by J. D. Robb
“It’s a decent enough neighborhood.”
“There was an illegals deal going down on the corner.”
“I said decent enough.” He smiled at her. “You didn’t bother to ruin the dealer’s night.”
“Busting up a Zoner push isn’t my top priority.” She knocked briskly, and was about to knock again when she saw the shadow pass over the Judas hole. “NYPSD.” She held up her badge.
Locks clicked and clunked before the door opened.
Shelby Carstein looked like a woman who’d just rolled out of a very active bed. The robe she was still tying hit mid-thigh, and her bare feet sported toes painted pumpkin orange. Her hair, nearly the same color, tumbled around a face lax from sex.
She tugged the robe a little closer, but didn’t cover the stubble burn down the right side of her throat.
“Is there a problem, Officer?” Her voice came out husky and thick as she looked from Eve to Roarke with a mix of annoyance and curiosity in sleepy green eyes.
“Ms. Carstein?”
“Yes. What’s this about?”
“I’m Lieutenant Dallas, and this is my consultant. We’d like to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“The incident this evening at On the Rocks.”
“The—oh for—look, so we had a fight. It’s not like we threw things or broke up the place. And I didn’t punch that stupid slut, even though I wanted to. I just told her to back off before I slugged her. And so I used harsh language, but I never laid a hand on her.”
“What stupid slut was that, Ms. Carstein?”
“I don’t know, just some big tits. Rocky said she was just drunk and silly, but she came on to him. Right in front of my face.” Shelby pointed two fingers at her face, in case Eve missed its location. “I don’t have to take crap like that from some drunk big tits.”
“Ms. Carstein, if we could come in.”
“Oh for God’s sake.” She backed up, temper burning the sex haze off her face. “Rocky! Rocky, you get out here. I’ve got cops at my door because of that blond bimbo from the bar.”
“Come on!” Exasperation colored the voice from a room off the smartly decorated living area. And articles of clothing—men’s pants, shirt, a woman’s skirt, jumbled shoes, littered their way toward that room.
Eve decided she didn’t have to be a cop to detect the scenario.
A man, dark hair standing in spikes, a love bite on his bare shoulder, shuffled out, still adjusting cotton lounge pants.
So Rocky had closet and drawer space, Eve further deduced. “What the hell, Shel?”
“Let’s make this simple,” Eve decided. “Your name?” she asked Rocky.
“Rockwell Detweiler.”
Seriously? she thought. Rockwell?
“You and Ms. Carstein were in On the Rocks this evening. You left the bar at seventeen-twenty-nine.”
“Seventeen-twenty-nine? Jesus!” Shelby threw up her hands. “What the fuck? Is this a military state now? I didn’t do anything.”
“She didn’t,” Rocky began.
“You thought it was funny.” She rounded on him, jabbed out a finger. “That bimbo poured herself all over him when Rocky went up to the bar. He thought it was funny. Even when she wiggled her way over to our table, put her fricking number on the table, he thought it was funny.”
“Men have juvenile senses of humor,” Eve offered.
“We do,” Roarke agreed. “It’s part of our charm.”
“Charm my ass,” Shelby muttered.
“I didn’t take it!” Rocky held out his hands in appeal. “I didn’t take her number.”
“You gave her that big, wiseass grin, didn’t you? In my face!” Two fingers again noted the location of said face. “Okay, so I told her where I’d put her number if she didn’t back the hell off, and maybe I knocked my drink over so it splashed on her shoes. But, Jesus, it’s not like I assaulted her. Or him.” Now she jerked a thumb at Rocky. “I walked out!”
“We walked out, okay, Shel? Okay, it was stupid.” He appealed to everyone in the room. “I did think it was funny—the girl was pretty drunk—and I confess—right, I confessed, Shel, it was a little flattering. But it was funny because you were there. I didn’t do anything either. I love you, right? Didn’t I tell you? When we went out and you told me I could suck it, and—well, and all the rest, didn’t I come after you, Shel? Didn’t I chase you for three freaking blocks to apologize. And to tell you I love you. I mean it hit me right there on Carmine Street. I love Shelby.”
“Oh, Rocky.” Temper died off into a gooey smile.
“Where did you go when you left the bar?” Eve asked.
“Here.” The gooey smile stayed in place. “We came back here.”
“I take it you’ve remained in. Haven’t watched any screen, used your ’links.”
“We’ve been kind of busy.” Rocky’s smile matched Shelby’s goo for goo. “Listen, if there’s a fine or something, I’ll pay it.”
“There’s no fine. I think you should sit down,” Eve told them. Because what she had to tell them would wipe that happy goo off their faces.
Nothing, she thought, putting her PPC and Peabody’s notification report away as they drove through the gates. Nothing from those left behind but grief and confusion. She studied the house as they approached. All those warm, welcoming lights, she thought, in all those big windows. Roarke’s fortress, a towering edifice of stone, style, and security.
Home. Too many people wouldn’t go home tonight.
“Too late for interviews,” she murmured, “after the Rocky and Shelby show.”
“It entertained. A bit of comic relief after a bloody horrible day.”
“Maybe—okay definitely—and it had to be done. But it ate up the clock. Not enough time for interviewing friends and coworkers tonight.”
“How much time do you think you have?”
She didn’t misunderstand him. “I can’t say, and that’s the bitch. I’m hoping we have a week, two is better. But if I were him—them—her—I’d hit within a couple days. Keep us running, get the city in full panic mode. Isn’t that the point? Panic, fear, violence, death. I wouldn’t wait very long. I have to think.”
She got out of the car, grateful for the jacket as the clear, hard sky had sucked up all the warmth of the day. Shorter days now, she mused.
Longer, darker nights.
“I have things to see to.” Roarke took her hand, and finding it chilled, rubbed his lips over it. “I’ll speak with Feeney once I’ve dealt with them.”
When they stepped inside, the scarecrow in black, Roarke’s man about everything and her domestic ass pain, waited in the wide foyer. At his feet, the fat cat sat. Then Galahad padded over, wound between her legs, then Roarke’s, then back again.
“I’ve heard the media reports,” Summerset began without preamble. Eve waited for the clever insult, and could only frown as he continued without one. “They aren’t detailed of course, as yet, but that many deaths in one place—contained in one place, and one you own,” he said to Roarke, “is disturbing.”
“We’re disturbed,” Eve responded and turned for the stairs.
Summerset kept his gaze on Roarke. “Were you the target?”
“No.”
“The lieutenant disagrees.”
Now she had Summerset’s eyes on her, and Roarke’s. And in Roarke’s she clearly read the warning. “I don’t disagree. I’d say very unlikely.”
“Don’t placate me. Either of you.”
“This wasn’t about me.” Roarke raked his fingers through his hair, a sure sign of agitation. “Eve says very unlikely only because she’s a cop, isn’t she? And she considers every possibility, however remote.”
“How did they die? I’ll know soon enough in any case,” Summerset reminded Eve. “The reports are starting to speculate about poison, or a chemical agent, a virus. Anonymous sources claim the bar looked like a battleground littered with corpses.”
“Shit” was all Eve
said.
“It was all of that.” Roarke rounded on Eve as she cursed again. “Don’t be stupid. He will know soon enough, just as he said. And he’s bloody well entitled to know.”
“I decide who’s bloody well entitled to know on my case.”
“And your bloody case happened in my place, and a number of my employees are in the fucking morgue tonight, so I’ve some say in it.”
“You—”
“By the level of foolish bickering, I assume you haven’t eaten,” Summerset interrupted, coldly calm. “Either of you. Go in the dining room and sit down at the table like normal humans.”
He strode off, and after a flicker of hesitation, Galahad trotted after him.
“I’m going upstairs.”
“The hell you are. You’ll be sitting your ass down in the dining room.” Roarke took her arm to steer her there.
She dug in her heels. “I have work. Goddamn it, he doesn’t run my life, and neither do you.”
“We’ll sit, and we’ll eat, because he asked it. When’s the last time he asked you for anything? Anything?”
She started to snap back with an answer, but realized she didn’t have one. “I don’t ask him for anything either.”
“But you’ve food to put in your belly when you remember to eat it, clean clothes, a house that runs smooth so neither of us have to give it a thought.”
“Why are you so pissed all of a sudden! Two seconds ago, you’re kissing my hand, now you’re in my face.”
“Because he’s been waiting since he heard the first report, and I never let him know where I was, or what was happening. I never gave it a thought as I was wrapped up in the business of it, and in you.”
And that neglect shamed him.
“He would’ve made inquiries, of course, and would know we’re both unharmed. But I should have spoken with him myself. So it’s myself I’m so all of a sudden pissed at, and you’re collateral damage. Now the both of us will do what he asked, and we’ll sit down to eat. And we’ll tell him what he can be told because, whether you like it or not, he’s family.”
“Okay. All right. But it better be quick.”
She walked into the dining room where the fire was simmering, and candles put out a soft, pretty glow. Already there was a board with bread that smelled like heaven, a dish of butter, a tray of cheeses. Wineglasses sparkled, wide soup bowls gleamed on silver chargers.
A moment later, Summerset stepped in with a tureen on a tray.
“I should have spoken with you much earlier,” Roarke began.
“I believe you had a great deal on your mind.”
“Regardless, it was insensitive, and stupid.”
Summerset merely lifted his eyebrows. “It was both.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“You’re forgiven.” After lifting the lid on the tureen, Summerset ladled out soup. “Eat your dinner.”
“This is yours. I’ll get another setting. Please.”
Whatever passed between them, Eve thought, had Summerset nodding. “As the only one in the house who’s eaten is the cat, I wouldn’t mind the soup.”
He sat; Roarke slipped out.
“I kept him pretty tied up,” Eve began.
“There’s no need to explain. He tends to keep me informed, in general terms. He didn’t, and as the reports were, as I said, disturbing, I had concerns. Eat your soup before it goes cold.”
Okay, it was odd, really odd, to sit there having dinner with Summerset. But the soup was good—warm and creamy and comforting.
When Roarke came back, set his place, filled his bowl, it wasn’t quite as odd.
“Do your shopping or whatever you do online for the next day or two,” Eve told Summerset. “Until I get a handle on this.” As she spoke, she reached for the bread. Roarke’s hand met hers, covered it, held briefly. And his eyes gave her simple gratitude.
“Was it terrorism?”
“I don’t think so—not traditional—but I can’t rule it out. A substance was released, by person or persons unknown, at the bar during the latter part of happy hour. Let’s call it a super-hallucinogenic, airborne. People inhaled it into their systems and within a couple minutes became delusional, violent. The incident lasted approximately twelve minutes. There were eighty-nine people in the bar, including staff. We have six survivors.”
“You’re saying they killed themselves.”
“Each other. The ME hasn’t called suicide on any victim, as yet.”
He said nothing for a moment as Roarke poured wine for all of them. “There were two incidents, similar, during the Urban Wars.”
Everything froze. “This happened before?” Eve demanded.
“I can’t say it’s the same. I wasn’t there, but I know someone who was at the first attack. He told me he was going to a café where some of the underground was known to meet, and where he hoped to have some personal time with a woman he had feelings for. He was young, no more than eighteen, I think. It was in London, South Kensington. Most of the main fighting was done there, at that time. He was a half block away when he heard the screaming, the crashing, the gunfire. He ran toward the sounds. Many were dead. The window of the café burst as he ran to it—by bullets, by bodies being heaved out. There were only perhaps twenty in the café at that time of day. All of them were dead or dying by the time he was able to get through.
“He assumed, as did others who’d come, it was an enemy attack, but all the dead and dying were known.”
“What caused it?”
He shook his head. “The military came in, closed it off, and closed it down. It happened again in Rome a few weeks later. Our ears were to the ground for a repeat. ‘In the wine’ was what we were told. Whoever hadn’t had any was killed by those who had, and were maddened by it.”
“What was in the wine?”
“We were never able to learn. It never happened again, not that we heard. And we heard everything sooner or later. The military, the politicians, sealed it, and not even our considerable intelligence units could break through. I thought at the time that might be for the best.”
Eve picked up her wine. “I bet you could find out now.”
5
As they started upstairs, Roarke took her hand again.
“That was good of you.”
“What was?”
“All of it. I know it cost you time.”
“Turns out he had useful information, so it didn’t cost me time.”
Roarke paused on the landing, just looked at her. She tried to shrug it off, then sighed.
“Listen, like it or not, he’s yours. I’m not going to kick at him when he’s twisted up worried about you. I’ll wait till he’s untwisted, then kick at him.”
That made him laugh and give the hand he still held a little swing. “Fair enough. You gave him a task. He’s the sort who does better when he has a task.”
On impulse, she headed for the bedroom rather than her office. Might as well get comfortable before diving in again.
“He’s still got his Urban Wars contacts. I want to see what he can dig up. I don’t know if what happened downtown is connected to two attacks, in Europe, decades ago, but it’ll be good to have the data. I’m no Urbans buff, but we had to study it in school. In the Academy we had lectures on tactics, riot control, chem and biological threats using the Urbans as a platform. I never heard of what Summerset talked about.”
“Nor have I, before this, and it sounds like the military shut the door on it. If any of it came here, or threatened to, Homeland would’ve had a part in that,” he added. “Closing it, covering it. It’s something they’re good at.”
“We’re not dealing with them yet.” She released her weapon harness, set it aside. “If and when we do, the more we know, the better.” Sitting, she pulled off her boots. “And if and when, if we find out they knew there was a formula, and what happened today was a possibility—and they just kept the lid on? I’m going to bury them.”
“You’ll need two shovels
as I’ll want one of my own.”
If it came to it, she’d make sure he had an active part in exposing who and what in the agency played a part. Odds were, she mused, she wouldn’t have to make sure of anything, and he’d see to it himself.
They’d have different reasons, and his would be payback. Then again, that was its own form of justice.
“I want a shower before I get to it.” She walked toward the bath, stopped. Gave him a look and crooked her finger.
He lifted his brows. “Oh, really?”
“Up to you, ace, but in about thirty seconds, I’m going to be hot and wet. You’re going to want to finish getting out of that suit.”
A round of water sports might be just the thing, he decided, to take both of them away from the ugliness of the day for a time.
Life needed to be lived.
As he suspected, steam billowed through the wide opening of the glass-walled shower. She had every jet pumping, and brutally hot at that. He wondered it didn’t blister her skin.
But there she stood, long and sleek and glistening in the mists and the water, her face lifted, her short cap of hair glossy as a seal’s coat.
He stepped in behind her, winced at the boiling punch of the waterfall. A small price to pay, he thought as he wrapped his arms around her, nuzzled his lips at the curve of her neck.
“Knew I could count on you.” She hooked her arm around his neck, leaned back into him. “Feels good.”
“You do.” To prove it, he slid his hands up her body, glided them over her breasts. “I won’t speak of the lobster boil of the water.”
“We’re burning out toxins.”
“Is that the way of it?”
“That’s my story.” She turned, slippery and quick, to lock herself to him, to fix her mouth to his, drowning them both in the fast-rising flood of need.
His mind emptied but for her, the hungry mouth, the urgent press of her body. Steam rose up, swirled around them as he took his hands over all those lovely, familiar places. Made her gasp and moan and reach.
He spun her around, pressed her to the wall and gave himself the pleasure of her back. The line of it, the tough cut of muscle under smooth skin.