The In Death Collection, Books 21-25

by J. D. Robb

  “You know this isn’t your fault.”

  “Fault?” He could be faulted for a great deal, he knew and accepted that. But not for this. “No. But somewhere in it, I may very well be the reason these particular women die at this particular time.”

  “Reason has nothing to do with it. You’re no good to me if you screw yourself up with misplaced guilt. You do that, you’re out.”

  “You can’t push me out,” he countered, with considerable heat. “With or without your bleeding task force, your sodding procedure, I’m bloody well in this.”

  “Fine. Waste time pissing on me then.” She grabbed her coat. “That’s helpful.”

  She started to shove by him, but he grabbed her arm, swung her around. For an instant the rage was carved into his face. Then he yanked her against him, banded his arms around her.

  “I have to piss on someone. You’re handy.”

  “Maybe.” She let herself relax against him. “Okay, maybe. But you have to think in a clear line with this. I need your brain, as well as your resources. It’s another advantage we didn’t have nine years ago.”

  “Knowing you’re right doesn’t make it easier to swallow. I’ve got to get out of this place,” he said as he eased back. “That’s God’s shining truth. I can only breathe in cop for so long without choking.”

  “Hey.”

  He tapped his finger on her chin. “Excepting one.”

  She hauled up the file bag she wanted to take with her. “Let’s go.”

  She drove primarily because she knew the battle uptown would keep her awake. A hot shower, she thought, something quick and solid in her stomach, and she’d be good to go for a few more hours.

  “Summerset would be useful,” Roarke considered.

  “As what, a hockey stick?”

  “The employee files, Eve. He can run those, generate a list of women who fit this pattern who work for me. It would free my time up for other things.”

  “All right, as long as he understands he answers to me. And that I get to debase him and ream him out as is often necessary with those under my command. And adds some entertainment to my day.”

  “Because you’re so good at it.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a knack.” She scanned the army of vehicles heading north, the throngs of pedestrians hustling along on the sidewalk, the glides, or bullying their way on the crosswalks. “Nobody notices things—other people. Sure, if somebody jumps out of a building and lands on their head, it gives them a moment’s pause, but they don’t click to a woman being forced into a car or a van or Christ knows unless she puts up one hell of a stink about it. Mostly, they just keep their heads down and keep going.”

  “Cynicism is another of your finely tuned skills. It’s not always so, not with everyone.”

  She shrugged. “No, not always. He’s slick about it, or has some cover, something people don’t register. If she kicked up enough fuss, yeah, somebody would notice. They might not do anything about it, but they’d notice. So no overt struggle on the street. One of the working theories is he drugs them somehow rather than overpowers them.

  “Quick jab,” she added. “Wraps an arm around her. ‘Hey, Sari, how you doing?’ Just a guy walking along with some zoned-out woman, helping her into his ride. Ride would need to be close to wherever he picks her up. Going to hit lots and garages tomorrow.”

  When she drove through the gates of home, she couldn’t remember ever being more grateful to see the jut and spread of the gorgeous house, to see the lights in the windows.

  “Going to grab a shower, grab something to eat in my office.”

  “You’re going to grab some sleep,” he corrected. “You’re burnt, Eve.”

  No question she was, but it annoyed her to have it pointed out. “I got some left.”

  “Bollocks. You haven’t slept in more than thirty-six hours. Neither have I, come to that. We both need some sleep.”

  “I’ll take a couple hours after I set up a board here, review some notes.”

  Rather than argue—he was too bloody tired to bother—he said nothing. He’d just dump her into bed bodily, and he imagined once she was horizontal for thirty seconds, she’d be unconscious.

  She parked in front of the house, grabbed her file bag.

  She knew Summerset would be in the foyer, and he didn’t disappoint. “Fill your personal cadaver in,” Eve said before Summerset could speak. “I’m hitting the showers before I get started on this.”

  She headed straight up, neglecting to take off her coat and sling it over the newel as was her habit. And which, she knew, irritated Summerset’s bony ass. Once she was out of sight, she rubbed at her gritty eyes, and allowed the yawn that had been barely suppressed to escape.

  The shower was going to feel like a miracle.

  She dumped the bag in the bedroom, shrugged out of her coat. As she hit the release on her weapon harness, her gaze landed on the bed. Maybe five minutes down, she considered. Five off her feet, then she could shower without risking drowning herself.

  Tossing the harness aside, she climbed the platform where the bed spread like the silk clouds of heaven. She slid onto it, stretching out across it, facedown.

  And beat Roarke’s guess by being out in ten seconds flat.

  He came in five minutes later, saw her on the bed, with the cat slung across her ass. “Well, then,” Roarke addressed Galahad. “At least we won’t have to fight about it. But for Christ’s sake, couldn’t she have pulled off her boots? How can she sleep well like that?”

  He pulled them off himself—and she didn’t stir a bit—pulled off his own. Then he simply stretched out beside her, draped an arm around her waist.

  He dropped out nearly as quickly as she had.

  6

  IN THE DREAM THERE WAS A WHITE SHEET OVER the dark ground, and the ruined body that lay on it. Bitter with cold, dawn carved its first light, etching the eastern spires into sharpened silhouettes.

  She stood with her hands in the pockets of a black peacoat, a black watch cap pulled low on her forehead.

  The body lay between her and a big black clock with a big white face. The seconds ticked away on it, and every strike was like thunder that sent the air to quaking.

  And in the dream Feeney stood beside her. The harsh crime scene lights washed over them and what they studied. There was no silver in his hair to glint in those lights, and the lines in his face didn’t ride so deep.

  I trained you for this, so you could see what needs to be seen, and find what’s under it.

  She crouched down, opened her kit.

  She doesn’t look peaceful, Eve thought, as people so often said about the repose of the dead. They really never do.

  But death isn’t sleep. It’s something else again.

  The body opened its eyes.

  I’m Corrine Dagby. I was twenty-nine. I was born in Danville, Illinois, and came to New York to be an actress. So I waited tables because that’s what we do. I had a boyfriend, and he’ll cry when you tell him I’m dead. So will the others, my family, my friends. I bought new shoes the day before he took me. I’ll never wear them now. He hurt me, he just kept hurting me until I was dead.

  Didn’t you hear me screaming?

  She stood in the morgue, and Morris’s bloody hand held a scalpel. His hair was shorter, worn in a neat and tidy queue at the nape of his neck. Over the body, he looked at Eve.

  She used to be healthy, and had a pretty face until he ruined her. She sang in the shower and danced in the street. We all do until we come here. And in the end, we all come here.

  In the corner, the big clock ticked the time so every second echoed.

  They won’t come if it stops, she thought. Not if I stop it. They’ll sing in the shower and dance in the street, they’ll eat cupcakes and ride the train if I stop it.

  But you haven’t. Corrine opened her eyes again. Do you see?

  The faces and bodies changed, one melding into the next while the clock hammered the time. Hammered until her head
pounded with it, until she pressed her hands to her ears to block it out.

  Faster, faster, the faces flashed and merged while the seconds raced. So many voices, all the voices calling, coalescing into one, and the one cried out.

  Can’t you hear us screaming?

  She woke with a gasp, with that awful cry echoing in her head. The light was dim, warm with the fire simmering low in the hearth. The cat butted against her shoulder as if telling her, “Wake up, for God’s sake.”

  “Yeah, I’m up. I’m awake. Jesus.” She rolled over, stared up at the ceiling as she got her breath back. With one hand she scratched Galahad between the ears, and checked the time on her wrist unit. “Oh, crap.”

  She’d been out nearly three hours. Shoving off sleep, Eve pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and began to push off the bed. She heard it then, the sizzle and pulse of the shower.

  She laid a hand on the spread beside her, felt his warmth lingering there. So they’d both slept, she realized. Good for them.

  Stripping as she went, she headed for the shower.

  She wanted to wash away the fatigue, the grit, the ugliness of the past twenty-four hours. She wanted the beat of the water to push away the vague headache she’d woken with, and flood out the remnants of the dream.

  Then, when she stepped to the wide opening of the glass that enclosed the generous shower, she knew she wanted more.

  She wanted him.

  He was facing away from her, his hands braced on the glass, letting the water from the multiple jets beat over him. His hair was seal-sleek with wet, his skin gleaming with it. Long back, she mused, a taut, bitable ass, and all those tough, toned muscles.

  He hadn’t been up for long, she thought, and was likely as worn down as she.

  The water would be too cold, she knew. But she’d fix that.

  They’d fix each other.

  She slipped in, wrapped her arms around his waist, pressed her body to his back. Nipped lightly at his shoulder. “Look what I found. Better than the toy surprise in the cereal box. Increase water temp to one hundred and one degrees.”

  “Must you boil us?”

  “I must. Anyway, you won’t notice in a minute.” To prove it, she glided her hands down, found him. “See?”

  “Is this how you behave with all the members of your task force?”

  “They only wish.”

  He turned, caught her face in his hands. “And look how my wishes come true.” He kissed her softly, brow, cheeks, lips. “I thought you might sleep a bit more.”

  “I already took more than I meant to.” She pressed to him again, laying her head on his shoulder as the water flooded them. “This is better than sleep.”

  As the steam began to rise she tipped her head back. She found his mouth with hers, soft again, soft so they could both sink deep.

  His fingers skimmed up into her hair, combing through the sleek cap of it as he murmured something that tasted sweet against her lips. Even through the sweetness she recognized need.

  Yes, they would fix each other.

  She tore her lips from his to press them to his throat, to feel his pulse beat while her hands stroked up his back. As he held her, as he turned her so the water sluiced over them, more than the day washed away.

  Now his hands moved over her, creamy with soap, gliding over skin that all but hummed at the pleasure. Again he turned her, drew her back against him. And those hands circled her breasts, slid over them while his mouth sampled the side of her throat, her shoulder.

  She moaned once, lifted an arm to hook around him, and quivered as his hands circled down.

  He could feel her giving, opening, awaiting. The way her body moved, the way her breath caught. He could hear it in the quick cry that escaped her when he slipped his hands between her legs to cup her. How she trembled, her arm tightened when he used his fingers to tease and to pleasure. And the shock of her release when he dipped them into that hot, wet velvet.

  “Take more.” He had to give more.

  Her trembles went to shudders, her breath to sobbing.

  Her surrender, to him, to herself, aroused him beyond imagining. And the fatigue and sorrow that sleep and shower hadn’t washed away drowned in his love for her.

  He spun her around, pressed her back against the wall. Her breath was short, but her eyes stayed on his.

  “You take more now,” she told him.

  Gripping her hips, he fought for control, to hold the moment. And so slipped slowly inside her.

  Steam smoked around them; the water streamed. They watched each other, moved together.

  More than pleasure, he thought. Somehow even more than love. At a time they each needed it most, they gave each other that essential human gift of hope.

  Even as her breath caught, caught again, he saw her smile. Undone, he captured those curved lips. Surrounded by her, drowning in her, he let himself take the pleasure, take the love. Take the hope.

  Well, that set me up.” Eve stretched her neck after she dragged on her old and favored NYPSD sweatshirt. “Sleep and shower sex. I ought to make the combo required for the team.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have the time to sleep and play in the shower with Peabody and Callendar. Even for the good of the team.”

  “Ha-ha. Funny.” She sat on the arm of the sofa in the sitting area to pull on thick socks. “I’ll just keep you as my personal energy booster. Gotta get back to it.”

  “Food,” Roarke said.

  “Yeah, I figured on—”

  “I know what you figured on.” He took her hand to walk out of the bedroom with her. “But disappointment is what you’re doomed for as it’s not going to be pizza.”

  “I think you have prejudice against the pie.”

  “I have no pie prejudice. However, I insist on another element to your energy boost. In addition to sleep and shower sex, we’re having steak.”

  “Red meat’s hard to argue with, but I’m having fries with it.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  She knew that mmm-hmm. It meant vegetables. She also knew that fussing over getting decent food into her would keep his mind off what was happening to Gia Rossi.

  She let him order up whatever he considered proper nutrition while she fed the cat. The vegetables turned out to be some sort of medley he called niçoise. At least they had the crunch going for them.

  She read over her detectives’ reports while they ate. “People remember the details,” she said. “Such as they were. The people who were close to the prior vics remember the details.”

  “I imagine so. For them—each of them,” Roarke commented, “it was likely a once-in-a-lifetime shock and loss.”

  “If they’re lucky. But even so, they don’t tell us anything new. No new people in their lives, no comments or complaints about being bothered or worried. Each one had a basic routine—with some variations, sure. But each walked to and from work or transportation at basically the same time frame every day. No viable witnesses came forward claiming they saw them with anyone at the time they disappeared.”

  “Viable.”

  She shrugged, ate a fry. “You get the loonies and the attention-grabbers. Nothing panned. Still you check them out, every one. End up wasting time following false leads. People are a pain in the ass.”

  “You said you were going to check lots and garages. I assume you did then as well.”

  “Yeah. Watched hours of security vids, questioned dozens of attendants, droid and human, checked ticket records. We got nothing. Which means he could’ve used street parking, an unsecured lot, or just got lucky.”

  Roarke lifted his eyebrows as he ate. “Four times lucky?”

  “Yeah, exactly. I don’t think it was luck. He’s not lucky, he’s precise and prepared.”

  “Did you consider he might use an official vehicle? A black-and-white, a city official, a cab?”

  “Yeah, we pushed that angle, and got nowhere. And we’ll push it again. I’ve got Newkirk sifting through the records, looking fo
r any private purchase of that kind of ride. They go up for auction a couple times a year. Checking the stolen vehicles records. I’ve got McNab searching the city and transportation employee records to see what we see there. We’ll cross all that with the other case files. Even if he changed his name and appearance, prints are required on all ID for that kind of thing. Nothing’s popped yet.”

  “What about medical equipment and supplies? He drugs them, restrains them, and certainly must have some equipment to deal with the blood.”

  “Went there, going there again. Countless clinics, hospitals, health care centers, doctors, MTs. Doctors and MTs and aides and so on who lost their licenses. Toss in funeral parlors and bereavement centers, even body sculpting salons. You’ve got hours and hours of leg and drone work.”

  “Yes. Yes, you would. You’re covering every possible area.”

  “Maybe. We worked it for weeks, even after the murders stopped. Then Feeney and I worked it weeks more, every time we could squeeze it in. No sleep and shower sex and steak in those days.”

  She pushed up to pace a little. Maybe by looking back she’d see something she hadn’t seen before. “We’d work around the clock sometimes, pushing and prodding at this on our own time. Sitting over a beer at three in the morning in some cop bar, talking it through all over again. And I know damn well, he’d go home, pick through it. I did.”

  She glanced back at Roarke, sitting at her desk with the remnants of the meal they had shared, with data on death on her comp screen, on the wall screen. “Mrs. Feeney, she’s one of the ones who gets it. She understands the cop, the job, the life. Probably why she has all those weird hobbies.”

  “To keep her from sitting, worrying, wondering when it’s three in the morning and he hasn’t come home.”

  “Yeah. Sucks for you guys.”

  He smiled a little. “We manage.”

  “He loves her a lot. You know how he’ll talk in that long-suffering way about ‘the wife.’ He’d be lost without her. I know how that is. I know how he’s working this right now while she’s probably knitting a small compact car. How he’s seeing all those faces, the ones from then, the ones from now.”