Ceremony in Death

by J. D. Robb

  Eve ran her tongue around her teeth. “Criminal record?”

  No criminal record.

  “Sounds fairly normal,” Eve murmured. “Data on Spirit Quest.”

  Spirit Quest. Wiccan shop and consultation center, owned by Isis Paige and Charles Forte. Three years in Tenth Street location. Annual gross income one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars. Licensed priestess, herbalist, and registered hypnotherapist on site.

  “Wicca?” Eve leaned back with a snort. “Witch stuff? Jesus. What kind of scam is this?”

  Wicca, recognized as both a religion and a craft, is an ancient, nature-based faith which—

  “Stop.” Eve blew out a breath. She wasn’t looking for a definition of witchcraft, but an explanation as to why a steady-as-a-rock cop ended up with a granddaughter who believed in casting spells and magic crystals.

  And why that granddaughter wanted a secret meeting.

  The best way to find out, she decided, was to show up at the Aquarian Club in a bit over twenty-four hours. She left the note on the desk. It would be easy to dismiss it, she thought, if it hadn’t been written by a relative of a man she’d respected.

  And if she hadn’t seen that figure in the shadows. A figure she was sure hadn’t wanted to be seen.

  She walked to the adjoining bath and began to strip. It was too bad she couldn’t take Mavis with her for the meet. Eve had a feeling the Aquarian Club would be right up her friend’s alley. Eve kicked her jeans aside, leaned over to stretch out the kinks of a long day. And wondered what she would do with the long night ahead.

  She had nothing hot to work on. Her last homicide had been so open and shut that she and her aide had put it to bed in under eight hours. Maybe she’d spend a couple hours glazing out watching some screen. Or she could pick a weapon out of Roarke’s gun room and go down and run a hologram program to burn off excess energy until she could sleep.

  She’d never tried one of his auto-assault rifles. It might be interesting to experience how a cop took out an enemy during the early days of the Urban Wars.

  She stepped into the shower. “Full jets, on pulse,” she ordered. “Ninety-eight degrees.”

  She wished she had a murder to sink her teeth into. Something that would focus her mind and drain her system. And damn it, that was pathetic. She was lonely, she realized. Desperate for a distraction, and he’d only been gone three days.

  They both had their own lives, didn’t they? They’d lived them before they met and continued to live them after. The demands of both their businesses absorbed much time and attention. Their relationship worked—and that continued to surprise her—because they were both independent people.

  Christ, she missed him outrageously. Disgusted with herself, she ducked her head under the spray and let it pound on her brain.

  When hands slipped around her waist, then slid up to cup her breasts, she barely jolted. But her heart leaped. She knew his touch, the feel of those long, slim fingers, the texture of those wide palms. She tipped her head back, inviting a mouth to the curve of her shoulder.

  “Mmm. Summerset. You wild man.”

  Teeth nipped into flesh and made her chuckle. Thumbs brushed over her soapy nipples and made her moan.

  “I’m not going to fire him.” Roarke trailed a hand down the center of her body.

  “It was worth a shot. You’re back…” His fingers dipped expertly inside her, slick and slippery, so that she arched, moaned, and came simultaneously. “Early,” she finished on an explosive breath. “God.”

  “I’d say I was just on time.” He spun her around, and while she was shuddering and blinking water out of her eyes, he covered her mouth in a long, ravenous kiss.

  He’d thought about her on the interminable flight home. Thought about this, just this: touching and tasting and hearing that quick catch in her breath as he did. And here she was, naked and wet and already quivering for him.

  He braced her in the corner, gripped her hips, and slowly lifted her off her feet. “Miss me?”

  Her heart was thundering. He was inches away from driving into her, filling her, destroying her. “Not really.”

  “Well, in that case…” He kissed her lightly on the chin. “I’ll just let you finish your shower in peace.”

  In a flash, she wrapped her legs around his waist, took a firm hold of his wet mane of hair. “Try it, pal, and you’re a dead man.”

  “In the interest of self-preservation then.” To torture them both, he slipped into her slowly, watched her eyes go opaque. He closed his mouth over hers again so that her shallow breaths shuddered through him.

  The ride was slow and slippery, and more tender than either had expected. Climax came on a long, quiet sigh. Her lips curved against his. “Welcome home.”

  She could see him now, those stunning blue eyes, the face that was both saint and sinner, the mouth of a doomed poet. His hair was streaming with water, black and sleek, just touching broad shoulders roped with subtle and surprisingly tough muscle.

  Looking at him after these brief, periodic absences always made something unexpected lurch through her. She doubted she would ever get used to the fact that he not only wanted her but loved her.

  She was smiling still as she combed her fingers through his thick, black hair. “Everything okay with the Olympus Resort?”

  “Adjustments, some delays. Nothing that can’t be dealt with.” The elaborate space station resort and pleasure center would open on schedule, because he wouldn’t accept any less.

  He ordered the jets off, then took a towel to wrap around her when she would have used the drying tube. “I began to understand why you stay in here while I’m away. I couldn’t sleep in the Presidential Suite.” He took another towel, rubbed it over her hair. “It was too lonely without you.”

  She leaned against him a moment, just to feel the familiar lines of his body against hers. “We’re getting so damn sappy.”

  “I don’t mind. We Irish are very sentimental.”

  It made her smirk as he turned to get robes. He might have had the music of Ireland in his voice, but she seriously doubted if any of his business friends or foes would consider Roarke a sentimental man.

  “No fresh bruises,” he observed, helping her into her robe before she could do it for herself. “I take that to mean you’ve had a quiet few days.”

  “Mostly. We had a john get a bit overenthusiastic with a licensed companion. Choked her to death during sex.” She belted the robe, scratched fingers through her hair to scatter more water. “He got spooked and ran.” She moved her shoulders as she stepped into the office. “But he lawyered up and turned himself in a few hours later. PA took it down to manslaughter. I let Peabody handle the interview and booking.”

  “Hmm.” Roarke went to a recessed cabinet for wine, poured them both a glass. “It’s been quiet then.”

  “Yeah. I had that viewing tonight.”

  His brow furrowed, then cleared. “Ah, yes, you told me. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it home in time to go with you.”

  “Feeney’s taking it really hard. It would be easier if Frank had gone down in the line of duty.”

  This time Roarke’s brow quirked. “You’d prefer that your associate had been killed rather than, say, go gently into that good night?”

  “I’d just understand it better, that’s all.” She frowned into her wine. She didn’t think it wise to tell Roarke she’d prefer a fast and violent death herself. “There is something odd, though. I met Frank’s family. The oldest granddaughter’s on the weird side.”

  “How?”

  “The way she talked, and the data I accessed on her after I got home.”

  Intrigued, he lifted his wine to sip. “You ran a make on her?”

  “Just a quick check. Because she passed me this.” Eve walked to the desk, picked up the note.

  Roarke scanned it, considered. “Earth labyrinth.”

  “What?”

  “The symbol here. It’s Celtic.”

  Shaking her h
ead, Eve eased closer to look again. “You know the strangest things.”

  “Not so strange. I spring from the Celts, after all. The ancient labyrinth symbol is magical and sacred.”

  “Well, it fits. She’s into witchcraft or something. Got herself the start of a top-flight education. Harvard. But she drops out to work in some West Village shop that sells crystals and magic herbs.”

  Roarke traced the symbol with a fingertip. He’d seen it before, and others like it. During his childhood, the cults in Dublin had run the range between vicious gangs and pious pacifists. All, of course, had used religion as the excuse to kill. Or be killed.

  “You have no idea why she wants to meet you?”

  “None. I’d say she figures she read my aura or something. Mavis ran a mystic grift before I busted her for pinching wallets. She told me people will pay most anything if you tell them what they want to hear. More, if you tell them what they don’t want to hear.”

  “Which is why cons and legitimate businesses are very much the same.” He smiled at her. “I take it you’re going, anyway.”

  “Sure, I’ll follow through.”

  Naturally she would. Roarke glanced at the note again, then set it aside. “I’m going with you.”

  “She wants—”

  “It’s a pity what she wants.” He sipped his wine, a man accustomed to getting precisely what he wanted. One way or another. “I’ll stay out of your way, but I’m going. The Aquarian Club is basically harmless, but there are always unsavory elements that leak through.”

  “Unsavory elements are my life,” she said soberly, then cocked her head. “You don’t, like, own the Aquarian, do you?”

  “No.” He smiled. “Would you like to?”

  She laughed and took his hand. “Come on. Let’s drink this in bed.”

  Relaxed by sex and wine, she fell peacefully asleep, draped around Roarke. That’s why she was baffled to find herself suddenly and fully awake only two hours later. It hadn’t been one of her nightmares. There was no terror, no pain, no cold, clammy sweat.

  Yet she had snapped awake, and her heart wasn’t quite steady. She lay still, staring up through the wide sky window over the bed, listening to Roarke’s quiet, steady breathing beside her.

  She shifted, glanced down at the foot of the bed, and nearly yelped when eyes glowed out of the dark. Then she registered the weight over her ankles. Galahad, she thought and rolled her eyes. The cat had come in and jumped onto the bed. That’s what had awakened her, she told herself. That’s all it was.

  She settled again, turned onto her side, and felt Roarke’s arm slide around her in sleep. On a sigh, she closed her eyes, snuggled companionably against him.

  Just the cat, she thought sleepily.

  But she would have sworn she’d heard chanting.

  chapter two

  By the time Eve was elbow deep in paperwork the next morning, the odd wakefulness in the night was forgotten. New York seemed to be content to bask in the balmy days of early autumn and behave itself. It seemed like a good time to take a few hours and organize her office.

  Or rather to delegate Peabody to organize it.

  “How can your files be this skewed?” Peabody demanded. Her earnest, square face expressed deep remorse and disappointment.

  “I know where everything is,” Eve told her. “I want you to put everything where I’ll still know where it is, but where it also makes sense for it to be. Too tough an assignment, Officer?”

  “I can handle it.” Peabody rolled her eyes behind Eve’s back. “Sir.”

  “Fine. And don’t roll your eyes at me. If things are a bit skewed, as you put it, it’s because I’ve had a busy year. As we’re in the last quarter of this one and I’m training you, it falls to me to dump this on you.” Eve turned and smiled thinly. “With the hope, Peabody, that you will one day have an underling to dump shit assignments on.”

  “Your faith in me is touching, Dallas. Chokes me up.” She hissed at the computer. “Or maybe it’s the fact that you’ve got yellow sheets in here from five years ago that’s choking me. These should have been downloaded to the main and cleared out of your unit after twenty-four months.”

  “So download and clear now.” Eve’s smile widened as the machine hacked, then droned out a warning of system failure. “And good luck.”

  “Technology can be our friend. And like any friendship, it requires regular maintenance and understanding.”

  “I understand it fine.” Eve stepped over, pounded her fist twice on the drive. The unit hiccupped back into running mode. “See?”

  “You have a real smooth touch, Lieutenant. That’s why the guys in Maintenance shoot air darts at your picture.”

  “Still? Christ, they hold a grudge.” With a shrug, Eve sat on the corner of the desk. “What do you know about witchcraft?”

  “If you want to cast a spell on your machine here, Dallas, it’s a little out of my field.” Teeth clenched, she juggled and compressed files.

  “You’re a Free-Ager.”

  “Lapsed. Come on, come on, you can do it,” she muttered at the computer. “Besides,” she added. “Free-Agers aren’t Wiccans. They’re both earth religions, and both are based on natural orders, but…son of a bitch, where’d it go?”

  “What? Where did what go?”

  “Nothing.” Shoulders hunched, Peabody guarded the monitor. “Nothing. Don’t worry, I’m on it. You probably didn’t need those files, anyway.”

  “Is that a joke, Peabody?”

  “You bet. Ha ha.” A line of sweat dribbled down her back as she attacked the keys. “There. There it is. No problem, no problem at all. And off it goes into the main. Neat and tidy.” She let out an enormous sigh. “Could I maybe have some coffee? Just to keep alert.”

  Eve shifted her gaze to the screen, saw nothing that looked ominous. Saying nothing, she rose and ordered coffee from the AutoChef.

  “Why do you want to know about Wicca? You thinking of converting?” At Eve’s bland look, Peabody tried a smile. “Another joke.”

  “You’re full of them today. Just curious.”

  “Well, there’s some overlap on basic tenets between Wiccans and Free-Agers. A search for balance and harmony, the celebration of the seasons that goes back to ancient times, the strict code of nonviolence.”

  “Nonviolence?” Eve narrowed her eyes. “What about curses, casting spells, and sacrifices? Naked virgins on the altar and black roosters getting their heads chopped off?”

  “Fiction depicts witches that way. You know, ‘Double, double, toil and trouble.’ Shakespeare. Macbeth.”

  Eve snorted. “‘I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too.’” The Wicked Witch of the West. Classic vid channel.

  “Good one,” Peabody admitted. “But both examples feed into the most basic of misconceptions. Witches aren’t ugly, evil crones mixing up cauldrons of goop or hunting down young girls and their friendly, talking scarecrows. Wiccans like to be naked, but they don’t hurt anything or anyone. Strictly white magic.”

  “As opposed to?”

  “Black magic.”

  Eve studied her aide. “You don’t believe in that stuff? Magic and spells?”

  “Nope.” Revived with coffee, Peabody turned back to the computer. “I know some of the basics because I have a cousin who shifted to Wicca. He’s into it big time. Joined a coven in Cincinnati.”

  “You’ve got a cousin in a coven in Cincinnati.” Laughing, Eve set her own coffee aside. “Peabody, you never cease to amaze me.”

  “One day I’ll tell you about my granny and her five lovers.”

  “Five lovers isn’t abnormal for a woman’s lifetime.”

  “Not in her lifetime; last month. All at the same time.” Peabody glanced up, deadpan. “She’s ninety-eight. I hope to take after her.”

  Eve swallowed her next chuckle as her tele-link beeped. “Dallas.” She watched Commander Whitney’s face swim on-screen. “Yes, Commander.”

  “I’d like to spe
ak with you, Lieutenant, in my office. As soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir. Five minutes.” Eve disengaged, shot a hopeful glance at Peabody. “Maybe we’ve got something going. Keep working on those files. I’ll contact you if we’re heading out.”

  She started out, stuck her head back in. “Don’t eat my candy bar.”

  “Damn,” Peabody said under her breath. “She never misses.”

  Whitney had spent most of his life behind a badge and a large part of his professional life in command. He made it his business to know his cops, to judge their strengths and weaknesses. And he knew how to utilize both.

  He was a big man with workingman hands and dark, keen eyes that some considered cold. His temperament, on the surface, was almost terrifyingly even. And like most smooth surfaces, it coated something dangerous brewing beneath.

  Eve respected him, occasionally liked him, and always admired him.

  He was at his desk when she stepped into his office, lines of concentration puckering his brow as he read over some hard copy. He didn’t glance up, merely gestured toward a chair. She sat, watched an air tram rumble by his window, baffled as always by the number of passengers with binoks and spy glasses.

  What did they expect to see behind the windows where cops worked? she wondered. Suspects being tortured, weapons discharged, victims bleeding and weeping? And why would the fantasy of such misery entertain them?

  “I saw you at the viewing last night.”

  Eve shifted her thoughts and attention to her commander. “I imagine most every cop in Central made an appearance.”

  “Frank was well-liked.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “You never worked with him?”