by J. D. Robb
“And rules are to be respected.” Rising, Isis moved behind a display counter, took out a small, clear bowl with a wide lip. “Then perhaps you will buy this. I have, after all, lost potential business by closing to speak to you. Twenty dollars.”
“Fair enough.” Eve dug into her pocket for credits. “What is it?”
“We’ll call it a worry bowl. In this you place all your pain, your sorrow, your worries. Set it aside and sleep without shadows.”
“Such a deal.” Eve set the credits on the counter and waited for Isis to wrap the bowl in protective paper.
Eve got home early, a rarity. She thought she could dive into work in the quiet of her home office. She could get past Summerset easily enough, she mused as she pulled up at the end of the drive. The butler would simply sniff and ignore her. She’d have a couple of hours clear to run data on Isis and to contact Dr. Mira’s office and make an appointment with the psychiatrist. It would, Eve decided, be interesting to get Mira’s take on personalities such as Selina Cross and Isis.
Eve got no farther than the front door when her plans disintegrated.
Music pounded, blasting out of the front parlor like compact nuclear explosions. Staggering against the waves, Eve slapped her hands over her ears and shouted.
She didn’t have to be told it was Mavis. No one else in her sphere would play clashing, discordant notes at that decibel. When she reached the doorway, the volume was still revved high. Her shouted demands reached neither the remote nor the single occupant of the room.
Alone, decked out in a micro robe of searing magenta that echoed the spiral curls shooting out of her head, Mavis Freestone lounged on the couch, doing the impossible. She slept like a baby.
“Jesus Christ.” Since vocal commands were useless, Eve risked her eardrums and dropped her hands to fumble with the recessed control unit. “Off, off, off!” She shouted stabbing buttons. The noise shut down in midblast and made her moan.
Mavis’s eyes popped open. “Hey, how’s it going?”
“What?” Eve shook her head to try to dispel the high-pitched ringing. “What?”
“That was a new group I picked up this morning. Mayhem. Pretty decent.”
“What?”
With a chuckle, Mavis unfolded her neat little body and bounced to a cabinet. “Looks like you could use a drink, Dallas. I must have zoned. Up pretty late the last few nights. Wanted to talk to you—about stuff.”
“Your mouth is moving,” Eve observed. “Are you talking to me?”
“It wasn’t that loud. Have a drink. Summerset said it would be all right if I hung for awhile. Didn’t know when you’d check in.”
For reasons that eluded Eve, the stiff-necked butler appeared to have a major crush on Mavis. “He’s probably in his cage, composing odes to your legs.”
“Hey, it’s nothing sexual. He just likes me. So.” Mavis clunked her glass against Eve’s. “Roarke’s not around, right?”
“With that music blasting?” Eve snorted, sipped. “Figure it out.”
“Well, that’s good, because I wanted to roll it out with you.” But she sat, twisted the glass in her hands, and said nothing.
“What’s the problem? You and Leonardo have a fight or something?”
“No, no. You can’t really fight with Leonardo. He’s too sweet. He’s in Milan for a few days. Some fashion deal.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?” Eve sat, rested her booted feet on the priceless coffee table, crossed her ankles.
“I’ve got the gig at the Down and Dirty. I wouldn’t let Crack down after he bailed me.”
“Hmm.” Eve rolled her shoulders and began to relax. Mavis’s career as a performer—it was difficult to use the term singer when defining Mavis’s talents—was moving along. There had been some serious roadblocks, but they’d been overcome. “I didn’t figure you’d work there much longer. Not with a recording contract.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the thing. The contract. You know, after finding out Jess was using me—and you and Roarke—for his mind games, I didn’t figure the demo I’d cut with him would go anywhere.”
“It was good, Mavis; flashy, unique. That’s why it got picked up.”
“Is it?” She rose again, a tiny woman with wild hair. “I found out today that Roarke owns the recording company that offered the contract.” Gulping her drink, she paced away. “I know we go back a ways, Dallas, a long ways, and I appreciate you putting Roarke up to it, but I don’t feel right about it. I wanted to thank you.” She turned then, her silver eyes tragic and bleak. “And tell you that I’m going to turn it down.”
Eve pursed her lips. “Mavis, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Are you telling me that Roarke, the guy who lives here, is producing your disc?”
“It’s his company. Eclectic. It produces everything from classical to brain drain. It’s the company. Totally mag, which was why I was so wired up about the deal.”
Eclectic, Eve mused. The company. It sounded just like him. “I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t ask him to do anything, Mavis.”
She blinked, lowered slowly to the arm of a chair. “You didn’t? Solid?”
“I didn’t ask,” Eve repeated, “and he didn’t tell me.” Which was also just like him. “I’d have to say that if his company is offering you a contract, it’s because Roarke, or whoever he’s put in charge of that stuff, figures you’re worth it.”
Mavis took slow breaths. She’d worked herself up to the selfless sacrifice, unwilling to take advantage of friendship. Now she teetered. “Maybe he arranged it, like a favor.”
Eve cocked a brow. “Roarke’s business is business. I’d say he figures you’re going to make him richer. And if he did do it as a favor, which I doubt, then you’ll just have to prove to him that you’re worth it. Won’t you, Mavis?”
“Yeah.” She let out a long breath. “I’m going to kick ass, you wait and see.” Her smile beamed out. “Maybe you could come by the D and D tonight. I’ve got some new material, and Roarke could get another close-up of his latest investment.”
“Have to pass tonight. I’ve got work. I’ve got to check out The Athame.”
Mavis grimaced. “What the hell are you going there for? Nasty place.”
“You know it?”
“Only by rep, and the rep’s down below bad news.”
“Someone I’ve got to talk to there, connected with a case I’m working on.” She considered. There was no one she knew more likely to have a line on the unusual. “Know any witches, Mavis?”
“Yeah, sort of. A couple of servers down at the Blue Squirrel were into it. Brushed a few way back when I was on the grift.”
“You believe in that stuff? Chanting and spells and palm reading?”
Mavis cocked her head and looked thoughtful. “It’s major bullshit.”
“You never fail to surprise me,” Eve decided. “I figured you’d be into it.”
“I ran a con once. Spirit guide. I was Ariel, reincarnation of a fairy queen. You’d be amazed how many straights paid up for me to contact their dead relatives or tell them their future.”
To demonstrate, she let her head fall back. Her eyes fluttered, her mouth went slack. Slowly, her arms lifted, palms turned up. “I feel a presence, strong, seeking, sorrowful.” Her voice had deepened, attained a faint accent. “There are dark forces working against you. They hide from you, wait to do harm. Beware.”
She dropped her arms and grinned. “So, you tell the mark you need to have trust in order to offer protection from the dark forces. All they have to do is put say, a thousand cash—cash is all that works—in an envelope. Seal it. You make sure you tell them to seal it with this special wax you’re going to sell them. Then you’re going to do this cool chant over it, and bury the envelope in a secret place under the dark of the moon. After the moon’s cycled, you’ll dig up the envelope and give it back. The dark forces will have been vanquished.”
“That’s it? People just hand over the money?”
; “Well, you string it out a little longer, do some research so you can hit them with names and events and shit. But basically, yeah. People want to believe.”
“Why?”
“Because life can really suck.”
Yes, Eve thought when she was alone again, she supposed it could. Hers certainly had for long stretches of time. Now she was living in a mansion with a man who, for some reason, loved her. She didn’t always understand her life or the man who now shared it, but she was adjusting. So well, in fact, that she decided not to go bury herself in work, but to go outside, into the golden autumn evening and take an hour for herself.
She was used to streets and sidewalks, crowded sky-glides, jammed people movers. The sheer space Roarke could command always astonished her. His grounds were like a well-tended park, quiet and lush, with the foliage of rich man’s trees in the dazzling flame of fall. The scents were of spicy flowers, the faintly smoky fragrance of October in the country.
Overhead, the sky was nearly empty of traffic, and even that was a dignified hum. No rumbling airbuses or lumbering tourist blimps over Roarke’s land.
And the world she knew, and that knew her, was beyond the gates and over the walls, in the seamy dark.
Here she could forget that for a short time. Forget New York existed with its death and its anger—and its perpetually appealing arrogance. She needed the quiet and the air. As she walked over thick, green grass, she worried the ring with its odd symbols on her finger.
On the north side of the house was an arbor of thin, somehow fluid iron. The vines twisting and tumbling over it were smothered with flowers wildly red. She had married him there, in an old, traditional ceremony where vows were exchanged and promises made. A ceremony, she thought now. A rite that included music, flowers, witnesses, words that were repeated time after time, place after place, century through century.
And so, she thought, other ceremonies were preserved and repeated and believed to hold power. Back to Cain and Abel, she mused. One had planted crops, the other tended a flock. And both had offered sacrifice. One had been accepted, the other dismissed. Thus, she imagined, some would say good and evil were born. Because each needed the balance and challenge of the other.
So it continued. Science and logic disproved, but the rites continued, incense and chanting, offerings and the drinking of wine that symbolized blood.
And the sacrifice of the innocent.
Annoyed with herself, she rubbed her hands over her face. Philosophizing was foolish and useless. Murder had been done by human force. And it was human force that would dispense justice. That was, after all, the ultimate balance of good and evil.
She sat on the ground under the arbor of bloodred blossoms and drew in the burning scent of evening.
“This isn’t usual for you.” Roarke came up quietly behind her—so quietly, her heart gave a quick trip before he settled on the grass beside her. “Communing with nature?”
“Maybe I spent too much time inside today.” She had to smile when he handed her one of the red flowers. She twirled it in her fingers, watched it spin before she looked over at him.
He was relaxed, his dark hair skimming his shoulders, as he leaned back on his elbows, legs stretched out, feet crossed at the ankles. She imagined his pricey and beautiful suit would pick up grass stains that would horrify Summerset. He smelled male, and expensive. Lust curled comfortably in her stomach.
“Successful day?” she asked.
“We’ll have bread on the table another day or two.”
She flicked her fingers at the ends of his hair. “It’s not the money, is it? It’s the making it.”
“Oh, it’s the money.” His eyes laughed at her. “And the making it.” In a quick move she told herself she should have seen coming, he reached up, cupped the back of her neck, and overbalanced her onto him and into a hot kiss.
“Hold on.”
She didn’t squirm quickly enough and ended up under him.
“I am.”
His mouth fastened greedily on her throat and sent little licks of heat straight down her body to her toes.
“I want to talk to you.”
“Okay, you talk while I get you out of these clothes. Still wearing your weapon,” he observed as he hit the release for the harness. “Thinking of zapping some wildlife?”
“That’s against city ordinance. Roarke.” She caught his wrist as his hand closed sneakily over her breast. “I want to talk to you.”
“I want to make love with you. Let’s see who wins.”
It should have infuriated her, the fact that he already had her shirt open and her breasts aching. Then his mouth closed over that sensitive flesh and had her eyes all but crossing in pleasure. Still, it wouldn’t do to let him win too easily.
She let her body go limp, moaned, and combed her fingers through his hair, ran them over his shoulders. “Your jacket,” she murmured and tugged at it. When he shifted to shrug free, she had him.
It was a basic tenet of hand-to-hand. Never lower your guard. She scissored, shoved, and pinned him with a knee to the crotch and an elbow to the throat.
“You’re tricky.” He calculated he could dislodge the elbow, but the knee…There were some things a man didn’t care to risk. He kept his eyes on hers and slowly, carefully skimmed his fingertips up her bare torso, circled her breast. “I admire that in a woman.”
“You’re easy.” His thumb brushed lightly over her nipple, quickening her breath. “I admire that in a man.”
“Well, you’ve got me now.” He unsnapped her waistband, teased her stomach muscles to quiver. “Be kind.”
She grinned, levered her elbow away to brace her hands on either side of his head. “I don’t think so.” Lowering her head, she caught his mouth with hers.
She heard his breath suck in, felt his arms come around her, fingers digging in. His groan thundered through her pulse.
“Your knee,” he managed.
“Hmm?” Lust was full-blown now and raging. She shifted lips and teeth to his throat.
“Your knee, darling.” She moved to attack his ear and nearly unmanned him. “It’s very effective.”
“Oh, sorry.” Snorting, she lowered her knee, lowered her body, and let him roll her over. “Forgot.”
“A likely story. You may have caused permanent damage.”
“Aw.” With a wicked grin, she tugged open his trousers. “I bet we can make it all better.”
His eyes went dark when she stroked him, stayed open and on hers when their lips met again. This kiss, surprisingly tender, twined that terrifyingly strong emotion with the easy lust.
The lower edges of the sky were as wildly red as the blossoms arching over them. The shadows were long and soft. She could hear birdsong and the whisper of air through the dying leaves. The touch of his hands on her was like a miracle, chasing away all the ugliness and pain of the world she walked in.
She didn’t even know she needed to be soothed, he thought as he stroked, and he soothed, so that arousal was slow and warm and liquid. Perhaps neither had he, until they held like this, touched like this. The romance of the air, the light, the gradual surrender of a strong woman was gloriously seductive.
He eased into her, watching her face as the first orgasm rolled through her, feeling her body clench, shudder, go pliant as his fueled it and filled it.
She kept her eyes open, as fascinated by the intensity of his stare as the silvery ripples of sensation that pumped through her. She matched his pace, silky and smooth even as her breath tore. And when she saw those dark Celtic eyes cloud, go opaque, she framed his face with her hands, pulled his mouth to hers to savor his long, long groan of release.
When his body was ranged weightily over hers, his face buried in her hair, she wrapped her arms companionably around him. “I let you seduce me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Thank you. You tolerated it all so stoically, too.”
“It’s t
he training. Cops have to be stoic.”
He reached out, ran a hand over the grass, and plucked up her shield. “Your badge, Lieutenant.”
She snickered, slapped him on the ass. “Get off me. You weigh a ton.”
“Keep sweet-talking me, and God knows what could happen.” Lazily, he rolled aside, noted that the sky had gone from cloudy blue to pearl gray. “I’m starving. You distracted me, and now it’s well past dinnertime.”
“It’s going to be a little more past.” She sat up and began to tug on her clothes. “You had your sex, pal. Now it’s my turn. We have to talk.”
“We could talk over dinner.” He sighed when she sent him a steely stare. “Or we could talk here. Problem?” he asked and skimmed his thumb over the dent in her chin.
“Let’s just say I have some questions.”
“I might have the answers. What are they?”
“To begin with—” She broke off, blew out a breath. He was sitting there, mostly naked, looking very much like a sleek, well-satisfied cat. “Put some clothes on, will you? You’re going to distract me.” She tossed his shirt at him when he only grinned. “Mavis was waiting for me when I got home.”
“Oh.” He shook out his shirt, noted its deplorable condition, but slipped it on. “Why didn’t she stay?”
“She’s got a gig at the Down and Dirty. Roarke, why didn’t you tell me you own Eclectic?”
“It’s not a secret.” He hitched into his slacks, then handed her her weapon harness. “I own a number of things.”
“You know what I’m talking about.” She would be patient here, Eve told herself, because it was a delicate area for everyone. “Eclectic’s offered Mavis a contract.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I know you know,” she snapped, slapping away his hand as he attempted to smooth down her hair. “Damn it, Roarke, you could have told me. I’d have been prepared when she asked me about it.”
“Asked you what? It’s a standard contract. She’ll certainly want an agent or representative to look it over, but—”
“Did you do it for me?” she interrupted, and her eyes were focused on his face.
“Did I do what for you?”