by J. D. Robb
As the Down and Dirty was a strip joint with as much class as a rabid squirrel, Eve figured they’d be making one hell of a splash arriving in a mile-long limo, with uniformed driver. She had to be grateful the thing was built like an armored tank.
She stripped off her weapon harness, strapped on an ankle holster, checked her smaller, off-duty clutch piece to be certain it was fully charged. For grooming purposes, she dragged her fingers through her hair and considered the job done.
She strode back out of the bedroom, then came up short when she saw Sam standing in the hall. “I didn’t want to disturb you,” he began. “But you have a headache. I felt it,” he explained before she could speak. “I can help you with it.”
“It’s okay. It’s nothing.”
“I hate to see anything in pain.” His expression was soft with compassion. “It’ll only take a minute.”
“I don’t like doing chemicals.”
Now he smiled. “I don’t blame you. I’m a sensitive.” He stepped toward her. “With a touch of the empath. It’s here, isn’t it?” He skimmed a fingertip down the center of her forehead, but didn’t touch her. “And behind your eyes. It’ll only get worse if you go out to a noisy club without tending it. I won’t hurt you.”
His voice was soothing and compelling. Even as she shook her head, he continued to speak, and drew her gently in.
“It’s just a matter of touch, of concentration. Close your eyes, try to relax. Think of something else. You went to Chicago today.”
“Yeah.” Her lids drooped closed as he brushed that fingertip over her brow. “To interview people at the prison.”
“All that violent and conflicting energy. No wonder you have a headache.”
His fingertips fluttered against her closed lids. Warmth. His voice murmured. Comfort. No man had ever offered her both of those things, but for Roarke. She let herself drift; it was almost impossible not to. And the thought passed through her head, the wonder of what it would be like to have a man, a father, give kindness instead of pain.
Sam drew the ache out, into his fingertips, his fingers, into his palm. It throbbed there, dully, pulsed like an echo in his forehead, before he let it spread and dissipate.
As it faded, it felt another, sharper pain. Deeper, it cut fast and violent into his center. With it, he had a flash. And saw into her mind, her thoughts, her memory, before he broke the link and blocked.
“Wow.” She swayed a little from the sudden lack of support, though she hadn’t been aware of leaning. She was aware that the headache was gone, and in its place a sensation of calm well-being. “Better than any damn blocker,” she began as she opened her eyes.
He was staring at her, his face drained of color, full of shock and sorrow. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“What? What’s wrong? Does that deal make you sick?” She reached out to take his arm, but he gripped her hand. And now his were cold as winter.
“Eve, I never intended—such a strong mind. I should’ve realized. I was focused on relieving the pain. It’s necessary to lower the block, very briefly, but I do light healing as a matter of course, and never intrude. I never meant to.”
She stiffened. “What do you mean, intrude?”
“I didn’t look, I promise you. It’s against everything I believe to look into another person without express invitation. But you opened, and the image was there before I could block it. From your childhood.” He saw from her face she understood him. “I’m so very sorry.”
“You looked in my head?”
“No. But I saw. And seeing, however unintentional, is still a betrayal of trust.”
She felt stripped and raw. Stepped back from him. “That’s private.”
“Yes, very private. I don’t know what I can do to make this up to you, but—”
“You forget what you saw,” she snapped. “And you don’t talk about it. Ever. To anyone.”
“You have my word I won’t speak of it. Eve, if you want Phoebe and me to go—”
“I don’t give a damn what you do. Just stay out of my head. Stay the hell out of my head.” She strode away, had to force herself not to run. Instead she fought to compose herself before she went back down, into the parlor.
She couldn’t think of anything she wanted more now than an hour at the D and D where she could smother out her own thoughts in horrible music played at a level to damage eardrums, to drink bad booze until misery was sunken and drowned.
Duty won out, and she only got half-drunk, which took some work in the single hour she’d allowed herself. She’d avoided Sam, sitting as far away from him as possible on the wild and noisy ride downtown, then making sure she was at the opposite end of the table from him during the stint at the club.
He’d made it easy for her, and kept his distance.
Even when Mavis had insisted everybody dance with everybody else, they’d bypassed each other. But neither that nor the burn of bad brew had improved her mood.
And the mood hadn’t been lost on Roarke. He waited until they were home, alone, as the rest of the party had remained downtown. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Got a lot on my mind.”
“You often do, but it doesn’t encourage you to drink with the express purpose of getting piss-faced.”
“I’m not piss-faced. I stopped halfway.” But her balance wasn’t quite what it had been, and she stumbled on the bottom step going upstairs. “Mostly halfway. What’s the matter, you’ve seen me half-drunk before.”
“Not when you have work yet, and not when you’re upset.” He took her arm to steady her.
“Back off. I don’t need more people poking at my fucking psyche.”
He recognized the combative tone in her voice. He didn’t mind a fight. He’d get to the bottom of things quicker that way. “Since you’re my wife, I believe I have a legal right to poke at your psyche, among other things.”
“Don’t say my wife in that smug-ass tone. You know I hate that.”
“I do, yes, and I so enjoy it. What went on between you and Sam before we left?”
“Get outta my face. I got work.”
“I’m not in your face as yet. What went on?” he repeated, spacing each word carefully just before he pushed her up against the wall. “And now, Lieutenant, I’m in your face.”
“We had a quickie on the bedroom floor. So what?”
“Fast sex doesn’t usually make a man look so unhappy. And I happen to know it doesn’t make you vile-tempered. But we can check that theory if you like.” He hooked a hand in the waistband of her trousers, yanked, and popped the button.
She pivoted, but her reflexes were off. The elbow jab missed, and she ended up flat against the wall again. “I don’t want to be touched right now. I don’t want anyone’s hands on me. Do you get it?”
He framed her face with them. “What happened?”
“He did some sort of mojo with the headache.” She spat it out. “And while he was in there, he got a look at me. When I was a kid. He saw.”
“Ah, Eve.” He drew her in, kept drawing her in even when she struggled.
“Get off me. Damn it. Damn you.”
“I’ll get them a hotel room. I’ll get them out tonight.”
“It doesn’t matter if you get them a room on the fucking moon. He knows.” Somehow she’d stopped pushing him away and was holding on. “It doesn’t matter that he didn’t do it on purpose. It doesn’t matter that he’s sorry.” Feeling more sick than drunk now, she dropped her head on Roarke’s shoulder. “He knows, and nothing changes that.”
“Why does it shame you? You were a child. An innocent child. How many innocents have you stood for?” He eased her face up so their eyes met. “And how many more before you’re done? Yet there’s still a part of you that steps back from yourself, and those who would feel for the child you were.”
“It’s my private business.”
“Do you worry he won’t honor that?”
“No.” She let out a w
eary sigh. “No. He gave his word. Guy like that saws his tongue off with a rusty knife before he breaks his word. But he knows, and when he looks at me—”
“He’ll see his daughter’s friend. An amazing woman. He’ll see what you too often forget to see when you look in the mirror. Courage.”
She eased away now. “Lot of people making noises about how brave I am today.”
“Well then, why don’t you be brave enough to tell me the rest of it. You already had trouble on your mind when you walked in the door this evening.”
“Yeah, I did. We need to talk, but I have to go throw up first.”
“As long as we have our priorities straight. Come on then.” He slipped an arm around her. “I’ll hold your head.”
She sicked up the worst of the booze, downed without much protest, the mixture Roarke pushed on her when she was finished. She took a blistering shower, dressed in loose pants and a muscle shirt, and felt human again by the time they regrouped in her office. She added one final cure, black coffee, then filled him in on her visit to Dockport.
“You’re thinking by Dallas dude, she means me.”
“It’s a strong possibility, one I passed by Mira on the way home. She agrees with me. I’m the only woman who had a part in taking her down, and that makes me her competition. No, more like her opposition. She comes back to my turf, kills here, and shows me she’s back and ready to rumble. But she takes you out, she beats me. Whatever happens in the battles before or after, she wins the war.”
“A reasonable theory, and an interesting one.” He swirled brandy. Unlike the rest of the group, he hadn’t touched a drink at the D and D. “I wonder how she expects to get through my security, to get close enough to me to cause me any harm.”
“Roarke—”
He smiled, leaned in as she had. “Eve.”
“Cut it out. Look, I know you’ve got ace security, the best money can buy. I know your instincts are better yet. But she’s smart, she’s thorough, and she’s very, very good at what she does.”
“So are you. Which,” he continued, “would add another edge for her. How to kill me when I’m so completely, even intimately protected.”
“You’ll add to your security,” she said briskly. “We’ll work out the logistics of that, get some input from Feeney. I’ll put cops on you, mix some in with your people at your midtown office. I’ll need to know your schedule, down to the last detail so I can have men planted wherever you have meetings set up. If you’re going out of the city, using any transpo, it needs to be scanned and swept first—coming and going.”
He sat back, sipped his brandy. “We both know I’m not going around with cops on my heels.”
“You’d prefer protective custody and me keeping you locked in this house?”
He angled his head. “You know my lawyers will tear any attempt at that into tiny shreds, so let’s save both of us the time and trouble.”
“You hard-headed son of a bitch. I’ll chew your lawyers up and spit them back out on your thousand-dollar shoes.”
“You can try.”
She sprang to her feet. “I pick up that ’link, I’m getting authorization to lock you up, at a location I see fit, and slap a goddamn bracelet on your wrist until I’m sure your ass is safe.”
He got to his feet as well. “Then I pick up the ’link, make my call, and have a restraining order trumping your bloody authorization before it’s printed. I won’t be caged, Eve, not by you or anyone. And I won’t hide or run, so put your considerable temper and energies into tracking your woman, and I’ll see to my own ass very well.”
“It’s not just your ass anymore. It belongs to me, too. Goddamn it, I love you.”
“And I love you right back.” As his temper ebbed, he laid his hands on her shoulders. “Eve, I’ll have a care. I promise you.”
She shrugged his hands off, paced away. “I knew you wouldn’t do it my way.”
“Do you think I’d be where I am if every time there’s a threat I bolt into some safe house? I face what comes at me. I deal with it. I deal with it a bit different than I once did.”
“I know. I know you’re more savvy about security than anyone, but will you let Feeney look things over?”
“I’ve no problem with that.”
“I’m asking for you to give me your schedule, where you’ll be, when and with who. I won’t throw cops at you.” She turned back now. “You’d make them and ditch them anyway. But I’d feel better if I knew.”
“I’ll copy you.”
“Okay. I’m going to have to go to Dallas.” She said it very fast, as if the words might burn her tongue. “I’m going to need to talk to the step-father. I’m not sure when I can manage it, but within the next two days. She’ll be moving in on someone else before much longer. He could be a target, too. You know, Texas, cowboys. Maybe that’s the sheep angle, too. They’ve got sheep in Texas, I think. I—”
He’d come to her while she’d rambled, and cut her off by gently taking her arms. “I’ll go with you. You won’t do this without me.”
“I don’t think I could.” She relaxed deliberately, muscle by muscle. “I’m okay. I’ve got work.”
Chapter 9
Eve spent hours doing probabilities, running scans on names that linked to sheep and cowboy.
While the computer worked, she read over the Pettibone file, hoping she’d missed something, anything that indicated a more direct link between the killer and her victim.
All she found was a nice, middle-aged man, well-loved by his family, well-liked by his friends, who’d run a successful business in a straightforward, honest manner.
Nor could she link anyone else. There was no evidence that either of the victim’s wives or his children or the spouses of his children knew or had known Julianna Dunne, and no motive she could find that leaned toward any of them arranging a murder.
The two wives might have been totally different types, but they had one patch of common ground. An obvious affection for Walter C. Pettibone.
As far as the data, the evidence, and the probability scans indicated, Julianna had picked Pettibone out of a hat. And that canny capriciousness meant the next target could be one of millions.
She left the computer sorting names when she went to bed, and was up at six A.M. going over it all again.
“You’ll wear yourself out again, Lieutenant.”
She looked over to where Roarke stood, already dressed, already perfect. She’d yet to so much as brush her teeth.
“No, I’m fine. I got a solid five. I’m working with sheep.” She gestured toward the wall screen. “You got any clue how many names have something to do with stupid sheep?”
“Other than the variations that include the syllable sheep itself? Lamb, Shepherd, Ram, Mutton, Ewes—”
“Shut up.”
He grinned and came into her office, offered her one of the mugs of coffee he held. “And, of course, countless variations on those and others.”
“And it doesn’t have to be a name. Could be a job, the way he looks. Christ, I got this angle from a jonesing funky junkie named Loopy.”
“Still there’s a logic to it. The bone man, the sheep man. I’d say you’re on the right track.”
“Big fricking track. Even cutting it to multiple married males from fifty to seventy-five, her usual target area, I’ve got tens of thousands just in the metropolitan area. I can cut that back again by financial worth, but it’s still too many to cover.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Cutting it down again by following the theory that Pettibone was considered eight to ten years back. If her next mark was in the running back then, I look at men who were successfully established in the city ten years ago. Then I hope to hell Julianna’s not in a hurry.”
She ordered the computer to start a new listing using that criteria, then took a casual sip of coffee. “What’ve you got going today?”
He took a disc out of his pocket. “My schedule for the next five days. You’l
l be updated on any changes to it.”
“Thanks.” She took it, then looked up at him. “Thanks,” she repeated. “Roarke, I shouldn’t have taken it all out on you last night. But you’re so damn handy.”
“It’s all right. The next time you get drunk and surly, I’ll just slap you around.”
“I guess that’s fair.” She eased back when he leaned in. “I haven’t cleaned up yet. I was going to catch a quick workout while the lists are compiling.”
“A workout sounds perfect.”
“You’re already dressed,” she said when he took her hand and started for the elevator.
“The brilliant thing about clothes is you can put them on and take them off as often as you like.” He turned, tugged up her sweatshirt when they were in the elevator. “See?”
“We’ve got house guests wandering all over the place,” she reminded him.
“So, we’ll lock the door.” His clever hands trailed up and closed over her breasts. “And have a quick, private workout.”
“Good thinking.”
While Eve was finishing off a very satisfying exercise program with a swim, Henry Mouton strode across the polished marble floors of Mouton, Carlston, and Fitch, attorneys at law.
He was sixty-two, film-star handsome athletically trim, and one of the premier corporate attorneys on the East Coast.
He walked with purpose. Lived with purpose. In the thirty-odd years he’d been a lawyer, he had arrived at his office at precisely seven o’clock, five days a week. That routine hadn’t altered when he’d established his own firm twenty-three years ago.
Self-made men, Henry liked to say, were works in progress. And work was the key word.
He loved his, loved climbing the slippery, tangled vine of the law.
He approached his life the same way he approached his work. With dedication and routine. He maintained his health, his body, and his mind with habitual exercise, a good diet, and exposure to culture. He vacationed twice yearly, for precisely two weeks in each locale. In February, he selected a warm weather clime, and in August earmarked an interesting location where museums, galleries, and theater would be offered in abundance.