by J. D. Robb
He had solid tech skills and a knowledge of chemistry. Or again, access to that knowledge and skill.
He was sexually twisted. Perhaps inadequate, even impotent under normal circumstances. He’d be single, she decided as she approached the gates of home. Unlikely to have had any long-term or healthy relationships in his past. Nor had he been looking for one. He’d wanted complete control. The romantic trappings had been for his benefit, not hers.
An illusion, she decided, his fantasy. So that he could envision himself as lover.
Now that he’d achieved that control, he would do one of two things. He’d hole up in fear and guilt over what he’d done. Or he’d start hunting again.
Predators, in Eve’s experience, rarely stopped at one.
The house loomed into view, with all its fanciful and elegant angles softened by twilight. Lights glowed richly against too many windows to count. Ornamental trees and shrubs she couldn’t name were in wild bloom, perfuming the air so delicately, so completely, you could almost forget you were in the city.
Then again, sometimes she thought of this strange and perfect space behind stone walls and iron gates as its own country. She just happened to live in it.
She’d come to love the house. Even a year before she wouldn’t have believed that possible. She’d admired it, certainly. Been both intimidated and fascinated by its sheer beauty, its amazing warren of rooms and treasures. But the love had caught her, and held her. Just as love for the man who owned it had caught her. Had held her.
Knowing he wasn’t inside tempted her to turn around and drive away again. She could spend the night at Central.
Because the idea depressed her, because it reminded her of what she might have done before her life had opened to Roarke, she pulled to a stop in front of the house.
She climbed the old stone steps, pulled open the grand front door, and stepped out of the dusk into the glamorous light of the entrance foyer.
And Summerset, a skinny crow in his habitual black, stood waiting. His stony face matched his stony voice.
“Lieutenant. You left the premises in the middle of the night and failed to inform me of your schedule or your expected return.”
“Gee, Dad, am I grounded?”
Because it would irritate him, and irritating Roarke’s majordomo was one of life’s guaranteed pleasures, she stripped off her jacket and tossed it on the polished newel of the main staircase.
Because it would irritate her, and irritating Roarke’s cop was one of Summerset’s pleasures, he lifted the scarred leather jacket with two thin fingers. “Informing me of your comings and goings is a basic courtesy, which naturally you’re incapable of understanding.”
“Ice. We understand each other. Anyway, I was out partying all night. You know, while the cat’s away.” She wanted to ask, and couldn’t bring herself to ask, if he knew when Roarke was expected back.
He’d know, she thought as she started upstairs. He knew every fucking thing. She could call Roarke herself, but that would make her feel nearly as stupid. Hadn’t she talked to him twenty-four hours ago? Hadn’t he said he hoped to wrap things up and be home in another couple of days?
She walked into the bedroom, thought about a shower, thought about a meal. And decided she wasn’t in the mood for either. Better to go up to her office, run some probabilities, read through her case notes. She removed her weapon harness, rolled her shoulders. And realized work wasn’t the answer either.
What she needed was some thinking time.
It was a rare thing for her to go up to the roof garden. She didn’t like heights. But despite the sprawling space of the house, being inside made her feel closed in. And maybe the air would clear her head.
She opened the dome so starlight sprinkled down on the dwarf trees, the lush blooms that speared and spilled out of pots. A fountain gurgled into a pool where exotic fish flashed like wet jewels.
She took her time walking to the wall, carved with winged fairies, that circled this section of the roof.
They’d entertained up here a few times, she remembered. For a man in Roarke’s position, entertaining was a job. Though, for reasons that escaped her, it was something he actually enjoyed.
She couldn’t recall ever coming up here alone before, or for that matter, ever coming up with just Roarke. And she wondered who the hell tended the masses of flowers and plants, fed the fish, kept the tiles gleaming, made certain the seats and tables and statuary were clean.
It was rare to see any sort of servant, human or droid, in the house other than Summerset. But then, she’d learned that people who held great wealth, great power, could easily command silent and nearly invisible armies to handle the pesky details of life.
Despite that wealth and that power, Roarke had gone personally to handle the final details of a friend’s death.
And she spent her days handling the details of the deaths of strangers.
She let her mind clear, then filled it with Bryna Bankhead.
Young, eager, romantic. Organized. She’d surrounded herself with attractive things displayed in an attractive manner. Her closet had been full of stylish clothes, with everything hung neatly.
Both the dress and the shoes she’d worn on her fatal date had been new, with the debits efficiently listed in her log book. She’d gotten a manicure and had a facial as well, had put on pretty earrings purchased the afternoon of her date.
A very female woman, Eve mused. One who read and enjoyed poetry.
Which meant the killer had hunted the young, the romantic, the particularly female.
She had two bottles of wine in her kitchen, one white, one red. And neither approaching the label or price range of the bottle on the table. Had he brought it with him, in his black leather bag, along with the illegals, the rose petals, the candles?
She’d kept condoms in her goodie drawer, but the killer hadn’t used one. Bryna had been too high on illegals to insist on such defenses, which meant the killer hadn’t been concerned about protection, or leaving DNA evidence.
Because, had she lived, she wouldn’t have been able to identify him by description. More, Eve thought, she wouldn’t have been sure what had happened. They’d had drinks in public, where, according to the server Eve had interviewed that evening, she had been very cozy with her date. Hand-holding, kisses, quiet laughter, long, soulful looks. The server, according to his statement, had assumed they were lovers.
The security cameras would not only follow that theme but add to it. She’d not only let him into her apartment, she’d pulled him inside.
That had been clever of him, Eve thought now. Waiting, letting her make the move. For the record.
If she’d lived, he’d have gotten away clean.
She wondered now if he’d done it before.
No, no. She began to pace along the wall. If he had, why would he make the mistake of overdosing her? It seemed like a first time. But she’d run a probability on that.
If there were another it was another channel to explore, another route to tracking him. To stopping him.
Pulling out her memo book, she plugged in key words.
Chat rooms
Poetry
Rare, expensive illegals
Wig, cosmetic enhancements
Pink roses
Pinot Noir ’49
Sexual deviant
Tech skills
Chemistry knowledge
After scanning her own words, she tucked the book back in her pocket. Maybe she’d have that shower, that meal, and work after all.
And turning, she saw Roarke.
It didn’t matter that they’d been together more than a year. It occurred to her that she would, very likely, have this leap of heart, this dazzling rush, every time she saw him for the rest of her life.
Eventually, it might stop embarrassing her.
He looked like something fashioned from fantasy. The long, rangy body clad in black, would have looked just as natural in a billowing cape or tarnished armor.
> His face, framed by that silky sweep of black hair, would have suited either poet or warrior with its chiseled bones and full sensuous mouth. His eyes, that wild and wonderful blue, still had the power to weaken her knees.
No, she realized, it would never stop embarrassing her.
It would never stop thrilling her.
“You’re back early.”
“A bit. Hello, Lieutenant.”
At the sound of his voice, that subtle and rich lilt of Ireland, everything inside her tumbled. Then he smiled, just the faintest curve of his lips, and she took a step toward him. By the second she was running.
He caught her halfway, lifted her right off her feet even as his mouth found hers.
There was heat, one quick flash, and warmth beneath it, a spreading, settled warmth that reached down to the marrow.
Home, he thought as the taste of her coated over the grief and fatigue of the last days. Home at last.
“You failed to inform me of your schedule,” she said in a reasonably accurate mimic of Summerset. “Now I guess I have to cancel the hot date I lined up with the lap-dancing twins.”
“Ah, Lars and Sven. I’ve heard they’re very inventive.” He rested his cheek against hers as he set her on her feet again. “What are you doing up here?”
“I don’t know exactly. Couldn’t settle, wanted air.” She eased back to study his face. “You okay?”
“Yes.”
But she angled her head, took his face in her hands. “Are you okay?” she repeated.
“It was difficult. More than I expected it to be. I thought I’d put it away.”
“He was your friend. Whatever else, he was your friend.”
“One who died so I didn’t. I’ve resolved that.” He laid his brow on hers. “Or thought I had. This wake Brian wanted, the gathering of so many from my past, then seeing where Mick had been put in the ground . . . it was difficult.”
“I should have gone with you.”
He smiled a little. “Some of the mourners might have been a little uneasy with a cop in the midst. Even my cop. Still, I’ve a message from Brian for you. As he stood behind his bar at the Penny Pig he asked that I tell you when you’ve come to your senses and shed yourself of the likes of me, he’ll be waiting for you.”
“It’s always good to have backup. You have dinner?”
“Not yet, no.”
“Why don’t we try a little role reversal? I’ll make you eat, sneak a soother in your food, then tuck you into bed.”
“You’ve shadows under your eyes, so it seems to me you’re the one in need of food and bed. Summerset said you were out all night.”
“Summerset is a big, fat tattletale. I caught a case last night.”
He feathered his long fingers through her hair, letting all those shades of brown and blonde spill through. “Want to tell me about it?”
She could have said no, and he’d have wheedled it out of her. “Later.” She eased back into his arms, held on.
“I missed you, Eve. Missed holding you like this. Missed the smell of you, the taste.”
“You could make up for it.” She turned her head so that her lips skimmed over his jaw.
“I intend to.”
“Intentions are easy.” Now she used her teeth. “I prefer action. Right here, right now.”
He let her back him toward a long, padded chaise. “What about Lars and Sven?”
“I’ll take care of them later.”
He grinned, spun her around so she hit the chaise first. “I think you’re going to be much too tired for a lap dance.”
“I don’t know. I’m feeling pretty energetic.” She shifted to cradle him between her thighs. And her eyebrows winged up. “Hey, you, too.”
“I seem to have caught my second wind.” He opened the first button on her shirt, paused. “Isn’t this my shirt?”
She winced before she could stop herself. “So?”
“So.” Touched, amused, he dispatched the rest of the buttons. “I’m afraid I’ll have to have it back.”
“Yeah, like you don’t already have about five hundred . . .” She trailed off when his fingers traced over her breasts. “Okay, if you want to be that way about it.”
“I do.” He touched his lips to hers.
He sank into her, layer by layer. The taste of her mouth, her skin, and the texture of both, aroused, soothed, seduced. The shape of her—the long legs, the narrow torso, the small, firm breasts—were an unending delight.
She tugged at the shirts, the one he wore, the one she’d borrowed, and flesh met flesh. She arched; he burrowed.
The night air cooled around them, but blood heated. She sighed as their mouths met again, as lips parted, as tongues slicked in a long wet kiss that slipped from gentle to urgent.
And her sigh was a moan as his mouth began to move restlessly down her body.
More. All. Everything, he thought. Then stopped thinking.
Her throat, her shoulders, the lines and curves of them. He fed on them, then hungrily on her breasts until it seemed he fed on her heart as well.
Shuddering, she bowed to him, offering more while her hands streaked over him to take.
He made her want more than she’d known there was to have. It was always the same. And when his mouth, his hands stroked down her, she gripped the side of the chaise and rode the ferocious storm of pleasure.
She saw the stars wheeling in the sky overhead, felt others explode inside her body. She went limp, she went liquid, and moved against him now in a slow, sinuous rhythm.
Urgency mellowed toward tenderness. A caress, a whisper, a gentle shift, body to body.
Her fingers stroked through his hair. Her lips found the curve of his throat, nuzzling against the pulse that beat for her. When he slipped inside her, she opened her eyes to find him watching her.
No one, she thought as the breath trembled through her lips, no one had ever looked at her as he did. In a way that told her she was the center.
She rose to him, fell away, rose again in a dance that was both patient and pure. The rhythm stayed slow, silky and slow as their lips met again.
She heard, felt him say her name. “Eve.”
She wrapped her arms around him, held him close, as they slipped home together.
He unearthed robes from somewhere. Eve sometimes wondered if he had some factory of silkworms buried in the house as he never seemed to run out of silk robes. These were black and just weighty enough to keep a body comfortable on a warm spring night while dining alfresco.
She decided it was hard to beat eating rare steak, from actual cows, drinking a full-bodied red wine at a candle-lit table on the roof garden. And all this after stupendous sex.
“It’s a pretty good deal,” she said between bites.
“What is?”
“Having you back. No fun having a fancy dinner by yourself.”
“There’s always Summerset.”
“Now you’re going to spoil my appetite.”
He watched her plow through the steak. “I think not. Haven’t you eaten today?”
“I had a doughnut, and don’t start. What’s Pinot Noir forty-nine run?”
“What label?” he retorted just as casually as she had asked.
“Ahh, shit.” She closed her eyes until she had the image of the bottle in her head. “Maison de Lac.”
“Excellent choice. About five hundred a bottle. I’d have to check to be certain, but that’s close.”
“One of yours?”
“Yes. Why?”
“It’s one of the murder weapons. Do you own the apartment building on Tenth Street?”
“Which apartment building on Tenth Street?”
She hissed, rifled through her mental files, and gave him the address.
“I don’t believe I do.” He smiled easily. “Now how did I miss that one?”
“Very funny. Well, it’s nice to know I can catch a murder someplace in the city you don’t own.”
“How is a five-hundred-
dollar bottle of very nice wine used as a murder weapon? Poison?”
“In a way.” She debated about five seconds, then told him.
“He courts her through e-mail,” Roarke said. “Romances her with poetry, then slips two of the most despicable illegals ever devised into her drink.”
“Drinks,” Eve corrected. “He was plying her through the evening.”
“And sets the stage—romance, seduction—and uses her. Uses her up,” he said softly. “All the while telling himself, I’d think, that she was enjoying it. That it wasn’t rape, but again, seduction, romance. Nonviolent, erotic, and mutually satisfying.”
Eve set down her fork. “Why do you say that?”
“You said he was disguised. Once he was in her apartment, and she was already under the influence, he could have done what he wanted with her. If he’d wanted to hurt her, if violence was part of his turn-on, he could have done so. But he added candlelight, music, flowers. And gave her a drug designed to make her aggressive and needy sexually. The illusion that she was not only willing, but passionate. Did he need that for his ego, to be able to perform physically? Or both?”
“That’s good. That’s good,” she said again with a nod. “I haven’t been thinking enough like a guy. The disguise is part of the seduction, too. The expensive clothes, the hair and makeup. He wanted to look like . . .”
She stopped, stared at the exceptional specimen across from her.
“Oh shit, he wanted to look like you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Not you you—he went for really long, curly hair and green eyes. But you as a type. The perfect fantasy.”
“Darling, you’ll embarrass me.”
“Fat chance. What I’m saying is the look was part of his fantasy, too. He wants to be the great lover, the irresistible image. How he looks and what he is, or pretends to be. Rich, traveled, well-read, sophisticated yet hopelessly romantic at the core. There’s a certain type of woman who’s prime target for that kind.”
“But not you, Lieutenant,” he said with a smile.
“I just married you for the sex.” She picked up her fork again. “And the regular servings of red meat. Which brings me to a little sidebar here. Louise Dimatto lives in the same apartment building.”