by J. D. Robb
Eve jerked her arm free. She'd seen the camera behind Nadine and the remote mike pinned to her lapel. Everyone had their jobs. She knew it, understood it.
"I don't have anything to add to what you see here, Nadine. This isn't the time or the place for statements." She looked down again at the small shoe, the silver buckle. "The dead make their own."
Nadine held up a hand to signal her camera operator back. Lifting a hand, she closed it over her mike and spoke softly. "You're right, and so am I. And just now, it doesn't matter a damn. If there's anything I can do—any sources I can tap for you, just let me know. This time, it's for free."
Nodding, Eve turned away. She saw the MTs scurrying, a team of them working frantically on the bloody mess that must have been one of the doormen. Most of him had been blown clear, a good fifteen feet from the entrance.
She wondered if they'd ever find his arm.
She stepped away and through the blackened hole into what was left of the lobby.
The fire sprinklers had gone off so that streams and puddles of wet ran through the waste. Her feet squelched as she pushed through. The stench was bad, very bad. Blood and smoke and ripe gore. She forced herself not to think about what littered the floor, ordered herself to ignore the two emergency workers who were weeping silently as they marked the dead, and looked for Anne.
"We'll need extra shifts at the morgue and the labs, to deal with IDs." Her voice was rusty, so she cleared it. "Can you clear that with Central, Feeney?"
"Yeah, goddamn it. I brought my daughter here on her sixteenth birthday. Fucking pigs." He yanked out his communicator and turned away.
Eve kept going. The closer she came to point of impact, the worse it got. She'd been there once before, with Roarke. She remembered the opulence, the elegance. Cool colors, beautiful people, wide-eyed tourists, excited young girls, groups of shoppers crowding at tables to experience the old tradition of tea at The Plaza.
She fought her way through rubble then stared, cold-eyed, at the blackened crater.
"They never had a chance." Anne stepped up beside her. Her eyes were wet and hot. "Not a fucking chance, Dallas. An hour ago there were people in here, sitting at pretty tables, listening to a violinist, drinking tea or wine and eating frosted cakes."
"Do you know what they used?"
"There were children." Anne's voice rose, broke. "Babies in strollers. It just didn't mean a damn. Not one damn to them."
Eve could see it, and much too well. She already knew it would come back to her in dreams. But she turned, faced Anne. "We can't help them. We can't go back and stop it. It's done. All we can do is move forward and try to stop the next. I need your report."
"You want business as usual?" In a move Eve didn't bother to block, Anne snagged her by the shirt front. "You can stand here and look at this and want business as fucking usual?"
"They do," Eve said quietly. "That's all this is to them. If we're going to stop them, we have to do the same."
"You want a goddamn droid. You can go to hell."
"Lieutenant Malloy." Peabody stepped forward, laid a hand on her arm.
Eve had forgotten Peabody was there, and now shook her head. "Stand back, Officer. I'll settle for a droid if you can't give me your report, Lieutenant Malloy."
"You'll get a report when I've got something to give you," Anne snapped. "And right now I don't need you in my face." She shoved Eve aside and pushed her way through the ruins.
"She was off, Dallas, way off."
"Doesn't matter." But it stung, Eve realized, more than a little. "She'll pull herself back together. I want you to edit that from the record. It isn't pertinent. We'll need masks and goggles from the field kit. We won't be able to work in here otherwise."
"What are we going to do in here?"
"The only thing we can at this point." Eve rubbed her stinging eyes. "Help the emergency team collect the dead."
It was miserable and gruesome work—the kind that would live inside you always unless you turned off everything you were.
It wasn't people she was dealing with, she told herself, but pieces, evidence. Whenever her shield began to slip, whenever the horror of it crept through, she yanked it up again, blanked her mind, and went on with the job.
It was dark when she stepped outside with Peabody. "You all right?" Eve asked.
"I'll get there. Jesus, Dallas, sweet Jesus."
"Go home, take a soother, get drunk, call Charles and have sex. Use whatever works, but blank it out."
"Maybe I'll go for all three." She tried for a halfhearted smile, then spotted McNab coming their way and stiffened like a flagpole.
"I need a drink." He looked directly, deliberately at Eve. "I need a whole bunch of drinks. Do you want us back at Central?"
"No. We've had enough for one day. Report at eight hundred hours."
"You got it." Then, following the lecture he'd given himself off and on throughout the day, he made himself look at Peabody. "You want a lift home?
"I—well…" Flustered, she shifted from foot to foot. "No, um. No."
"Take the lift, Peabody. You're a mess. No point in fighting public transpo at this hour."
"I don't want…" Before Eve's baffled eyes she blushed like a schoolgirl. "I think it would be better…" She coughed, cleared her throat. "I appreciate the offer, McNab, but I'm fine."
"You look tired, that's all." And Eve watched in amazement as his color rose as well. "It was rough in there."
"I'm okay." She lowered her head, stared at her shoes. "I'm fine."
"If you're sure. Well, ah, eight hundred hours. Later."
With his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, he headed off.
"What's the deal here, Peabody?"
"Nothing. No deal." Her head came up sharply, and despising herself, she watched McNab walk away. "Not a deal. Not a thing. Nothing going on."
Stop it, she ordered herself as babbling continued to stream out of her mouth. "Zip. Zero happening here. Oh look." With outrageous relief for the distraction, she saw Roarke step out of a limo. "Looks like you've got a lift. A class one."
Eve looked across the avenue, studied Roarke in the blinking red and blue emergency lights. "Take my vehicle and go home, Peabody. I'll get transpo to Central in the morning."
"Yes, sir," she said, but Eve was already crossing the street.
"You've had a lousy day, Lieutenant." He lifted a hand, started to stroke her cheek, but she stepped back.
"No, don't touch me. I'm filthy." She saw the look in his eyes, knew he'd ignore her, and yanked the door open herself. "Not yet. Okay? God, not yet."
She climbed in, waited for him to settle beside her, order the driver to take them home, then lift the privacy screen.
"Now?" he said quietly.
Saying nothing, she turned to him, turned into him. And wept.
• • •
It helped, the tears and the man who understood her enough to offer nothing more until they were shed. When they were home, she took a hot shower, and the wine he poured her and was grateful he said nothing.
They ate in the bedroom. She'd been certain she wouldn't be able to swallow. But the first spoonful of hot soup hit her raw stomach like a blessing.
"Thanks." She sighed a little, leaned her head back against the cushions in the seating area. "For giving me an hour. I needed it."
She needed more than an hour, Roarke thought, studying the pale face, the bruised eyes. But they'd take it a step at a time. "I was there earlier." He waited while her eyes opened. "I would have done what I could to help you, but civilians weren't permitted."
"No." She closed her eyes again. "They're not."
But he had seen, briefly at least, he had seen the carnage, the horrors, and her. He had seen her deal with it, her hands steady, her eyes dark with the pity she thought she hid from everyone.
"I don't envy you your job, Lieutenant."
She nearly smiled at that. "You can't prove that to me when you're always popping u
p into it." With her eyes still closed, she reached out for his hand. "The hotel was one of yours, wasn't it? I didn't have time to check."
"Yes, it was one of mine. And so are the people who died in it."
"No." Her eyes flashed open. "They're not."
"Only yours, Eve? Are the dead your exclusive property?" He rose, restless, poured a brandy he didn't want. "Not this time. The doorman who lost his arm, who may yet lose his life, is a friend of mine. I've known him a decade, brought him over from London because he had a yen to live in New York."
"I'm sorry."
"The wait staff, the musicians, the desk and bell staff, every one of them died working for me." He turned back, and a fierce and cold fury rode in his eyes. "Every guest, every tourist who wandered through, every single person was under my roof. By Christ, that makes them mine."
"You can't take it personally. No, you can't," she repeated when his eyes flashed. She got up, gripped his arm. "Roarke, it's not you or yours they're interested in. It's their point, it's the power."
"Why should it matter to me what they're interested in beyond using that to find them?"
"It's my job to find them. And I will."
He set his brandy down, caught her chin in his hand. "Do you think you'll close me out?"
She wanted to be furious, and part of her was, if for nothing more than the proprietary way he held her face. But there was too much at stake, too much to lose. And he was much too valuable a source. "No."
His grip gentled, his thumb skimmed over the shallow dent in her chin. "Progress," he murmured.
"Let's understand each other," she began.
"Oh, by all means."
Now she did suck in a breath. "Don't start that with me. By all means, my butt. Makes you sound like some sort of snotty blue blood, and we both know you grew up scrambling for marks in Dublin alleys."
Now he grinned. "See, we already understand each other. You don't mind if I get comfortable before the lecture, do you?" He sat again, took out a cigarette, lighted it, then picked up his brandy while she smoldered.
"Are you trying to irritate me?"
"Not very hard, but it rarely takes true effort." He drew in smoke, blew out a fragrant stream. "I don't really need the lecture, you know. I'm sure I have the salient points memorized. Such as this is your job, I'm not to interfere. I'm not to explore any angles on my own, and so on."
"If you know the points, why the hell don't you follow them?"
"Because I don't want to—and if I did, you wouldn't have Fixer's data decoded." He grinned again when she gaped at him. "I had it late this morning and slipped the code into McNab's unit. He was close, but I was faster. No need to mention that," Roarke added. "I'd hate to dent his ego."
She frowned at him. "Now I suppose you think I should thank you."
"Actually, I was hoping you would." He crushed out his cigarette, set aside his barely touched brandy. But when he reached for her hand, she folded her arms over her chest.
"Forget it, pal. I've got work."
"And you'll reluctantly ask me to assist you with it." He hooked his fingers in her waistband and tugged until she tumbled on top of him. "But first…" He rubbed his mouth persuasively against hers. "I need you."
Her protest would have been lukewarm in any case. But those words melted it away. She skimmed her fingers through his hair. "I guess I can spare a couple of minutes."
He laughed, and tucking her close, reversed position. "In a hurry, are you? Well then."
Now his mouth crushed down on hers, hot, greedy, and with enough bite to shoot her pulse from steady to screaming. She hadn't expected it, but then she never quite did expect what he could do to her with a touch, with a taste, with as little as a look.
All the horror, the pain, the misery she'd waded through that day fell away in the sheer drive to mate.
"I am. In a big hurry." She tugged at the hook of his trousers. "Roarke. Inside me. Come inside me."
He yanked down the soft slacks she'd slipped into after her shower. Mouth still devouring mouth, he lifted her hips. And he plunged into her.
Into the heat and the welcome and the wet. His body shuddered once as he swallowed her groan. Then she was moving under him, driving him, setting a frantic pace that ripped her to peak and over before he could catch his breath.
She closed around him, vise tight, erupted around him, nearly dragged him off that fine edge with her. Gasping for air, he lifted his head, watched her face. God, how he loved to watch her face when she lost herself. Those dark blind eyes against flushed skin, that mouth full and soft and parted. Her head tipped back, and there was that long smooth throat, its pulse wildly beating.
He tasted her there. Flesh. Soap. Eve.
And felt her building again, fast and sure, her hips pistoning as she climbed, her breath ragged as the wave swept in.
And this time, when it crested, he buried himself deep and let it swamp them both.
He collapsed on her, let out a long, contented sigh as his system shimmered. "Let's get to work."
*** CHAPTER TWELVE ***
"We're not doing this in here because I want to get around CompuGuard." Eve took her stand in the center of Roarke's private office while he settled down at the control console of his unregistered—and illegal—equipment.
"Mmmm," was his response.
She narrowed her eyes to slits. "It's not the issue here."
"That's your story, and I'll stick with it."
She gave him a scalpel-thin smile. "Stick your smart-ass comments, pal. The reason I'm going this route is because I've got good reason to believe Cassandra's got just as many illegal toys as you do, and likely just as much disregard for privacy. It's possible they can slide into my equipment here or at Central. I don't want to chance them getting a line on any part of the investigation."
Roarke leaned back, nodded soberly. "And it's a very good story, too, well told. Now, if you've finished soothing your admirable conscience, why don't you get us some coffee?"
"I really hate when you snicker at me."
"Even when I have cause?"
"Especially." She strode to the AutoChef. "What I'm dealing with here is a group that has no kind of conscience, that has what appears to be heavy financial resources, expert technical skills, and a knack for getting by tight security."
She brought both mugs to the console, smiled again. "Reminds me of someone."
"Does it really?" He said it mildly as he took the coffee she offered.
"Which is why I'm willing to use everything you've got on this one. Money, resources, skills, and that criminal brain of yours."
"Darling, they are now and always at your service. And following that line, I've made some progress on Mount Olympus and its subsidiaries."
"You got something?" She went on full alert. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
"There were other matters. You needed an hour," he reminded her. "I needed you."
"This is priority," she began, then stopped herself with a shake of her head. Complaining was a waste of time. "What have you got?"
"You could say, nothing."
"But you just told me you'd found them."
"No, I said I'd made progress, and that progress is nothing. They're nothing. They don't exist."
"Of course they exist." Frustration shimmered around her. She hated riddles. "They appeared all over the computer—electronics companies, storage companies, office complexes, manufacturers."
"They exist only on the computer records," he told her. "You might call Mount Olympus a virtual company. But IRL—in real life—it's nothing. There are no buildings, no complexes, no employees, no clients. It's a front, Eve."
"A virtual front? What the hell is the point of that?" Then she knew, and swore. "A distraction, a time waster. Energy defuser, whatever. They knew I'd do a search and scan on Cassandra, that it would lead me to this Mount Olympus, and then to the other fake companies. So I waste time chasing down what was never there in the first place."
"They think I'm still looking." She nodded slowly. "So I continue to search through EDD, tell Feeney to take it slow so Cassandra thinks we're still running into walls."
"Building their confidence while you concentrate in other areas."
She grunted and, sipping her coffee, paced. "Okay, I'll handle that. Now, I need to know all I can about the Apollo group. I gave Peabody the assignment, but she'll have to go through channels and won't find enough data, not fast, anyway. I don't just want their party line," she added, turning back to him. "I want what's under it. I've got to get a handle on them and hope that gives me one on Cassandra."
"Then that's where we'll start."
"I need names, Roarke, of known members, living or dead. I need to know where they are, what happened to them. Then I need names and locations of family members, lovers, spouses, siblings, children, grandchildren."
She paused, her eyes going cop flat. "In Fixer's little journal, he mentioned revenge. I want survivors and loved ones. And I want those closest to James Rowan."
"The FBI will have files, sealed, but they'll have them." He lifted a brow, amused by the obvious struggle on her face. "It'll take some time."
"We're a little pressed in that area. Can you zing whatever you pull up into one of the auxiliary units? I can start a comparison run on ID, see if I can tag anyone connected who worked or works in the three target buildings."
He nodded toward a machine on the left of his console. "Help yourself. I'd focus on lower-level positions," he suggested. "Security checks are likely to be spottier there."
She settled down, spending the next twenty minutes reviewing everything she could find on the Pentagon bombing. At the control center, Roarke went coolly about the business of bypassing FBI security and delving into sealed files.
He knew the route—had taken it before—and slid through the locked levels like a shadow through the dark. Occasionally, for his own amusement, he checked in to see just what the Bureau had in their file marked Roarke.