The In Death Collection, Books 21-25

by J. D. Robb

  And how the hell was she supposed to do that? Because he was right, as usual. She’d poured too much coffee into her system. Her brain was running sloppy loops inside her head, from Copperfield to Byson to Tandy and back again.

  “Might have to go to London,” she murmured. “Huh. Wouldn’t it be a kick in the head if I really did have to be out of the country hunting a criminal mastermind when Mavis goes into labor?”

  “I, my ass. That goes to we or I’ll hurt you.”

  “Yeah, big talk.”

  Since her brain was up, and her body insisted on following suit, she didn’t see why she shouldn’t put both to good use.

  She trailed her fingers up his spine, then down while she angled her head and found his lips with hers in the dark.

  “Are you trying to take advantage of my weakened state?”

  “Damn right.”

  “Just checking.” His lips curved against hers. “Go ahead then. I can’t stop you.”

  “Guess you’ll have to lie there and take it.” She nipped at his jaw, slicked her tongue down his neck. “You could call for help.”

  “My pride prevents me.”

  Chuckling, she slid a hand down, found him already hard. “Yeah, you’re just full of pride.”

  He tasted so good, all warm and ripe, and as her body pressed to his, rubbed bare flesh to bare flesh, she felt his heartbeat kick. She shifted, stretched herself over him so she could press her lips where that heart beat for her.

  More than desire, she thought lazily. Here was knowledge and comfort, and a kind of communion. Turn to me, and I’ll be there. That was the simple answer they could always find together no matter what shadows hung over them. Through the past, through the present, they could always find the answer, and each other.

  She felt his hands on her now, stroking to soothe or to arouse, and succeeding in doing both. For another moment, she stayed as she was, eyes closed, absorbing the sheer and simple pleasure of knowing where she belonged. Then, in the deep dark, in the deep quiet, she slid up him again until their lips met.

  Movement and heat, he drifted into both as she did and rode on the warm current of sensation. The shape of her, the scents and the sounds, were so familiar, and so alluring. She, as no other ever could, reached every corner of his heart. His woman with her long, lean body, her courageous spirit and questing mind. His joy, and his salvation.

  Here it was so clear, so easy, with only the two of them in a dance either could lead, both could follow.

  And the need for her sang through him like a favorite melody.

  She straddled him, laying her hands over his as he took her breast in his mouth. Letting her head fall back as she immersed herself in the next thrill, letting her mind empty of everything but what they gave to each other.

  She took him in, slow, slow.

  He quivered for her, he murmured to her, and at last he filled her. Her body bowed back, a slim white curve in the shadows. Then forward to rock them both breathless in the dark.

  They wrapped around each other, sliding languidly down from that peak, her leg tossed intimately over his hip. She rested her brow lightly against his jaw until sanity returned.

  “Better than cake,” she said, and made him laugh.

  “So it was. And it was damned good cake.”

  “Mmmm. What time is it anyway?”

  “Ah…somewhere after three.”

  She did the calculation in her head. “Good enough.” She tipped her head up, pressed her lips firmly to his. Then rolled away and sat up.

  “And what are you about, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m about waking up some people in Europe. Light on, five percent. Going to grab a shower first,” she said when the lights glowed dimly. “Wash the rest of the cobwebs out.”

  He folded his arm behind his head. “So I served as a way to use up a bit of time till you determined it was reasonable to wake some poor sod up on a Sunday morning.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I feel so used. Thanks.”

  “Welcome.” She felt clearheaded now, a good second wind. “I’m just going to get some things rolling, then I’ll catch a couple hours down.”

  “Too right you will.” Then he sat up. “A bit longer then.”

  “You don’t have to stay up.”

  “You weren’t singing that tune a few minutes ago.” When she grinned, he walked by her, giving her a quick pat on the ass. “Let’s have that shower, and maybe both of us will be back in bed before dawn.”

  Eve tried Candide Marrow first, and was bumped to voice mail. She left a message, then moved down the list to the stepsister.

  A hoarse, muffled voice said, “Bugger off.”

  “Briar Rose Marrow?”

  “Do you know what bloody time it is?”

  “Where you are or where I am? This is Lieutenant Eve Dallas, from the New York City Police and Security Department. Are you Briar Rose Marrow?”

  The lump in the bed had a mad thatch of black hair streaked with gold, and muttered, “What the fuck is it to you?”

  Since Eve figured she might’ve had the same attitude under the circumstances, she held onto her patience. “Are you Briar Rose Marrow, and do you have a stepsister by the name of Tandy Willowby?”

  “So fucking what?”

  “When did you last have contact with your stepsister, Ms. Marrow?”

  “Well, Christ.” The lump moved, shoved at the mad thatch and revealed a pale face with sleepy and improbable purple eyes heavily lined with black, and full lips where the lip dye had faded to splotches of crimson. “How the bleeding hell should I know when it’s eight bleeding o’clock in the bloody morning? Who the hell are you again?”

  “Lieutenant Dallas, in New York.”

  “Cops? What do the cops want with Tandy? New York? I haven’t had my sodding coffee.” Briar Rose scrubbed at her face with her hand, then pressed it over the sheet in the vicinity of her belly. “Oh, fuck me, how many orgasms did I have last night?”

  “That would be your personal business.”

  The woman snorted. “The drinks, more’s the pity. Why are you waking me up on a Sunday morning about Tandy?”

  “Are you aware she’s been living in New York for the past several months?”

  “New York? Well, fuck me. You serious? Handy Tandy in New sodding York.”

  “I take it you haven’t spoken to her recently.”

  “Not since…” She scratched her fingers in her hair, and crawled across the bed to a little table where she shoved around at debris and came up with some sort of cigarette. “I’m trying to think. June maybe. Why? You’re not going to tell me she’s done something illegal. Not our girl.”

  “She’s missing.”

  “Missing what?” She fumbled with a lighter, then lowered it before it sparked. “Missing? What do you mean, missing?”

  “She hasn’t been seen since Thursday.”

  “Maybe she had herself a massive piss-up.”

  “Which would be?”

  “You know, a bender? A drinking binge. Though that isn’t much like Tandy.”

  “I doubt it, particularly given her condition.”

  “Condition of what?”

  “Are you aware Tandy’s pregnant? Due to give birth in a matter of days?”

  “What? What the fuck? Up the duff? Tandy? Oh, bollocks to that.” But the sleepiness cleared out of her eyes. “Just a bloody minute.” She rolled out of bed, and to Eve’s mild relief was at least wearing underwear. She grabbed some sort of baggy red shirt out of a pile of clothes and dragged it over her head. “You’re telling me Tandy’s knocked up, and nobody knows where she is?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. You said you hadn’t spoken to her since June. Is that usual? That long a gap?”

  Briar Rose walked back to sit on the side of the bed. This time she lit the cigarette. “Listen, we were steps less than a couple of years, really. Her widower father married my stone bitch of a mother when I was about fourteen. He
was all right, too, nice sort. Then he ups and gets killed in a pile-up on the M4.”

  She paused a moment, let out a long breath and a cloud of smoke. “Tandy was finishing up at University, and already had a job. My mother dragged me off to Sussex for Christ’s sake. Tandy made some tries at keeping up a kind of relationship, but the stone bitch wasn’t interested. I moved back to London first chance, but I was in a phase, you know? Mostly interested in piss-ups and getting laid. I didn’t want the big sister deal, especially with one who was bog standard while I was busy shagging wankers and gits. Cocking up right and left. I’d see her now and again, if she cornered me.”

  She drew deep on the cigarette. “Even when I got myself a decent job and eased back some, we just didn’t have much in common. I saw her last spring, it was. She rang me up, said she needed to talk to me.”

  “And you talked about?”

  “We didn’t, not really. I knew she was wound up about something, and thought she’d probably got herself engaged, or got a bloody promotion, again. I acted a pillock because the bloke I’d been seeing turned into a berk and dumped me for some bit of fluff. And bollocks to him. I just met her for coffee and had a right go at her and buggered off. Bloody hell.”

  It was a challenge, but Eve thought she’d picked her way through the foreign slang and idioms to the meat of it. “No contact after?”

  “Well, I felt a right arse, didn’t I? A couple weeks later, I did penance and went by her flat, but she’d moved. All they said was she’d moved, maybe to Paris. It pissed me off that she didn’t let me know where she’d gone but there was bugger all I could do about it. She’s having a baby?”

  “That’s right. Do you know Aaron?”

  “Met him a couple of times. They were all but shacked up. Is he there in New York with her?”

  “Not to my knowledge. Do you have his full name, a contact number or address?”

  “Aaron Applebee, in Chelsea, I think. He’s a writer for The Times. You telling me that git got her up the duff, then turned her out?”

  “I’ll have to speak to him about that. Was she seeing anyone else?”

  “Tandy? Not our girl. One at a time for her, and they’d been tight for months and months. Bastard. Maybe she’s come back home, come back to confront him. I’ll ring up a few people. A girl wants to be home, doesn’t she, when she’s about to be a mum.”

  “I appreciate the information. If you think of anything else, or find out anything about her whereabouts, contact me.”

  Eve did a search for Aaron Applebee and got his number and address.

  When she hit his voice mail, she did a standard run on him instead.

  Applebee, Aaron, the computer recited, DOB June 5, 2030, Devonshire, England.

  It listed his parents, and a complicated series of half-sibs through each side. He was employed, as Briar Rose had said, as a staff writer for the London Times, and had been employed there for eight years. No marriage on record, no criminal. Several pings for traffic violations. He’d resided at the same address, in Chelsea, for five years.

  His ID photo showed an attractive blond man with a long jaw. A height of five feet ten inches, a weight of one-sixty.

  On the surface, he looked steady, ordinary. A regular bloke, she mused.

  “Want to talk to you, Aaron.”

  She tried his home ’link again, bounced to voice mail and clicked off. After looking up the name of the investigator on the like crime in Rome, she began to wind her way through the maze of the Italian cops until she found one in his unit who not only spoke perfect English but agreed to contact Inspector Triveti, and ask him to get in touch.

  She updated her notes, then rose to add the printout of Aaron Applebee’s ID photo. When she turned toward the kitchen, Roarke stepped out of his office.

  “No more coffee,” he said, definitively.

  “Just one more hit. I’m waiting for a callback from Rome.”

  “Then order a cappuccino—decaf—and make it two.”

  She very nearly pouted. “Decaf’s got no punch.”

  “The depth of the shadows under your eyes makes it look like you’ve already been punched. What’s in Rome?”

  “A like crime, and a cop who I hope speaks English.” Since Roarke followed her into the kitchen, she couldn’t sneak real coffee. “I talked to Tandy’s stepsister.”

  She relayed the gist of the conversation as the AutoChef served up two frothy coffees. “How are you on Brit slang?”

  “Reasonably fluent.”

  “I could’ve used you as an interpreter. What’s ‘bog standard’?”

  “Boring, basically.”

  “I wasn’t far off. She had this Aaron’s full name—it’s Applebee. He works for the London Times, lives in Chelsea. Both parents married or cohabbed multiple times, but not currently with each other. Got a brood of half- and stepsibs.”

  “Which might put a man off the idea of marriage or family.”

  “Might. Reporters have a lot of sources. If he’d wanted to find Tandy, it seems he could and would have. Maybe he decided he wanted the kid, and they’re just off playing kissy-face. Or maybe he found out she was having it when he thought she wasn’t, and he came over pissed. Or he’s just at home, sleeping off a Saturday Night Special and not answering his ’link.”

  “Or, it’s still possible she just walked away. She’d done it before, leaving London.”

  “Yeah, there’s that.” And the probability run she’d done on that angle had given her a near fifty-fifty. “But I’m betting when she left London, she packed her things, all nice and neat. She gave her landlord and her employer notice. I already know she did none of those things here. No, she didn’t work all day, leave the shop, and decide somewhere between Madison and Fifth to just keep walking.”

  “No.” Roarke laid a hand on Eve’s shoulder and rubbed. “She didn’t.”

  “So.” She struggled with a yawn. “You getting anywhere with the numbers?”

  “A couple of interesting things. I want to come at them from another angle, then I’ll put it together for you.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Look, why don’t you pack it in for now, go on to bed? I’ll just wait for the Italian, then head in, too.”

  “Not a chance. If I leave you on your own, I’ll come back in a few hours and find you facedown at your desk, snoring.”

  “I don’t snore.”

  “Wake the dead.”

  “I do not.” Did she?

  He only smiled, then wandered off to study the Willowby side of the board. “You’ve gathered quite a bit in a short amount of time.”

  “Nothing that points to where she is and why. In the Italian case, they never found the woman, or the kid.”

  “They didn’t have you.” Nor had his mother, he thought. She’d had no one, and there was nothing that could change it. He turned to Eve. “Look at you. You’re running on empty, and pushing at two fronts.”

  “It may already be too late for her.” She nodded at Tandy’s photo. “Pushing’s all I can do.”

  When her ’link signaled, she spun around to answer. “Dallas.”

  “Triveti. I am returning to you.”

  His accent was thick and exotic, his face lean and handsome. “Thank you for getting back to me so quickly, Inspector.”

  “I am pleased. My English, scuzi, it is small.”

  “My Italian’s smaller.” She glanced toward Roarke. “I have someone with me who can help if we get in a bind. You investigated a Missing Persons case a couple years ago. A pregnant woman.”

  “Sophia Belego. You have the same.”

  “Tandy Willowby,” she told him, and gave him the bones of the case, with Roarke refining some of the details in Italian when the Inspector expressed confusion.

  “Like yours, my Sophia, she had no close family, no ties to the city where she disappeared in. She left her—momento—her, ah banking account. It had not been used, or her credit cards, since the time of her disappearing. Her clothes, her posses
sions remained in her apartment. In this place, her neighbor speaks to her that morning when she is leaving. The statement says that Sophia was—what is lieto?”

  “Happy,” Roarke translated.

  “Si, she is happy and full of excite. She is going to see her dottore.”

  “Doctor,” Roarke translated.

  “And she will shop for the baby. She sees the dottore, and is well. Healthy. Her spirits are good, and she makes the appuntamento?”

  “Appointment.”

  “Appointment,” Triveti repeated, “in one week. She is very great with child, you see?”

  “Yes,” Eve told him.

  “But she does not shop for the baby, not in Rome. I am talking to everyone in these places. Some, they know her from other times, but not from that day. She is not seen after she leaves the dottore. There is none of her at transportation—bus, train, shuttle. There is no use of her passport, and I find it in her apartment. There are no messages, no communications that take me to leads.”

  “Nothing in the hospitals, the birthing centers, the morgues?”

  “Nothing. I look for the father of the child, but no one knows. Not in Rome, not in Florence. In all our efforts, she is not found.”

  Using Roarke, Eve took Triveti through the steps again, squeezed out a few more details. She requested a copy of his file, and agreed to reciprocate with hers.

  After, she sat frowning at the notes she’d taken. “I need to write all this up.”

  “Sleep first.”

  “I told the LT in MPU that I’d copy her all reports and notes. I need to—”

  “You think she’s sitting by her comp waiting for your report at…” he glanced at his wrist unit, “…four forty-eight on bloody Sunday morning.”

  “No, but—”

  “Don’t make me haul your ass up and drag you to bed. I’m tired, and I might rap your head against the wall on the way. I’d hate to damage the paint.”

  “Ha-ha. Okay, okay. Just let me try Applebee one more time. Listen, listen, if she’s gone off to see him, I can go to bed with a clear head.”

  “You know damn well she hasn’t. One more, and that’s the end of it.”

  “You get bitchy when you’re tired.”

  “I get bitchier yet when I watch you run yourself into the ground.”