take them off than when I have them on? Harris probably did a header into the pool on purpose because her feet were already killing her.”
Roarke scooped her off her aching feet. “You earned a ride.”
“I’ll take it,” she decided as he was already carrying her up the stairs. “You know it’s about fifty-fifty, murder or accidental death.”
“That sounds about right.”
“But it wasn’t an accident.”
“Because?”
“The vic pisses everybody off, causes a potentially ugly scene at dinner in front of what I’d call civilians—us.”
“It’s nice to have company in my civilian status for a change,” Roarke commented and carried her straight up onto the platform, dumped her on the lake-sized bed.
“Then she goes up to the roof and conveniently drowns.”
“Convenient would be relative.” He picked up her feet, set them in his lap. “Drowning with the cleverest of murder cops on the premises wouldn’t be convenient for the killer.”
“Sure it would. It …” She trailed off to a low, happy groan as he began massaging her foot. “Oh, that’s good, really good.” She nearly purred when his knuckles pressed on her arches. “And you’re getting so much sex.”
“Always my plan. Consider this foreplay.”
“Who wouldn’t? Anyway, it has that clever murder cop looking at everyone in the same place, at the same time—while everybody who didn’t kill her is trying to think straight enough to remember where they were, what they were doing when. And what everybody but the vic and killer was doing was sitting in a dark theater for a good forty minutes.”
“Focused on themselves.”
“Exactly. Nadine gets tagged, but she takes herself and her ’link off to a private area, and is too distracted to notice if anybody left or came in. Nobody mentioned seeing her go out, not even Andrea, and Nadine had been sitting beside her. We’re in the front, so we wouldn’t see any traffic behind us.”
“And it’s very likely none of them believe any of the others are capable. Everyone who didn’t kill her believes, or wants to believe, it was an accident.”
“Add in they’re united in their dislike of her, and their commitment to the project. It’s always smart to kill in a crowd if you can blend in.”
As he started the same treatment on her other foot, she sighed. “You know that almost—almost—makes it worth wearing those ankle breakers.”
“I figure I owe you as I had the pleasure of enjoying your legs and ass while you did.”
“Business question.”
“All right.”
“When this breaks, which with Nadine leading the charge it already has, how will it affect the project?”
Interesting, he thought, to be discussing murder with his cop while she lay on the bed in her finery. Their life was nothing if not interesting.
“Spun right—and it will be—it’ll power up interest and anticipation. They’ve just been handed a lorry-load of free publicity. An actual murder while producing a major vid about murder? The real-life cop the vid centers on investigating same. It’s a bloody bonanza.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I see your motive angle, Lieutenant, but it seems a bit extreme to do murder for some media buzz, especially when they’ve already been buzzing.”
“But it’s a nice side benefit. I’m going to think about it. But now I think you should get me out of this dress.”
“I’ve been considering my method on that.”
“I’m pretty sure you just yank the zipper down.”
He smiled, gave her calves a series of squeezes that made their muscles sing. “Over you go then.”
She flopped onto her belly. “Roundtree knew the timing, just how long he could be out of the room. But I feel like I would’ve noticed him leaving. He was up front. Connie knew the timing, and did leave the room by her own admission. I bet Preston had not only seen the reel before, but probably helped edit it together. If this was planned—” She lost her train of thought for a moment when his lips replaced his hands on her calves, and felt even better.
“They’re top candidates. Steinburger and Valerie—they may very well have had that time down, too—and any one of them would know the value of murder and spin.”
He worked his way up to her thighs, warm lips, a tease of tongue.
“And any of the actors could have slipped out,” she murmured as part of her mind began a lovely, lazy drift.
“How would they know she’d be on the roof?”
“The killer could have arranged to meet her there. Or …” The zipper eased down fraction by fraction as his mouth continued to play her. “Or she arranged to meet the killer, which would lean toward impulse killing or crime of passion. Or … I can’t think when you’re doing that.”
“You’ll have to give thinking a pass then, as I’ve no intention of stopping.” He slid the narrow triangle of panties down her hips.
With his mouth at the small of her back, he slid his fingers into her.
Her hands curled into the sheets. “I’m still in the dress.”
“Only parts of you. You’re hot and wet. Soft and smooth.”
The orgasm rolled through her, one extended, luxurious swell that left her steeped in pleasure. He gave himself the delight of her back, long and lean under the sparkle of diamonds, to the curve of muscle in her shoulders, her arms. And back to the heat again so she cried out when the fire took her.
He turned her over, peeled away the dress.
“You’re still wearing a suit.”
He leaned down, circled her nipple with his tongue. “Give me a hand with the tie, would you?”
“You’re making me crazy,” she managed as she struggled to loosen the tie, tug it off.
“Still no intention of stopping.” But he shrugged out of his jacket as he feasted lazily on her breasts. “You look like a pagan. A pagan warrior queen.” He scraped his teeth along her throat. “Naked, glowing, wearing nothing but ropes of diamonds.”
“I want you inside me.” Breath tearing, she bit at his ear. “Hot, hard inside me.”
“My hands are busy at the moment.” He filled them with her breasts. “I’ll need help getting out of this shirt.”
She reached up, tore it open, sending buttons flying.
“Well, that’s one way.”
“It’s how it works when you’re a pagan warrior queen. Take me.” She gripped his hair, yanked his mouth to hers. “I want you to take me like there’s nothing you need more.”
“There isn’t. It’s you. It’s always you.”
But he eased back to deal with the rest of his clothes and used his eyes on her as effectively as he had his hands.
“Everything in me skips and scrambles when you look at me like that.”
“You’re mine.” And that brought him something beyond excitement, something deeper than passion. “You’re mine,” he said again.
And when she lifted her arms to him, brought him to her, chained him to her, he took her as if there was nothing he needed more.
PEABODY YAWNED UNTIL HER JAW CRACKED AS she contemplated her breakfast choices. In order to start the day right, in a healthy, body-conscious state, she shouldn’t have the bagel and schmear. She should choose the fruity yogurt. She certainly shouldn’t have the bagel and schmear and the fruity yogurt.
And she shouldn’t even think of the possibility of the cherry Danish she could pick up on the way to Central.
Why did she always think of the damn cherry Danish in the morning? She wasn’t entirely sure the thought of it didn’t put an extra pound on her ass.
“I’m having the fruity yogurt, and that’s it.”
At his seat at their tiny kitchen table, McNab poked at his bowl of Crispy Crunchie Charms and said nothing.
Peabody doctored her coffee first and wished the stupid low-cal sweetener tasted as good as the wonderful zillion-cal sweetener. But she felt righteous if deprived, sitting down with the healthy yogurt and the low-cal coffee.
She wished she could eat bowls of Crispy Crunchie Charms with an ocean of soy milk like McNab and his skinny
ass that never seemed to gain an ounce.
Life was definitely unfair when your metabolism had all the zip of a lame turtle.
She drank some coffee, and felt her brain start to clear. She liked the way the sun came in their kitchen window in the morning, and played through the bright yellow curtains she’d made herself—still hadn’t lost her Free-Ager skills, she thought.
She’d enjoyed making the curtains, selecting the fabric, designing a pattern, sitting down at her little machine to whip it all together into something pretty and functional.
Plus McNab had been mega-impressed.
One day she’d actually finish hooking the rug she’d started for the living area, and that would knock him right out of his gel-boots.
He got such a kick out of the fact she could make stuff, so that added more pleasure and satisfaction to the making. It was good to have their things mixed and matched together in their own apartment. Her dishes with his pub glasses, her chair, his table. Just theirs now.
And it was good, really good, to sit with him in the mornings when their shifts meshed, eating together, talking.
As she drank more coffee, she realized he wasn’t eating, or talking.
“Your triple C’s are going to get soggy,” she warned.
“Huh? Oh.” He shrugged, pushed the bowl aside. “I’m not really hungry.”
“I don’t get you people who aren’t really hungry in the morning.” The entire concept put her in a sulk. “I wake up starving, then have to talk myself into not eating everything in sight so my butt doesn’t become an ad blimp.”
When he didn’t respond—and he always had something cute to say about her butt—she frowned. He looked a little pale, she thought now. Heavy under the eyes, and very broody.
“You okay?” She reached across to touch his hand. “You don’t look so good.”
“I didn’t sleep much.”
“Are you sick?” Instant concern had her leaning over to lay a hand on his brow. “I don’t think you have a fever. Why don’t I make you some tea? I’ve got that blend from my gran.”
“No, that’s okay.” His pretty green eyes lifted, met hers. “Peabody … Delia.”
Oh-oh, she thought. He only called her Delia when he was upset, pissed, or feeling very, very horny. And he didn’t look horny.