by J. D. Robb
He beamed as the waitress came over to slop urine-colored liquid in his mug. "Okay, okay. So he says how he figures maybe these guys are looking to shake down a bank or jewelry store or something. He's working on some bypass unit for them, and he's clued in that the timers and remotes set off the boomers he's got going for them. Says maybe they'll want a little guy who knows his way under the street. He'll maybe put in a word for me."
"What are friends for?"
"Yeah, that's it. Then I get a call from him a couple weeks later. He's really wired up, you know? Tells me the deal isn't what he figured. That it's bad shit. Real bad shit. He ain't making any sense. Never heard old Fixer like that. He was real scared. Said something about being afraid of another Arlington, and how he needed to go under awhile. Could he flop with me until he figured out what to do next? So I said sure, hey sure, come on over. But he never did."
"Maybe he went under somewhere else?"
"Yeah, he went under. They fished him outta the river a couple days ago. Jersey side."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yeah." Ratso brooded into his beer. "He was okay, you know? Word I got is somebody cut his tongue right outta his head." He lifted his tiny eyes, fixed them mournfully on Eve. "What kinda person does that shit?"
"It's bad business, Ratso. Bad people. It's not my case," she added. "I can take a look at the file, but there's not a lot I can do."
"They offed him 'cause he figured out what they was gonna do, right? Right?"
"Yeah, I'd say that follows."
"So you gotta figure out what they're gonna do, right? You figure it out, Dallas, then you stop them and take them down for doing The Fixer like that. You're a murder cop, and they murdered him."
"It's not as simple as that. It's not my case," she said again. "If they fished him out in New Jersey, it's not even my damn city. The cops working it aren't likely to take kindly to me homing in on their investigation."
"How much you figure most cops gonna bother with somebody like Fixer?"
She nearly sighed. "There are plenty of cops who'll bother. Plenty who'll work their butt off trying to close the case, Ratso."
"You'll work harder." He said it simply, almost childlike faith in his eyes. And Eve felt her conscience stir restlessly. "And I can find out shit for you. If Fixer talked to me some, he coulda maybe talked to somebody else. He didn't scare easy, you know. He come through the Urban Wars. But he was plenty scared when he called me that night. They didn't do him that way 'cause they was gonna take out a bank."
"Maybe not." But she knew there were some who would gut a tourist for a wrist unit and a pair of airboots. "I'll look into it. I can't promise any more than that. You find out anything that adds to this, you get in touch."
"Yeah, okay. Right." He grinned at her. "You'll find out who did Fixer that way. The other cops, they didn't know about the shit he was into, right? Right? So that's good data I give you."
"Yeah, good enough, Ratso." She rose, dug credits out of her pocket, and laid them on the table.
"You want me to run down the file on this floater?" Peabody asked when they stepped back outside.
"Yeah. Tomorrow's soon enough." As they climbed back up to her vehicle, Eve dug her hands into her pockets. "Do a run on Arlington, too. See what buildings, streets, citizens, businesses, that kind of thing have that name. If we find anything, we can turn it over to the investigating officer."
"This Fixer, did he weasel for anybody?"
"No." Eve slid behind the wheel. "He hated cops." For a moment she frowned, drummed her fingers. "Ratso's got a brain the size of a soybean, but he's got Fixer down. He didn't scare easy, and he was greedy. Kept that shop of his open seven days a week, worked it solo. Rumor was he had his old army-issue blaster under the counter, and a hunting knife. Used to brag he could fillet a man as quick and easy as he could a trout."
"Sounds like a real fun guy."
"He was tough and sour and would sooner piss in a cop's eye than look at one. If he wanted out of this deal he was in, it had to be way over the top. Nothing much would've put this old man off."
"What's that I hear?" Cocking her head, Peabody cupped a hand at her ear. "Oh, that must be the sound of you getting sucked in."
Eve hit the street with a bit more bounce than necessary. "Shut up, Peabody."
• • •
She missed dinner, which was only mildly irritating. The fact that she'd been right about the PA and the plea bargain on Lisbeth Cooke was downright infuriating. At least, Eve thought as she let herself into the house, the twit could have stuck for murder two a little longer.
Now, scant hours after Eve had arrested her in the wrongful death of one J. Clarence Branson, Lisbeth was out on bail and very likely sitting cozily in her own apartment with a glass of claret and a smug little smile on her face.
Summerset, Roarke's butler, slipped into the foyer to greet her with a baleful eye and a sniff of disapproval. "You are, once again, quite late."
"Yeah? And you are, once again, really ugly." She dropped her jacket over the newel post. "Difference is, tomorrow I might be on time."
He noted that she looked neither pale nor tired—two early signs of overwork. He would have suffered the torments of the damned before he would have admitted—even to himself—that the fact pleased him.
"Roarke," he said in frigid tones as she breezed by him and started up the steps, "is in the video room." Summerset's brow arched slightly. "Second level, fourth door on the right."
"I know where it is," she muttered, though it wasn't absolutely true. Still, she would have found it, even though the house was huge, a labyrinth of rooms and treasures and surprises.
The man didn't deny himself anything, she thought. Why should he? He'd been denied everything as a child, and he'd earned, one way or another, all the comforts he now commanded.
But even after a year, she wasn't really used to the house, the huge stone edifice with its juts and its towers and the lushly planted grounds. She wasn't used to the wealth, she supposed, and never would be. The kind of financial power that could command acres of polished wood, sparkling glass, art from other countries and centuries, along with the simple pleasures of soft fabrics, plush cushions.
The fact was, she'd married Roarke in spite of his money, in spite of how he'd earned a great portion of it. Fallen for him, she supposed, as much for his shadows as his lights.
She stepped into the room with its long, luxurious sofas, its enormous wall screens, and complex control center. There was a charmingly old-fashioned bar, gleaming cherry with stools of leather and brass. A carved cabinet with a rounded door she remembered vaguely held countless discs of the old videos her husband was so fond of.
The polished floor was layered with richly patterned rugs. A blazing fire—no computer-generated image for Roarke—filled the hearth of black marble and warmed the fat, sleeping cat curled in front of it. The scent of crackling wood merged with the spice of the fresh flowers spearing out of a copper urn nearly as tall as she and the fragrance of the candles glowing gold on the gleaming mantel.
On-screen, an elegant party was happening in black and white.
But it was the man, stretched out comfortably on the plush sofa, a glass of wine in his hand, who drew and commanded attention.
However romantic and sensual those old videos with their atmospheric shadows, their mysterious tones could be, the man who watched them was only more so. And he was in three glorious dimensions.
Indeed, he was dressed in black and white, the collar of his soft white shirt casually unbuttoned. At the end of long legs clad in dark trousers, his feet were bare. Why, she wondered, she should find that so ripely sexy, she couldn't say.
Still, it was his face that always drew her, that glorious face of an angel leaping into hell with the light of sin in his vivid blue eyes and a smile curving the poetic mouth. Sleek black hair framed it, falling nearly to his shoulders. A temptation for any woman's fingers and fists.
It h
it her now, as it often did, that she'd started falling for him the moment she'd seen that face. On her computer screen in her office, during a murder investigation. When he'd been on her short list of suspects.
A year ago, she realized. Only a year ago, when their lives had collided. And irrevocably changed.
Now, though she'd made no sound, came no closer, he turned his head. His eyes met hers. And he smiled. Her heart did the long, slow roll in her chest that continued to baffle and embarrass her.
"Hello, Lieutenant." He held out a hand in welcome.
She crossed to him, let their fingers link. "Hi. What are you watching?"
"Dark Victory. Bette Davis. She goes blind and dies in the end."
"Well, that sucks."
"But she does it so courageously." He gave her hand a little tug and urged her down on the sofa with him.
When she stretched out, when her body curved easily, naturally against his, he smiled. It had taken a great deal of time and a great deal of trust between them to persuade her to relax this way. To accept him and what he needed to give her.
His cop, he thought as he toyed with her hair, with her dark corners and terrifying courage. His wife, with her nerves and her needs.
He shifted slightly, content when she settled her head on his shoulder.
Since she'd gone that far, Eve decided it would be a pretty good idea to pull off her boots and to take a sip from his glass of wine. "How come you're watching an old video like this if you already know how it ends?"
"It's the getting there that counts. Did you have dinner?"
She made a negative sound, passed him back his wine. "I'll get something in a bit. I got hung up on a case that came in right before end of shift. Woman screwed a guy to the wall with his own drill."
Roarke swallowed wine, hard. "Literally, or metaphorically?"
She chuckled a little, enjoying the wine as they passed the glass back and forth. "Literally. Branson 8000."
"Ouch."
"You betcha."
"How do you know it was a woman?"
"Because after she pinned him to the wall, she called it in, then waited for us. They were lovers, he was playing around, so she drilled a two-foot steel rod through his cheating heart."
"Well, that'll teach him." Ireland cruised through his voice like whiskey and had her tilting her head to look up at him.
"She went for the heart. Me, I'd've screwed it through his balls. More to the point, don't you think?"
"Darling Eve, you're a very direct woman." He lowered his head to touch his lips to hers—one brush, then two.
It was her mouth that heated, her hands that reached up to fist in his thick, black hair and drag him closer. Take him deeper. Before he could shift to set the wine aside, she flipped over, knocking the glass to the floor as she straddled him.
He lifted a brow, eyes glinting, as he used his nimble fingers to unbutton her shirt. "I'd say we know how this one ends, too."
"Yeah." Grinning, she bent down to bite his bottom lip. "Let's see how we get there this time."
*** CHAPTER TWO ***
Eve scowled at her desk-link after she'd finished her conversation with the PA's office. They'd accepted a plea of man two on Lisbeth Cooke.
Second-degree manslaughter, she thought in disgust, for a woman who had cool-headedly, cold-bloodedly ended a life because a man couldn't control his dick.
She'd do a year at best in a minimum-security facility where she'd paint her nails and brush up on her fucking tennis serve. She'd very likely sign a disc and video deal on the story for a tidy sum, retire, and move to Martinique.
Eve knew she'd told Peabody to take what you could get, but even she hadn't expected it to be so little.
She damn well let the APA—and she'd told the spineless little prick in short, pithy terms—inform the next of kin why justice was too overworked to bother—why it had been in such a fucking hurry to deal it hadn't even waited to settle until she'd finished her report.
Setting her teeth, she rapped a fist against her computer in anticipation of its vagaries and called up the ME's report on Branson.
He'd been a healthy male of fifty-one, with no medical conditions. There were no marks or injuries to the body other than the nasty hole made by a whirling drill bit.
No drugs or alcohol in the system, she noted. No indication of recent sexual activity. Stomach contents indicated a simple last meal of carrot pasta and peas in a light cream sauce, cracked wheat bread, and herbal tea ingested less than an hour before time of death.
Pretty boring meal, she decided, for such a sneaky ladies' man.
And who, she asked herself, said he was a ladies' man but the women who'd killed him? In their damn rush to clear the dockets, they hadn't given her time to verify the motive for the pissy man two.
When it hit the media, and it would, she imagined a lot of dissatisfied sexual partners were going to be eyeing the tool closet.
Lover piss you off? she thought. Well, see how he likes a taste of the Branson 8000—the choice of professionals and serious hobbyists. Oh yeah, she thought Lisbeth Cooke could work up a pretty jazzy ad campaign using that angle. Sales would shoot right up.
Relationships had to be society's most baffling and brutal form of entertainment. Most could make an arena ball playoff game look like a ballroom dance. Still, lonely souls continued to seek them out, cling to them, fret and fight over them, and mourn the loss of them.
No wonder the world was full of whacks.
The glint of her wedding ring caught her eye and made her wince. That was different, she assured herself. She hadn't sought anything out. It had found her, taken her down like a hard tackle to the back of the knees. And if Roarke ever decided he wanted out, she'd probably let him live.
In a permanent body cast.
Disgusted all around, she spun back to her machine and began to hammer out the investigative report the PA's office apparently didn't want to bother with.
She glanced up as E-Detective Ian McNab poked a head in her doorway. His long golden hair was braided today, and only one iridescent hoop graced his earlobe. Obviously to make up for the conservative touch, he wore a thick sweater in screaming greens and blues that hung to the hips of black pipe-stem trousers. Shiny blue boots completed the look.
He grinned at her, green eyes bold in a pretty face. "Hey, Dallas, I finished checking out your victim's 'links and personal memo book. The stuff from his office just came in, but I figured you'd want what I've got so far."
"Then why isn't your report on my desk unit?" she asked dryly.
"Just thought I'd bring it over personally." With a friendly smile, he dropped a disc on her desk, then plopped his butt on the corner.
"Peabody's running data for me, McNab."
"Yeah." He moved his shoulders. "So, she's in her cube?"
"She's not interested in you, pal. Get a clue here."
He turned his hand over, examined his nails critically. "Who says I'm interested in her? She still seeing Monroe, or what?"
"We don't talk about it."
His eyes met hers briefly, and they shared a moment of the vague disapproval neither of them liked to show for Peabody's continued involvement with a slick if appealing licensed companion. "Just curious, that's all."
"So ask her yourself." And report back to me, she added silently.
"I do." He grinned again. "Gives her a chance to snarl at me. She's got great teeth."
He got up, paced around Eve's cramped box of an office. They both would have been surprised to realize their thoughts on relationships were, at that moment, running on parallel lines.
McNab's hot date with an off-planet flight consultant had cooled and soured the night before. She'd bored him, he thought now, which should have been impossible as she'd put her truly magnificent breasts on display in something sheer and silver.
He hadn't been able to work up any enthusiasm because his thoughts had continued to drift to the way a certain prickly cop looked in her starched
uniform.
What the hell did she wear under that thing? he wondered now, as he had unfortunately wondered the night before. That speculation had caused him to end the evening early, annoying the flight consultant so that when he came to his senses—as he was sure he would—he'd never get another shot at those beautiful breasts.
He was, he decided, spending too many nights home alone, watching the screen.
Which reminded him.
"Hey, I caught Mavis's video on-screen last night. Frigid."
"Yeah, it's pretty great." Eve thought of her friend; even now on her first tour to promote her recording disc for Roarke's entertainment arm, singing her butt off in Atlanta. Mavis Freestone, Eve thought sentimentally, was a long way from shrieking her lungs out for the zoned and the glazed at dives like the Blue Squirrel.
"The disc is starting to take off. Roarke thinks it'll make the top twenty next week."
McNab jingled credit chips in his pocket. "And we knew her when, right?"
He was stalling, Eve thought, and she was letting him. "I think Roarke's planning a party or something once she gets back."
"Yeah? Great." Then he perked up at the unmistakable sound of police-issue shoes slapping worn linoleum. McNab had his hands in his pockets and a look of sheer disinterest on his face when Peabody came through the door.
"NJPSD came through with—" She broke off, scowled. "What do you want, McNab?"
"Multiple orgasms, but you guys copped that one out of the goodie bag."
A laugh tried to bubble into her throat, but Peabody controlled it. "The lieutenant doesn't have time for your pitiful jokes."
"Actually, the lieutenant kind of liked that one," Eve said, then rolled her eyes when Peabody glared at her. "Take off, McNab, play period's over."
"Just thought you'd be interested," he continued, "that in running the 'links and memo books of the deceased, no calls, incoming and outgoing, were transmitted to a female other than his assailant or his office staff. No records of appointments appear in his log for liaisons," he said, rolling out the word with a smirk for Peabody, "other than those involving Lisbeth Cooke—who he often refers to as Lissy my love."