Immortal in Death

by J. D. Robb

  ‘But you did.’

  ‘I took her where she wanted to go. I’m not really sure if I was going to do it then, but when I saw the security camera smashed, it seemed like a sign. Then the place was empty. Just her and me. They’d hang it on the dressmaker, right? Or on the little lady she’d had a fight with. So I hit her. The first strike took her down, but she was up again. That shit made her strong and mean. I had to keep hitting her, and hitting her. Fucking blood flying. Then she was down for good. Your little friend came in, and you know the rest.’

  ‘Yeah, I know the rest. You went back and took the box with the tabs. Why did you take her palm ’link?’

  ‘She always used it to call me. She might’ve recorded the numbers.’

  ‘Cockroach?’

  ‘Just something extra in the mix. To confuse things. Cockroach was always willing to sample a new product. You were hammering away, and I wanted a hit where I was well alibied, just in case. So I had DeeDee.’

  ‘You got to Jerry, too, didn’t you?’

  ‘Easy as a walk on the beach. Get one of the VT’s stirred up with a quick buzz, wait for the chaos. I had a reviver for Jerry, brought her around and had her out of there before she knew what was happening. I promised her a fix, and she cried like a baby. Morphine first so she wouldn’t get any idea about not cooperating. Then Immortality, then a dash of Zeus. She died happy, Eve. Thanking me.’

  ‘You’re a humanitarian, Casto.’

  ‘No, Eve, I’m a selfish man looking out for number one. And I’m not ashamed of it. I’ve got twelve years on the streets, wading through blood, vomit, and come. I’ve paid my dues. This drug’s going to give me everything I’ve ever wanted. I’ll take my captaincy, and with that kind of connection, I’ll feed profits from the drug into a nice numbered account for four or five years, then I’ll retire to a tropical island and sip mai tais.’

  He was winding down now, she could tell it from the tone of his voice. The excitement, the arrogance had cooled to practicality. ‘You’ll have to kill me first.’

  ‘I know that, Eve. It’s a damn shame. I all but handed you Fitzgerald, but you just wouldn’t let it be.’ With what might have been affection, he brushed a hand over her hair. ‘I’m going to make it easy on you. I’ve got something here that’ll take you down gently. You won’t feel anything.’

  ‘That’s damn considerate of you, Casto.’

  ‘I owe you that much, honey. Cop to cop. If you’d let it lay, after your friend got off, but you wouldn’t. I wish things had been different, Eve. I had a real taste for you.’ He leaned close, so close she felt his breath waft over her lips as though he were indeed about to taste her.

  Slowly, she lifted her lashes, looking through them into his face. ‘Casto,’ she said softly.

  ‘Yeah. Just relax now. Won’t take long.’ He reached for his pocket.

  ‘Fuck you.’ She brought her knee up hard. Her depth perception was still slightly skewed. Rather than connecting with his groin she knocked solidly into his chin. He went backward off the bed, and the pressure injector in his hand skittered over the floor.

  They both dived for it.

  ‘Where the hell is she? She wouldn’t have walked out on her own party.’ Mavis tapped her spiked heels impatiently as she continued to scan the club. ‘And she’s the only one of us still sober.’

  ‘Ladies’ room?’ Nadine suggested, half-heartedly tugging her blouse over her lacy bra.

  ‘Peabody’s checked twice. Dr. Mira, she wouldn’t have made a run for it, would she? I know she’s nervous, but—’

  ‘She’s not the running kind.’ Though her head was still revolving, Mira struggled to keep her speech coherent. ‘We’ll look around again. She’s here somewhere. It’s just so crowded.’

  ‘Still looking for the bride?’ Grinning widely, Crack lumbered up. ‘Looks like she just wanted a last ride. The dude over there saw her slip into one of the privacy rooms with a cowboy type.’

  ‘Dallas?’ Mavis snorted at the thought of it. ‘No way.’

  ‘So, she’s celebrating.’ Crack lifted his shoulders.

  ‘Got plenty more rooms, ladies, if you got an itch.’

  ‘Which room?’ Peabody demanded, sober now that she’d thrown up everything in her stomach including, she was sure, a good portion of the lining.

  ‘Number five. Hey, you want a gang bang, I can round up some nice young boys for you. All sizes, all shapes, all colors.’ He shook his head as they marched off, and decided that he’d better go along to keep the peace.

  Eve’s fingers slipped off the injector, and the elbow to her cheekbone sent pain grinding down her face and into her teeth. Still, she had first blood, and the shock of finding her ready to fight had shaken him.

  ‘You should have given me a bigger dose.’ She followed up the statement with a short-armed punch to his windpipe. ‘I wasn’t drinking tonight, asshole.’ She managed to roll him over. ‘I’m getting married tomorrow.’ She punctuated this by bloodying his nose. ‘That was for Peabody, you bastard.’

  He caught her in the ribs and winded her. She felt the injector pass over her arm and heaved up by the hips to kick. She would never know if it was blind luck, her lack of depth perception, or his own miscalculation, but he dodged to avoid the gut thrust, and her feet, coming up like pistons, caught him square in the face.

  His eyes rolled back in his head; his head hit the floor with an ominous and satisfying thud.

  Still, he’d managed to get more of the drug into her. She crawled, drifting in the sensation of swimming through thick, golden syrup. She made it to the door, but the lock and its key code appeared to be twelve feet above her grasping hand.

  Then the door burst open and all hell broke loose.

  She felt herself lifted, patted down. Someone was ordering in no-nonsense tones that she be given air. Giggles bubbled up in her. She was flying now, was all she could think.

  ‘Bastard killed them,’ she kept saying. ‘Bastard killed them all. I missed it. Where’s Roarke?’

  Her eyelids were pulled back and she would have sworn her eyeballs rolled like fiery little marbles. She heard the words ‘health center’ and began to fight like a tiger.

  Roarke descended the stairs, a grim set to his mouth. He knew Feeney was still upstairs, huffing and blowing, but he was convinced. A business deal of the size of Immortality’s potential required an expert and an inside connection. Casto filled both those bills.

  Eve might not want to hear it, either, so he wouldn’t mention it. Yet. Feeney would have three weeks to poke around while they were on their honeymoon. If there was indeed going to be a honeymoon.

  He heard the door open and angled his chin. They were going to have this out once and for all, he determined. Here and now. He took two more steps, then was down the rest of them in a dead run.

  ‘What the hell happened to her? She’s bleeding.’ There was blood in his own eye as he snatched a limp Eve from the arms of a seven-foot black in a silver loincloth.

  As everybody began talking at once, Mira clapped her hands like a schoolteacher in a room of rowdy students. ‘She needs a quiet room. The MTs treated her for the drug, but she’ll have some residual effects. And she wouldn’t let them deal with the cuts and bruises.’

  Roarke’s face went stony. ‘What drug?’ His gaze latched on Mavis. ‘Where the hell did you take her?’

  ‘Not her fault.’ Still glassy-eyed, Eve wrapped her arms around Roarke’s neck. ‘Casto. It was Casto, Roarke. Know that?’

  ‘As a matter of fact—’

  ‘Stupid - stupid to miss it. Sloppy. Can I go to bed now?’

  ‘Take her upstairs, Roarke,’ Mira said calmly. ‘I can tend to her. Believe me, she’ll be fine.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Eve agreed as she floated up the stairs. ‘I’ll tell you everything. I can always tell you, can’t I? ’Cause you love me, you sap.’

  There was only one piece of information Roarke wanted at the moment. He laid Eve on the bed, took a
good look at her bruised cheek and swollen mouth. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Nope. I just beat the hell out of him.’ She smiled, caught the look in his eye, and shook her head slowly. ‘Nuh-uh, no way. Don’t even think about it. We’re getting married in a couple hours.’

  He smoothed the hair back from her face. ‘Are we?’

  ‘I figured it out.’ It was hard to concentrate, but it was important. She lifted her hands, cupped his face to keep it in focus. ‘It’s not a formality. And it’s not a contract.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a promise. It’s not so hard to promise to do something you really want, anyway. And if I’m lousy at being a wife, you’ll just have to live with it. I don’t break my promises. And there’s this one other thing.’

  He could see her slipping, and shifted slightly so that Mira could tend the cut on her cheek. ‘What other thing, Eve?’

  ‘I love you. Sometimes it makes my stomach hurt, but I kind of like it. Tired now, come to bed. Love you.’

  He eased back to let Mira get on with her tending. ‘It’s all right for her to sleep?’

  ‘Best thing for her. She’ll be fine when she wakes up. Maybe a little hungover, which seems unfair since she didn’t drink anything. She said she wanted a clear head for tomorrow.’

  ‘Did she?’ She didn’t look calm when she slept, he noted. She never did. ‘Will she remember any of that? What she was telling me?’

  ‘She may not,’ Mira said cheerfully. ‘But you will, and that should do the job.’

  He nodded and stepped back. She was safe again. One more time safe. He glanced over at Peabody. ‘Officer, can I count on you to fill me in on the details?’

  Eve did have a hangover, and wasn’t pleased about it. Her stomach was tied in greasy knots, and her jaw was sore. Between Mira and Trina’s wizardry with cosmetics, the bruises didn’t show. As brides went, she supposed, studying herself, she was passable.

  ‘You look mag, Dallas.’ Mavis sighed and took a slow turn around Leonardo’s finest hour. The dress sleeked down, as it was meant to, the bronze tone adding warmth to Eve’s skin, the lines highlighting her long, lean form. Its very simplicity made the statement that it was the woman within who counted.

  ‘The garden’s packed with people,’ Mavis went on cheerily as Eve’s stomach roiled. ‘Did you look out the window?’

  ‘I’ve seen people before.’

  ‘There was media doing flybys earlier. I don’t know whose button Roarke pushed, but they’ve stopped.’

  ‘Goodie.’

  ‘You’re all right, aren’t you? Dr. Mira said you shouldn’t have any dangerous aftereffects, but—’

  ‘I’m fine.’ It was only partly a lie. ‘Having it closed, knowing all the facts, the truth makes it easier.’ She thought of Jerry and suffered. She looked at Mavis, the glowing face, the silver-tipped hair, and smiled. ‘You and Leonardo still planning to cohabitate?’

  ‘At my place, temporarily. We’re looking for bigger digs, one where he’ll have room to work. And I’m going to start making the club rounds again.’ She took a box from the bureau, handed it over. ‘Roarke sent this up for you.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Opening it, Eve felt twin tugs of pleasure and alarm. The necklace was perfect, of course. Two drapes of twisted copper studded with colored stones.

  ‘I happened to mention it.’

  ‘I bet you did.’ With a sigh, Eve draped it on, then fastened the long matching drops to her ears. And looked, she thought, like a stranger. A pagan warrior.

  ‘There’s one more thing.’

  ‘Oh, Mavis, I can’t stand one more thing. He’s got to understand that I—’ She broke off as Mavis turned from the long white box on the table, took out a sweeping spray of white flowers - petunias. Simple, backyard-variety petunias.

  ‘He always knows,’ she murmured. All the muscles in her stomach loosened, all the nerves died away. ‘He just knows.’

  ‘I guess when somebody understands you that way, that, you know, intimately, it makes you pretty lucky.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Eve took the flowers, cradled them. The reflection in the mirror didn’t look like a stranger. It looked, she thought, like Eve Dallas on her wedding day. ‘Roarke’s going to swallow his tongue when he gets a load of me.’

  She laughed, grabbed Mavis’s arm, and rushed out to make her promises.

  If you enjoyed Immortal in Death you won’t want to miss J.D. Robb’s exciting novel of romantic suspense . . .

  Rapture in Death

  Here is a special excerpt from this provocative novel available soon from Piatkus.

  The alley was dark and stank of piss and vomit. It was home for quick-footed rats and the bony, hungry-eyed felines who hunted them. Red eyes glinted in the dark, some of them human, all of them feral.

  Eve’s heart tripped lightly as she slipped into the fetid, damp-edged shadows. He’d gone in, she was sure of it. It was her job to follow, to find him, to bring him in. Her weapon was in her hand, and her hand was steady.

  ‘Hey, sweetcakes, wanna do it with me? Wanna do it?’

  Voices out of the dark, harsh with chemicals or cheap brews. Moans of the damned, giggles of the mad. The rats and cats didn’t live here alone. The company of the human garbage that lined the sweating brick walls was no comfort.

  She swung her weapon, crouched as she sidestepped a battered recycling unit that, from the smell of it, hadn’t worked in a decade. The stench of food gone over smeared the humid air and turned it into a greasy stew.

  Someone whimpered. She saw a boy, about thirteen, all but naked. The sores on his face were festering, his eyes were slits of fear and hopelessness as he scrabbled like a crab back against the filthy wall.

  Pity stirred in her heart. She had been a child once, hurt and terrified, hiding in an alley. ‘I won’t hurt you.’ She kept her voice quiet, barely a murmur, kept her eyes on his, maintaining contact as she lowered her weapon.

  And that’s when he struck.

  He came from behind, a roar of motion and sound. Primed to kill, he swung the pipe. The whistle of it stung her ears as she whirled and dodged. There was barely time to curse herself for losing her concentration, forgetting her primary target as two hundred fifty pounds of muscle and mean sent her flying to the bricks.

  Her weapon flew out of her hand and clattered into the dark.

  She saw his eyes, the glint of mayhem heightened by the chemical, Zeus. She watched the pipe raised high, timed it, and rolled seconds before it cracked against brick. With a pump of her legs, she dived headfirst into his belly. He grunted, staggered, and as he reached for her throat, she brought her fist up hard, smashing it under his jaw. The force of the blow radiated pain and power up her arm.

  People were screaming, scrambling for safety in a narrow world where nothing and no one was safe. She spun and used the impetus of the turn to deliver a roundhouse kick that shattered her adversary’s nose. Blood fountained, adding to the sick miasma of odors.

  His eyes were wild, but he barely jerked at the blow. Pain was no match for the god of chemicals. Grinning as blood poured down his face, he smacked the thick pipe on his palm.

  ‘Kill you. Kill you, cop bitch.’ He circled her, swinging the pipe like a whistling whip. Grinning, grinning as he bled. ‘Break your head open and eat your brains.’

  Knowing he meant it pumped her adrenaline to flash point. Live or die. Her breath came in pants, the sweat pouring like oil down her skin. She dodged the next blow but went down on her knees. Slapping a hand on her boot, she came up grinning.

  ‘Eat this instead, you son of a bitch.’ Her backup weapon was in her hand. She didn’t bother with stun. The stun setting would do little more than tickle a two-hundred-fifty-pound man flying on Zeus. It was set to terminate.

  As he lunged toward her, she hit him with full power. His eyes died first. She’d seen it happen before. Eyes that turned to glass like a doll’s, even as he charged her. She sidestepped, prepared to fire again, but the pipe sli
pped from his fingers. His body began that jerky dance as his nervous system overloaded.

  He fell at her feet, a mass of ruined humanity who had played god.

  ‘You won’t be sacrificing any more virgins, asshole,’ she muttered, and as that wild energy drained, she rubbed a hand over her face. Her weapon arm dropped.

  The faint scrape of leather on concrete alerted her. She started her spin, weapon rising, but arms clamped her and lifted her to her toes.

  ‘Always watch your back, Lieutenant,’ the voice whispered just before teeth nipped lightly at her earlobe.

  ‘Roarke, goddamn it. I nearly zapped you.’

  ‘You didn’t even come close.’ With a laugh, he turned her in his arms, and his mouth was on hers, hot and hungry. ‘I love watching you work,’ he murmured and his hand, clever hand, slid up her body to cup her breast. ‘It’s . . . stimulating.’

  ‘Cut it out.’ But her heart was thundering in reaction, and the order was halfhearted. ‘This is no place for a seduction.’

  ‘On the contrary. A honeymoon is a traditional place for a seduction.’ He drew her back but kept his hands on her shoulders. ‘I wondered where you’d gone off to. I should have known.’ He glanced down at the body at their feet. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He had a predilection for beating the brains out of young women, then eating them.’

  ‘Oh.’ Roarke winced and shook his head. ‘Really, Eve, couldn’t you have come up with something a little less revolting?’

  ‘There was a guy on the Terra Colony a couple of years back who fit the profile, and I wondered . . .’ She trailed off, frowning. They were standing in a stinking alley, death at their feet. And Roarke, gorgeous, dark angel Roarke, was wearing a tuxedo and a diamond stud. ‘What are you all dressed up for?’