by J. D. Robb
He walked through the kitchen. Neither of the two remote domestics who worked there paid any attention to him. He moved into the wide hallway beyond, past the beautiful rooms and toward the sweep of floating stairs.
Perhaps he had no right to intrude, he thought, but no one, no one had a right to treat another human being as Clarissa was being treated.
He moved down the hallway to the right, judging which room would be directly over the workshop. The door was ajar; he could hear her crying inside. Placing his fingertips against the polished wood, he eased it open. And saw her curled on the bed, her naked body already blooming with bruises.
“Clarissa?”
Her head came up, eyes wide, and her swollen lips trembled. “Oh God. No, no, I don’t want you to see me like this. Go away.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. Gone. Oh please, please.” She pressed her face to the tangled sheets.
“He can’t be. I just came up the front stairs.”
“The side entrance. He uses the side. He’s gone, already gone. Thank God. If he’d seen you come up . . .”
“This has to stop.” He came to the bed, gently untangled a sheet, and draped it over her. “You can’t let him hurt you this way.”
“He doesn’t mean—He’s my husband.” She let out a sigh that ripped at Zeke’s heart. It was so hopeless. “I have no place to go. No one to go to. He wouldn’t have to hurt me if I wasn’t so slow and stupid. If I’d just do what he says. If I—”
“Stop that.” It came out sharper than he’d intended, and when he laid a hand on her shoulder, she flinched. “What happened here wasn’t your fault, it was his.”
She needed counseling, he thought. She needed cleansing. A safe place to stay. Both her body and her selfesteem had been battered, and such things harmed the soul. “I want to help you. I can take you away from here. You can stay at my sister’s until you decide what to do. There are programs, people you can talk to. The police,” he added. “You need to file charges.”
“No. No police!” She gathered the sheet close and struggled up. Her dark violet eyes were brilliant with fear. “He’d kill me if I did. And he knows people on the force. High-up people. I can never call the police.”
She’d begun to tremble, so he soothed. “That’s not important now. Let me help you get dressed. Let me take you to a healer—the doctor,” he corrected, remembering where he was. “Then we’ll talk about what’s next.”
“Oh, Zeke.” Her breath shuddered out as she lay her head on his shoulder. “There is no next. Don’t you see this is it for me? He’ll never let me go. He’s told me. He’s told me what he’d do to me if I try to leave. I’m just not strong enough to fight him.”
He slipped his arms around her, rocked her. “I am.”
“You’re so young.” She shook her head. “I’m not.”
“That’s not true. You feel helpless because you’ve been alone. You’re not alone now. I’ll help you. My family will.”
He brushed at her loose and tangled hair, cloud soft under his hand. At home, my home,” he said, keeping his voice a reassuring murmur. “It’s peaceful. Remember how big and open and quiet the desert is? You can heal there.”
“I was almost happy for those few days. All that space. The stars. You. If I believed there was a chance—”
“Give me the chance.” Gently, he tipped her face back. The bruises on her face nearly broke his heart. “I love you.”
Tears swam into her eyes. “You can’t. You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“Nothing he’s made you do counts. And it doesn’t matter what I feel, but what you need. You can’t stay with him.”
“I can’t drag you into this, Zeke. It’s wrong.”
“I won’t leave you.” He pressed his mouth to her hair. “When you’re safe, if you want me to go, I will. But not until you’re safe.”
“Safe.” She barely breathed the word. “I stopped believing I could be safe. If there’s a chance . . .” She drew back, looked into his eyes. “I need time to think.”
“Clarissa—”
“I have to be sure I can go through with it. I have to have time. Please, try to understand. Give me today.” She closed a hand over his. “He can’t hurt me any more than he already has. Give me today to look inside myself and see if there’s anything there worth offering you. Or anyone else.”
“I’m not asking for anything.”
“But I am.” Her lips trembled into a smile. “Finally, I am. Will you give me a number where I can reach you? I want you to go home now. B. D. won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon, and I need this time alone.”
“All right. If you promise that whatever you decide, you’ll call.”
“I will.” She picked up a memo from the bedside table and offered it. “I’ll call you by tonight. I promise.” When he’d entered the number, she took it from him, slipped it into the drawer. “Please, go now. I need to see how many pieces I can pick up on my own.”
“I won’t be far away,” he told her.
She waited until he reached the door. “Zeke? When I met you in Arizona—when I saw you, looked at you . . . something inside me I’d thought had died seemed to stir again. I don’t know if it’s love. I don’t know if I have love anymore. But if I do, it’s for you.”
“I’ll take care of you, Clarissa. He’ll never hurt you again.”
Opening the door and leaving her was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
chapter fourteen
Eve gave her battered vehicle one long scowl as she strode across the garage. It wasn’t that appearance mattered much. Since Zeke and Roarke had played with it, the heap was back in top running condition. But it was, by God, a heap.
“It’s goddamn pitiful when a homicide lieutenant has to drive around in a wreck like this while those bozos in Illegals get zoomers.” She gave the shiny, streamlined all-terrain two spaces down from hers an avaricious glare.
“Just needs some body work, some paint, a little new shielding.” Peabody opened her door.
“It’s the principle. Murder cops always get the shaft.” Eve slammed in her side, a mistake, as the door popped right back open. “Oh fine, great.”
“I noticed that little hitch yesterday when I took it home. What you have to do is lift up some, kind of jiggle it and slide it home. Zeke’ll fix it for you first chance he gets. I forgot to mention it to him last night.”
Eve held up her hands, took several slow, deep breaths. “Okay, no point in bitching about it.”
“But you have such a smooth bitching style, sir.”
Eve slanted Peabody a look as she went to work on the door. “That’s better. You were starting to worry me. I’ve hardly heard a single smartass remark out of you for two days.”
“I’m off my rhythm,” Peabody muttered, and pressed her lips together. She could still taste McNab.
Eve secured the door. “Problem?”
“I—” She wanted to tell someone, but it was just too humiliating. “No, no problem. Where’s the first stop?”
Eve lifted her brows. It was rare for Peabody not to walk through a door she’d opened. Reminding herself that personal lives were personal lives for a reason, Eve backed out of her slot. “Autotron. Get the address.”
“I know it. It’s a few blocks west of my place, on Ninth. Ninth and Twelfth. What’s there?”
“A guy who likes bombs.”
She filled Peabody in on the way.
When she pulled into the garage at Autotron, gate security took one look at her car and strode over snappily to glance at the badge she held up for view.
“You’ve already been cleared, Lieutenant. Your space is reserved. Slot thirty-six, level A. It’s just up on your left.”
“Who cleared me?” Though she wondered why she bothered to ask.
“Roarke. Take the first bank of elevators to the eighth floor. You’ll be met.”
Her eyes flashed once, then she drove in. “He just doesn’t k
now when to step out.”
“Well, it speeds things up. Saves time.”
She wanted to say she wasn’t in any hurry, but it was such a ridiculous lie Eve clamped her mouth shut. And smoldered. “If he’s already questioned Lamont, I’m tying his tongue into a knot.”
“Can I watch?” Peabody grinned as Eve braked hard in her parking slot. “I’m getting my rhythm back.”
“Lose it.” Irritated, she slammed the door before she remembered, then cursed roundly when the leading edge of it bounced on the concrete floor. “Son of a bitch.” She kicked it, only because it seemed called for, then muscled it back into the frame. “Say nothing,” she warned Peabody, then stalked to the elevator.
Peabody stepped into the elevator, folded her hands, and studiously studied the ascending numbers over the door.
The eighth floor was a wide, airy office and reception area filled with clerks and drones and snazzily suited execs. It was done in navys and grays with the startling slap and dash of wild red flowers streaming along under the windows and around a central console.
She thought that Roarke had a thing about flowers in the businessplace—anyplace, really. His main headquarters in midtown was alive with them.
She’d barely stepped out, had yet to reach for her badge, when a tall man in a severely cut black suit came toward her with a polished smile.
“Lieutenant Dallas. Roarke’s expecting you. If you and your aide would follow me?”
A nasty part of her wanted to tell him to inform his boss to keep his pretty nose out of her business, but she sucked it in. She needed to talk to Lamont, and if Roarke had decided to be the line to him, it would take more time and energy than she had to waste to go around him.
She followed him through the cubicles, past snazzier offices, more flowers, and through open double doors to a spacious conference room.
The center table was a thick, clear slab, lined with matching chairs with deep blue cushions, seat and back. A quick glance showed it held all the comforts and over-the-top technology she expected from anything Roarke had his hand in or his name on.
There was a maxi AutoChef and cold box, a fully equipped communications center, a rather jazzy entertainment console, and a wide window with full security and sun shade.
On the enormous wall screen an animated schematic twirled and spun. The man at the head of the table turned his attention from it, lifted a cocky brow, and gave his wife a charming smile.
“Lieutenant, Peabody. Thank you, Gates.” He waited until the doors were closed, then gestured. “Have a seat. Would you like some coffee?”
“I don’t want a seat or any damn coffee,” Eve began.
“I’d like some coffee.” Peabody winced under Eve’s withering stare. “On the other hand . . .”
“Sit,” Eve ordered. “Quiet.”
“Sir.” She sat, she was quiet, but sent Roarke a sympathetic glance before she did her best to become blind, deaf, and invisible.
“Did I ask you to have me cleared?” Eve began. “Did I ask you to be here when I came in to interview Lamont? I’m in the middle of an extremely sensitive investigation, one the feds would like to snatch out from under me. I don’t want your name in my reports any more often than absolutely necessary. You got that?”
She’d marched to him as she spoke and ended by jabbing a finger at his shoulder.
“God, I love it when you scold me.” He only smiled when she hissed breath between her teeth. “Don’t stop.”
“This isn’t a joke. Don’t you have worlds to conquer, small industrial nations to buy, businesses to run?”
“Yes.” The humor cleared out of his eyes, leaving them dark and intense. “And this is one of them. Just as the hotel where people died yesterday is one of them. If someone in my employ turns out to be connected in any way, it’s my business as much as yours, Lieutenant. I thought that was understood.”
“You can’t blame yourself for yesterday.”
“If I say the same to you, will you listen?”
She stared at him a moment, wishing she didn’t see his side so clearly. “Did you question Lamont?”
“I know better than that. I rescheduled my morning, arranged for your clearance, and made sure that Lamont was in the lab. I haven’t sent for him yet. I assumed you’d want to rail at me a bit first.”
If she was that predictable, Eve decided it was time for some realigning. “I’ll take that coffee before you send for Lamont.”
He skimmed his fingers along the tips of her hair before turning to deal with it. Eve dropped down in a chair, scowled at Peabody. “What are you staring at?”
“Nothing. Sir.” Deliberately, Peabody looked away. It was so fascinating to watch them together, she mused. An education in the tug-of-war of relationships. And the way they looked at each other when their minds came together. You could actually see it.
She couldn’t imagine what it was like to be that connected. So meshed that the brush of fingertips over your hair was a simple and absolute declaration of love.
She must have sighed. Roarke angled his head as he set her coffee in front of her. “Tired?” he murmured, and laid a hand on her shoulder.
Peabody felt she was entitled to the lovely flush of heat and mild lust she experienced nearly every time she looked at that spectacular face of his. But she didn’t think Eve would appreciate it if she sighed again. “Rough night,” she said and dipping her head, concentrated on her coffee.
He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze that sent her heart on a gallop, then turned back to Eve. “Lamont will be right up. I’d like to stay while you interview him. And,” he continued holding up a hand, “before you tell me why I can’t be here during an official interview, I’ll remind you that I not only employ the subject, but I know him and have for a number of years. I’ll know if he’s lying.”
Eve drummed her fingers on the table. She knew that look in his eye—cold, enigmatic, controlled. He would study and he would see, every bit as expertly as a veteran police interrogator.
“Observe only. You don’t question him or comment unless I indicate otherwise.”
“Agreed. Are you cleared for Maine?”
“We’ll catch a shuttle as soon as we leave here.”
“There’s a jet at the airport. Take it.”
“We’ll take the shuttle,” Eve repeated, even when Peabody’s head came up and her eyes held all the hope of a puppy sniffing mother’s milk.
“Don’t be stubborn,” Roarke said mildly. “The jet will get you there in half the time and with none of the frustration. You can pick us up a couple of lobsters for dinner.”
The phrase fat chance trembled on her tongue, but she bit it back when the knock sounded on the door.
“Showtime,” Roarke murmured, and leaned back in his chair. “Come in.”
Lamont had smooth, round cheeks, lively blue eyes, and a chin tattoo of a flaming arrow that was new since his ID photo. He’d let his hair grow some as well, Eve noted, so that it swirled in deep brown waves to his chin and gave him a slightly angelic look rather than the upright young conservative she’d viewed on-screen the night before.
He wore a white lab coat over a white shirt that was buttoned snugly to the Adam’s apple, stovepipe black pants. She recognized his boots as being hand tooled and pricey, as Roarke had countless pairs in his endless closet.
He gave her a polite glance, gave Peabody’s uniform a slightly longer study, then shifted his full attention to Roarke.
“You needed to see me?” His voice carried the faintest whisper of France, like a sprinkle of thyme over broth.
“This is Lieutenant Dallas of the NYPSD.” Roarke didn’t rise or gesture to a chair. It was his tacit shift of control to Eve. “She needed to see you.”
“Oh?” The well-mannered smile was vaguely puzzled.
“Have a seat, Mr. Lamont. I have a few questions. You’re entitled to have counsel present if you like.”
He blinked twice, two slow movements. “Do I ne
ed a lawyer?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Lamont. Do you?”
“I don’t see why.” He sat, shifted until he found comfort on the cushion. “What’s this about?”
“Bombs.” Eve gave him a small smile. “On record, Peabody,” she added and read Lamont his rights. “What do you know about the bombing of the Plaza Hotel yesterday?”
“Just what I saw on-screen. They upped the body count this morning. It’s over three hundred now.”
“Have you ever worked with plaston, Mr. Lamont?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re aware of what it is?”
“Of course.” He shifted again. “It’s a light, elastic, highly unstable substance most commonly used as a detonation factor in explosives.” He’d lost a little color since he’d taken his seat, but he kept his eyes on hers. They weren’t quite so lively now.
“The explosives we manufacture here at Autotron for government contracts and some private concerns often employ minute amounts of plaston.”
“How’s your Greek mythology?”
His fingers linked together on the table, pulled apart, linked again. “Excuse me?”
“Know anyone named Cassandra?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you acquainted with Howard Bassi, more commonly known as Fixer?”
“No.”
“What do you do with your free time, Mr. Lamont?”
“My—my free time?”
She smiled again. The change in rhythm had thrown him off, as she’d intended. “Hobbies, sports, entertainment. Roarke doesn’t work you twenty-four/seven, does he?”
“I—No.” His gaze flicked to Roarke, then back. “I . . . play a little handball.”
“Team or solo?”
He lifted his hand, rubbed it over his mouth. “Mostly solo.”
“Your father made bombs during the French War,” she continued. “Did he work team, or solo?”
“I—he worked for the SRA—the Social Reform Army. I guess that’s a team.”
“I assumed he freelanced, worked for the highest bidder.”
Color rushed back into Lamont’s face. “My father was a patriot.”