by J. D. Robb
Roarke glanced up the stairs. He was sure Eve hadn’t put it quite so politely. “How long has she been home?”
“Less than thirty minutes.”
“And she’s alone?”
“Yes. Quite alone.”
Absently he flicked open the top two buttons of his shirt. His afternoon meetings had been long and tedious. A rare tension headache was brewing at the base of his skull.
“Log any calls that come through for me. I don’t want to be disturbed.”
“Dinner?”
Roarke merely shook his head as he started up the stairs. He’d managed to put his temper on hold throughout the day, but he felt it bubbling back now, black and hot. He knew it would be best, certainly more productive, if they could speak calmly.
But he kept thinking about the door she’d closed between them the night before. The ease with which she’d done so, and the finality of the act. He didn’t know if he would be able to remain calm for long.
She’d left her office door open. After all, Roarke thought sourly, she’d summoned him, hadn’t she? She sat scowling at her computer screen as if the information it offered annoyed her. There was a mug of coffee at her elbow, likely gone cold by now. Her hair was disordered and spiky, no doubt disturbed by her restless hands. She still wore her weapon harness.
Galahad had made himself at home on a pile of paperwork on the desk. He twitched his tail in greeting, and his bicolored eyes gleamed with unmistakable glee. Roarke could almost hear the feline thoughts.
Come on in, get started. I’ve been waiting for the show.
“You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?”
Her head came up, turned. He looked cool, she noted, casually elegant in his dark business suit with the collar of his shirt loosened. But the body language—the cock of his head, the thumbs hooked in his pockets, the way his weight was balanced on the balls of his feet—warned her here was an Irish brawler spoiling for a fight.
Fine, she decided. She was ready for one.
“Yeah, I wanted to see you. You want to shut the door?”
“By all means.” He closed it behind him before crossing the room. And waited. He preferred for his opponent to draw first blood.
It made the striking back more satisfying.
“I need names.” Her voice was clipped and brisk. She wanted them both to know she was speaking as a cop. “Names of the men you killed. Names of any- and everyone you can remember you contacted to find those men.”
“You’ll have them.”
“And I’ll need a statement from you, detailing where you were and who you were with during the times of the Brennen and Conroy homicides.”
His eyes went hot, for an instant only, then frosted to brilliant blue ice. “Am I a suspect? Lieutenant?”
“No, and I want to keep it that way. Eliminating you from the top simplifies things.”
“By all means let’s keep things simple.”
“Don’t take that line with me.” She knew what he was doing, she thought with rising fury. Oh, she had his number, all right, with his cold and utterly reasonable tone. Damned if he’d shake her. “The more I can go by the book on this, the better it is for everyone involved. I’d like to fit Summerset with a security bracelet. He’d never agree if I asked, so I’d like you to.”
“I won’t ask him to submit to the indignity of that.”
“Look.” She got to her feet, slowly. “A little indignity might keep him out of a cage.”
“For some, dignity is a priority.”
“Fuck dignity. I’ve got enough problems without worrying about that. What I need is facts, evidence, an edge. If you keep lying to me—”
“I never lied to you.”
“You withheld vital information. It’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not.” Oh, he had her number, he thought, with her stubborn, unbending rules. Damned if she’d shake him. “I withheld information in the hope I could keep you out of a difficult position.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” she snapped as control teetered.
“I won’t.” He moved to a dome-topped cabinet, selected a bottle of whiskey, and poured three fingers into a heavy crystal glass. He considered throwing it.
She heard the ice pick fury in his tone, recognized the frigid rage. She would have preferred heat, something hot and bubbling to match her own mood.
“Great, terrific. You go ahead and be pissed off. I’ve got two dead guys, and I’m waiting for the third. I’ve got essential information, information vital to the case, that I can’t use officially unless I want to come visit you in a federal facility for the next hundred years.”
He sipped, and showed his teeth in a smile. “Don’t do me any favors.”
“You can just yank that stick out of your ass, pal, because you’re in trouble here.” She found she wanted to hit something—smash anything—and settled for shoving her chair aside. “You and that bony droid you’re so goddamn fond of. If I’m going to keep both your butts out of the sling, you better get yourself a quick attitude adjustment.”
“I’ve managed to keep my butt out of the sling by my own devices up until now.” Roarke drained the rest of the whiskey, set the glass down with a snap of glass on wood. “You know very well Summerset killed no one.”
“It doesn’t matter what I know, it matters what I can prove.” Temper straining, she dragged her hands through her hair, fisted them there a moment until her head began to throb. “By not giving me all the data, you put me a step behind.”
“What would you have done with the data that I wasn’t doing myself? And, with my contacts and equipment, doing more quickly and more efficiently?”
That, she thought, tore it. “You better remember who’s the cop here, ace.”
His eyes glinted once, like blue steel in moonlight. “I’m unlikely to forget.”
“And whose job it is to gather evidence and information, to process that evidence and information. To investigate. You do whatever it is you do with your business, but you stay off my turf unless I tell you different.”
“Unless you tell me?” She saw the quick and vicious flare of violence in his eyes, but stood her ground when he whirled on her, when he closed a fist over her shirt to haul her up to her toes. “And what if I don’t do what I’m told, Lieutenant, what I’m ordered? How do you handle that? Do you walk away and lock the door again?”
“You better move your hand.”
He only yanked her up another inch. “I won’t tolerate locked doors. I’ve got my limit, and you reached it. If you don’t want to share our bed, if you don’t want me near you, then you say so. But I’m damned if you’ll turn away and lock the door.”
“You’re the one who screwed up,” she shot back. “You pissed me off and I didn’t want to talk to you. I’m the one who has to deal with what’s going on here, what’s gone on before. I have to overlook the laws you’ve broken instead of carting you off to a cell.” She lifted both hands, shoved hard, and was both surprised and furious when she didn’t budge him an inch. “And I’ve got to make dinner conversation with a bunch of snooty strangers every time I turn around, and worry about what the hell I’m wearing when I do it.”
“Do you think you’re the only one who’s made adjustments?” Enraged, he gave her a quick shake, then let her go so he could prowl the room. “For Christ’s sake, I married a cop. Fuck me, a cop. It has to be fate’s biggest joke.”
“Nobody held a knife to your throat.” Insulted, she fisted her hands on her hips. “You’re the one who pushed for it.”
“And you’re the one who pulled back, and still does. I’m sick of it, sick to death of it. It’s always you, isn’t it, Eve, who has to make the changes and give way?” Fury shimmered around him in all but visible waves, and when those waves crashed over her, she’d have sworn they had weight. “Well, I’ve made changes of my own, and given way more times than I can count. You can have your privacy when you need it, and your neurotic little snits, but I won’t put u
p with my wife closing doors between us.”
The neurotic little snits left her speechless, but the my wife freed her tongue again. “Your wife, your wife. Don’t you dare say my wife in that tone. Don’t you dare make me sound like one of your fancy suits.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Now I’m ridiculous.” She threw up her hands. “I’m neurotic and ridiculous.”
“Yes, often.”
Her breath began to hitch. She could actually see red around the edges of her vision. “You’re arrogant, domineering, egotistical, and disdainful of the law.”
He lifted one amused brow. “And your point would be?”
She couldn’t form a word. What came out was something between a growl and a scream. The sound of it had Galahad leaping from the top of the desk and curling under it.
“Well said,” Roarke commented and decided to have another whiskey. “I’ve given up a number of businesses in the past months that you would have found questionable.” He studied the color of the whiskey in the glass. “True, they were more like hobbies, habits, I suppose, but I found them entertaining. And profitable.”
“I never asked you to give up anything.”
“Darling Eve.” He sighed, found most of his temper had slipped away. “You ask just by being. I married a cop,” he said half to himself and drank. “Because I loved her, wanted her, needed her. And to my surprise, I admired her. She fascinates me.”
“Don’t turn this around.”
“It’s just come full circle. I can’t change what I am, and what I’ve done. And wouldn’t even for you.” He lifted his gaze to hers, held it there. “I’m telling you not to lock the door.”
She gave a bad-tempered shrug. “I knew it would piss you off.”
“Mission accomplished.”
She found herself sighing, a weak sound she didn’t have the energy to detest. “It’s hard—seeing what had been done to those men, and knowing . . .”
“That I was capable of doing the same.” He set his glass down again. “It was justice.”
She felt the weight of her badge, tangibly. Not in her pocket but on her heart. “That wasn’t for you to decide.”
“There we part ways. The law doesn’t always stand for the innocent and the used. The law doesn’t always care enough. I won’t apologize for what I did, Eve, but I will for putting you in the position of choosing between me and your duty.”
She picked up her cold coffee and drank it to clear her throat. “I had to tell Peabody. I had to bring her in.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “She’ll stand with me. She didn’t even hesitate.”
“She’s a good cop. You’ve taught me the phrase isn’t a contradiction in terms.”
“I need her. I need all the help I can get on this one because I’m afraid.” She closed her eyes, fought to steady herself. “I’m afraid if I’m not careful enough, not quick or smart enough, I’ll walk onto a scene and I’ll find you. I’ll be too late, and you’ll be dead, because it’s you he wants. The others are just practice.”
She felt his arms come around her, and moved in. There was the warmth of his body, the lines of it all so familiar now, so necessary now. The scent of him as she gripped him close, the steady beat of his heart, the soft brush of his lips over her hair.
“I couldn’t stand it.” She tightened her hold. “I couldn’t. I know I can’t even think about it because it’ll mess me up, but I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t stop—”
Then his mouth was on hers and the kiss was rough and hot. He would know that was the tone she needed, that she needed his hands on her, hard, impatient. And the promises he murmured as he tugged her shirt aside were for both of them.
Her weapon thudded to the floor. His beautifully cut jacket followed. She tipped her head back so that his lips could race thrills over her throat as she dragged at his belt.
No words now as they hurried to touch. With greedy little nips and bites they tormented each other. She was panting when he pushed her onto the desk. Paper crinkled under her back.
She reached for him.
“I’m not neurotic,” she managed to say.
He laughed first, delighted with her, delirious for her. “Of course not.” He closed his hands over hers and drove into her.
He watched her come at the first thrust, those golden brown irises blurring, that slim torso arching up. The shocked pleasure strangled in her throat then shuddered out on his name.
“Take more.” His hands were less gentle than he intended as he lifted her hips, went deeper. “Take all of me.”
Through the stunning waves of sensation she understood he wanted acceptance, finally and fully, for both of them.
She took all of him.
Later they shared soup in her office. By the second bowl, her head was clear enough to deal with the business at hand.
“I’m going to be working here for the most part for a while.”
“I’ll lighten my schedule so I’ll be available for you.”
She broke open a roll, buttered it thoughtfully. “We’re going to have to contact the Dublin police. Your name’s bound to come up.” She ignored the quick grin he flashed her and bit into the roll. “Should I expect any surprises?”
“They don’t have any more hard data on me than your records show.”
“Which is next to nothing.”
“Exactly. There’s bound to be a few members of the guarda with long memories, but there shouldn’t be anything too embarrassing. I’ve always been careful.”
“Who investigated Marlena’s murder?”
The amusement died out of Roarke’s eyes. “It was an Inspector Maguire, but I wouldn’t say he investigated. He went through the motions, took the bribes offered, and called it death by misadventure.”
“Still, his records might be of some use.”
“I doubt you’ll find much, if any. Maguire was one of the many cops in the pocket of the cartel whose territory I trespassed on.” He took the other half of Eve’s roll. “The Urban Wars started later and lasted longer in that part of the world. Even when I was a boy there were pockets of it still being waged, and certainly the results of the worst of it were still in evidence.”
He remembered the bodies, the sound of gunfire screaming through the night, the wails of the wounded, and the sunken eyes of the survivors.
“Those who had,” he continued, “had in abundance. Those who didn’t, suffered and starved and scavenged. Most cops who’d been through the hell of it went one of two ways. Some dedicated themselves to maintaining order. Most took advantage of the chaos and profited.”
“Maguire decided to profit.”
“He was hardly alone. I took plenty of kicks from a beat cop if I didn’t have the payoff in my pocket. When you’re down to your last punt, you’d as soon have the kick and keep the pound.”
“Did you take any from Maquire?”
“Not personally. By the time I was working the grift and the games, he was riding a desk. He used uniforms as his runners and muscle and collected in comfort.” Roarke sat back with his coffee. “For the most part I outmaneuvered him. I paid my shot when I couldn’t get around it, but I usually stole it back. Cops are easy marks. They don’t expect to have their pockets picked.”
“Hmm” was all Eve could say to that. “Why was Maguire brought in on Marlena?”
“When she was killed, Summerset insisted on calling in the police. He wanted to see the men who had . . . he wanted to see them punished. He wanted a public trial. He wanted justice. Instead he got Maguire. The bastard came sniffing around, shaking his head, clucking his tongue. ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘seems to me a father should keep a closer eye on a pretty young girl. Letting her run wild like that.” ’
As the old fury crawled back, Roarke shoved away from the table to rise and pace. “I could have killed him on the spot. He knew it. He wanted me to try it, then and there while he had six cops around him who’d have broken me to pieces at the first move. His conc
lusions were that she was an incorrigible, that there were illegals in her system and she’d fallen in with a bad lot who’d panicked and killed her when they’d done with her. Two weeks later he was driving a new car around Dublin Town and his wife had a new haircut to show off her diamond earrings.”
He turned back. “And six months later, they hooked him out of the River Liffey with enough holes in him for the fish to swim through.”
Her throat had gone dust dry, but she kept her gaze steady. “Did you kill him?”
“No, but only because someone beat me to it. He was low on my list of priorities.” Roarke came back, sat again. “Eve, Summerset had no part in what I did. He wasn’t even aware of what I planned to do. It wasn’t his way—isn’t his way. He ran cons, bilked marks, lifted wallets.”
“You don’t need to defend him to me. I’ll do my best for him.” She let out a breath. “Starting now by ignoring regulations, again, and using your unregistered equipment to run names. Let’s start on those lists.”
He got to his feet, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips. “It’s always a pleasure working with you, Lieutenant.”
“Just remember who’s in charge.”
“I’ve no doubt you’ll remind me. Regularly.” He slipped an arm around her waist when she stood. “Next time we make love, you can wear your badge. In case I forget who’s in charge.”
She eyed him narrowly. “Nobody likes a smart-ass.”
“I do.” He planted a kiss between her scowling eyes. “I love one.”
chapter eight
Eve stared at the list of names on the wall screen in Roarke’s private room. The equipment installed there was every hacker’s wet dream. He’d indulged himself in aesthetics in the rest of the house, but this room was all business.
Illegal business, she thought, since all its information, research, and communications devices were unregistered with CompuGuard. Nothing that went in or came out of that room could be tracked.
Roarke sat at the U-shaped console, like a pirate, she thought, at the helm of a very snazzy ship. He hadn’t engaged the auxiliary station with its jazzy laser fax and hologram unit. She imagined he didn’t think he required the extra zip, just yet.