by J. D. Robb
Peabody wouldn’t have said so, at least not if she used the animated painting she was currently trying to study. And pretend she understood. She sipped the champagne Charles had given her and struggled to look as sophisticated as the rest of the guests at the art show.
She was dressed for it, at least, she thought with some relief. Eve’s Christmas present to her had been her gorgeous undercover wardrobe designed by Mavis’s wonderful lover, Leonardo. But the shimmering sweep of blue silk couldn’t transform the Midwestern sensibility.
She couldn’t make head nor tail of the creeping movement of shape and color.
“Well, it’s really . . . something.” Since that was the best she could come up with, she drank more champagne.
Charles chuckled and gave her shoulder an affectionate rub. “You’re a sweetheart for putting up with me, Delia. You must be bored to death.”
“No, I’m not.” She glanced up at his marvelous face, smiled. “I’m just art-stupid.”
“There’s nothing stupid about you.” He bent down, gave her a light kiss.
She wanted to sigh. It was still next to impossible to believe she could be in a place like this, dressed like this, with a gorgeous man on her arm. And it galled, galled to think that she was much more suited to take-out Chinese in McNab’s pitiful apartment.
Well, she was just going to keep going to art shows, operas, and ballets until some of it rubbed off on her, even if it all made her feel as if she was acting in some classy play and didn’t quite have her lines down.
“Ready for supper?”
“I’m always ready for supper.” That line, she realized, came straight from the heart. Or the gut.
He’d reserved an intimate private room at some swank restaurant with candlelight and flowers. He was always doing something like that, Peabody mused as he pulled out her chair at a pretty table with pink roses and white candles. She let him order for both of them because he’d know just the right thing.
He seemed to know all the right things. And all the right people. She wondered if Eve ever felt so clunky and out of place when she found herself with Roarke in posh surroundings.
She couldn’t imagine her lieutenant ever feeling clunky.
Besides, Roarke loved her. No, the man adored her. Everything had to be different when you were sitting across candlelight with a man who thought you were the most vital woman in the world. The only woman in the world.
“Where have you gone?” Charles asked quietly.
She jerked herself back. “Sorry. I guess there’s a lot on my mind.” She picked up her fork to sample the saucy seafood appetizer. The perfection of it on the tongue nearly had her eyes crossing in ecstasy.
“Your work.” He reached across the table to pat her hand. “I’m glad you were able to take a break from it after all and come out tonight.”
“We didn’t work as late as I thought we would.”
“The Draco matter. Do you want to talk about it?”
It was just one more perfect thing about him. He would ask and listen if she chose to unburden herself. “No, not really. Can’t anyway at this stage. Except to say Dallas is frustrated. So many levels and angles make it slow going.”
“I’m sure it does. Still, she seemed her usual competent self when she spoke to me.”
Peabody’s hand froze as she reached for her wineglass. “She spoke to you? About the case?”
Caught off guard, Charles set his fork down. “She didn’t mention it to you?”
“No. Did you know Draco?”
Charles cursed himself, briefly considered dancing around the truth, then shrugged. He’d never been anything but honest with Peabody and didn’t want that to change. “No, not really. I happened to be with Areena Mansfield the other night when Dallas and Roarke dropped by to speak with her. I was working.”
“Oh.” Charles’s profession didn’t bother Peabody. He did what he did, just as she did what she did. Maybe if they’d been lovers, she’d have a different attitude, but they weren’t.
Damn it.
“Oh.” She said again, because his profession did a lot more than bother her lieutenant. “Shit.”
“Put simply, yeah. It was awkward, but Dallas and I came to terms.”
“What kind of terms?”
“We talked. Delia, I’ve tried not to say too much because it puts you in the middle. I never wanted that.”
“You never put me there,” she said immediately. “Dallas did.”
“Because you matter very much to her.”
“My personal life is—”
“A concern to her, as a friend, Delia.”
The quiet censure in his tone made her wince, then give up. “Okay, I know it. I don’t have to like it.”
“I think things should be smoother now. She had her say, I had mine, and we both felt better for it. And when I explained to her that we weren’t having sex, she—”
“What?” The word squeaked out as Peabody jumped to her feet. Sparkling silver, glittering crystal danced on the white linen cloth. “You told her that? That? Good God. Why don’t you just strip me naked and push me into the squad room?”
“I wanted her to know we had a friendship, not a professional agreement. I’m sorry.” Recognizing his misstep too late, Charles rose, lifted his hands. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“You tell my immediate superior that I’ve been seeing a professional for what, nearly three months, and haven’t done the mattress dance. No, no, jeez, what could be embarrassing about that?”
“I didn’t realize you’d wanted sex to be part of our relationship.” He spoke stiffly now. “If you had, you had only to ask.”
“Oh yeah, right. I say, how about it, Charles, and I’m a client.”
The muscles in his belly went taunt as wire. “Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think.” She dropped into her chair again, briefly held her head in her hand. “Why did you have to tell her that?”
“I suppose I was defending myself.” It was a tough admission to swallow. “I didn’t think beyond it. I’m very sorry.” He moved his chair over so that he could sit close and take her hand. “Delia, I didn’t want to spoil our friendship, and for the first stages of it, I was hung up on someone who couldn’t, who wouldn’t be with me because of what I am. You helped me through that. I care very much about you. If you want more . . .”
He lifted her hand, brushed his lips over the inside of her wrist.
Her pulse gave a little dance. It was only natural, she supposed. Just as it was natural for her blood to go warm, very warm, when he shifted that skilled mouth from her wrist to her lips.
But doubts churned inside of her, side by side with simple lust. It was infuriating to realize not all the doubts were directed at Charles.
“Sorry.” She broke the kiss, eased back, and wondered when she’d lost her mind. There was a gorgeous man she liked very much, and who knew all there was to know about sexual pleasures, ready to show her just what could be done to the human body, and she was playing coy.
“I’ve hurt your feelings.”
“No. Well, maybe a little.” She drummed up a smile. “Fact is, this is a first for me. I’ve completely lost my appetite. All across the board.”
chapter eleven
Working out of her home office could be an advantage. The equipment, even counting her new computer system at Central, was far superior. There were fewer distractions. And it was next to impossible to run out of coffee.
Eve chose to do so from time to time, even if only to have a fresh view to clear her mind.
Her plan today was to start the morning with something fulfilling. She stood in the center of her home office, smirking down at her old, despised, computer.
“Today,” she told it, “death comes to all your circuits. Will it be slow and systematic or fast and brutal?” Considering, she circled it. “Tough decision. I’ve waited so long for this moment. Dreamed of it.”
Showing her
teeth, she began to roll up her sleeves.
“What,” Roarke asked from the doorway that connected their work areas, “is that?”
“The former bane of my existence. The Antichrist of technology. Do we have a hammer?”
Studying the pile on the floor, he walked in. “Several, I imagine, of various types.”
“I want all of them. Tiny little hammers, big, wall-bangers, and everything in between.”
“Might one ask why?”
“I’m going to beat this thing apart, byte by byte, until there’s nothing left but dust from the last trembling chip.”
“Hmmm.” Roarke crouched down, examined the pitifully out-of-date system. “When did you haul this mess in here?”
“Just now. I had it in the car. Maybe I should use acid, just stand here and watch it hiss and dissolve. That could be good.”
Saying nothing, Roarke took a small case out of his pocket, opened it, and chose a slim tool. With a few deft moves, he had the housing open.
“Hey! Hey! What’re you doing?”
“I haven’t seen anything like this in a decade. Fascinating. Look at this corrosion. Christ, this is a SOC chip system. And it’s cross-wired.”
When he began to fiddle, she rushed over and slapped at his hands. “Mine. I get to kill it.”
“Get a grip on yourself,” he said absently and delved deeper into the guts. “I’ll take this into research.”
“No. Uh-uh. I have to bust it apart. What if it breeds?”
He grinned and quickly replaced the housing. “This is an excellent learning tool. I’d like to give it to Jamie.”
“What’re you talking about? Jamie Lingstrom, the e-prodigy?”
“Mmm. He does a little work for me now and then.”
“He’s a kid.”
“A very bright one. Bright enough that I prefer having him on my team rather than competing with him. It’ll be interesting to see what he can do with an old, defective system like this.”
“But I want it dead.”
He had to smother a chuckle. It was as close to a whine as he’d ever heard from her. “There, there, darling. I’ll find you something else to beat up. Or better,” he said, wrapping his arms around her, “another outlet entirely for all that delightful natural aggression.”
“Sex wouldn’t give me the same rush.”
“Ah. A dare.” He accepted it by leaning down and biting her jaw. When she swore at him, he took her mouth in a hot, hungry, brain-sucking kiss.
“Okay, that was pretty good, but just what are you doing with your hands back there?”
“Hardly anything until I lock the door, and then—”
“Okay, okay, you can have the damn thing.” She shoved away from him, tried to catch her breath. Her system was vibrating. “Just get it out of my sight.”
“Thank you.” He caught her hand, lifted it, nibbled on her fingers as he watched her. One taste of her always made him crave another. And another. He tugged her forward, intending to nudge her into his office.
Peabody walked in.
“Sorry.” She averted her eyes, tilting her head to study the ceiling. “Summerset said I should come right up.”
“Good morning, Peabody.” Roarke gave his wife’s furrowed brow a quick brush of his lips. “Can we get you some coffee?”
“I’ll get it. Don’t mind me. Just a lowly aide.” She muttered it as she crossed the room, giving Eve a wide berth as she aimed for the kitchen.
“She’s upset about something.” Roarke frowned toward the kitchen area as he listened to Peabody muttering as she programmed the AutoChef.
“She just hasn’t had her morning fix yet. Take that heap of junk out of here if you want it so much. I have to get to work.”
He hefted the system, discovered he had to put his back into it. “They made them a lot heavier back then. I’ll be working from home until noon,” he called over his shoulder, then his door closed behind him.
It was probably shallow, it was definitely girlie to have gotten such a rise out of watching that ripple of muscle. Eve told herself she wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t stirred her up in the first place.
“Peabody, bring me a cup of that.”
She went behind her desk, called up the Draco file, and separating it into suspects, witnesses, evidence gathered, and lab reports, ordered all data on the screens.
“I reviewed the disc of the play last night,” she began when she heard the sturdy clop of Peabody’s hard-soled cop shoes cross the room. “I have a theory.”
“Your coffee, Lieutenant. Shall I record, sir?”
“Huh?” Eve was studying the screens, trying to shift and rearrange data in her mind. But Peabody’s stiff tone distracted her. “No, I’m just running it by you.”
She turned back and saw that once again Roarke was right. Something was up with her aide. She ordered herself not to poke into the personal, and sat. “We’ve pretty well nailed down the time of the switch. The prop knife is clearly visible here. Computer, Visual Evidence 6-B, on screen five.”
“You’ve marked and recorded this VE?” Peabody asked, her voice cold as February.
“Last night, after my review.” Eve moved her shoulders. The snipe was like a hot itch between her shoulder blades. “So?”
“Just updating my own records, Lieutenant. It is my job.”
Fuck it. “Nobody’s telling you not to do your job. I’m briefing you, aren’t I?”
“Selectively, it appears.”
“Okay, what the hell does that mean?”
“I had occasion to return to Central last night.” That just added to her slow burn. “In the process of reviewing the file, assimilating evidence and the time line, certain pieces of that evidence, marked and sealed for Level Five, came to my attention. I was unaware, until that point, that there were areas of this investigation considered off limits to your aide and your team. Respectfully, sir, this policy can and will hamper the efficiency of said aide and said team.”
“Don’t use that snotty tone on me, pal. I marked Level Five what, in my judgment, required Level Five. You don’t need to know every goddamn thing.”
Little spots of heat bloomed on Peabody’s cheeks, but her voice was frosty. “So I am now aware, Lieutenant.”
“I said knock it off.”
“It’s always your way, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, damn right. I’m your superior, and I’m the primary on this investigation, so you bet your tight ass it’s my way.”
“Then you should have advised subject Monroe, Charles, to keep his mouth shut. Shouldn’t you? Sir.”
Eve set her teeth, ground them. Try to spare feelings, she thought, and you get kicked in the face. “Subject Monroe, Charles, has, in my opinion, no connection to this investigation. Therefore any communication I’ve had with him is none of your goddamn business.”
“It’s my goddamn business when you interrogate him over my goddamn personal relationship with him.”
“I didn’t interrogate him.” Her voice spiked with frustrated fury. “He spilled it all over me.”
They were both standing now, leaning over the desk nearly nose-to-nose. Eve’s face was pale with temper, Peabody’s flushed with it.
When McNab walked in, the scene had him letting out a low, nervous whistle. “Um, hey, guys.”
Neither of them bothered to so much as glance in his direction, and said, in unison, at a roar: “Out!”
“You bet. I’m gone.”
To insure it, Eve marched over and slammed the door in his fearful and fascinated face.
“Sit down,” she ordered Peabody.
“I prefer to stand.”
“And I prefer to give you a good boot in the ass, but I’m restraining myself.” Eve reached up, fisted her hands in her own hair and yanked until the pain cleared most of the rage.
“Okay, stand. You couldn’t sit with that stick up your butt, anyway. One you shove up it every time Subject Monroe, Charles, is mentioned. You want to be fill
ed in, you want to be briefed? Fine. Here it is.”
She had to take another deep breath to insure her tone was professional. “On the evening of March twenty-six, at or about nineteen-thirty, I, accompanied by Roarke, had occasion to visit Areena Mansfield’s penthouse suite at The Palace Hotel, this city. Upon entering said premises, investigation officer found subject Mansfield in the company of one Charles Monroe, licensed companion. It was ascertained and confirmed that LC Monroe was there in a professional capacity and had no links to the deceased or the current investigation. His presence, and the salient details pertaining to it, were noted in the report of the interview and marked Level Five in a stupid, ill-conceived attempt by the investigating officer to spare her fat-headed aide any unnecessary embarrassment.”
Eve stomped back to her desk, snatched up her coffee, gulped some down. “Record that,” she snapped.
Peabody’s lip trembled. She sat. She sniffled.
“Oh, no.” In genuine panic, Eve stabbed out a finger. “No, you don’t. No crying. We’re on duty. There is no crying on duty.”
“I’m sorry.” Knowing she was close to blubbering, Peabody fumbled for her handkerchief and blew her nose lavishly. “I’m just so mad, so embarrassed. He told you we’ve never had sex.”
“Jesus, Peabody, do you think I put that in the report?”
“No. I don’t know. No.” She sniffled again. “But you know. I’ve been seeing him for weeks and weeks, and we’ve never . . . We never even got close to it.”
“Well, he explained that when—” At Peabody’s howl of horror, Eve winced. Wrong thing to say. Very wrong. But what the hell was the right thing? “Look, he’s a nice guy. I didn’t give him enough credit. He likes you.”
“Then why hasn’t he ever jumped me?” Peabody lifted drenched eyes.
“Um . . . sex isn’t everything?” Eve hazarded.
“Oh sure, easy for you to say. You’re married to the mongo sex god of the century.”
“Jesus, Peabody.”
“You are. He’s gorgeous, he’s built, he’s smart and sexy and . . . and dangerous. And he loves you. No, he adores you. He’d jump in front of a speeding maxibus for you.”