by J. D. Robb
He’d stolen, he’d cheated, he’d schemed. And though he’d never taken a life without cause, he’d killed. He’d built a name, then a business, then an industry. Then a kind of world, he supposed.
He’d traveled and absorbed. He’d learned. And the boy who’d lived his life by wit and guile, by nimble fingers and quick feet became a man of wealth and power. A man who owned whatever he damn well wanted to own and had danced skillfully on the dark side of the law when it suited him.
He’d had women, and some he’d cared for a great deal. But he’d been alone. He hadn’t known how much alone until Eve. She’d shown him his own heart. It might have taken her longer to see it for herself, but she’d shown it to him.
And the world he’d built, the man who’d lived in it, had changed forever.
In a matter of hours, they would go back and face her past, the horrors of it. Together.
From his console came a quick beeping indicating the security gate was open. He glanced at the panel, saw the identification for Eve’s police vehicle.
Then he walked to the window to watch her come home.
Eve saw the two figures beneath the arching branches of one of the weeping trees as she rounded the first curve toward the house. Most of their bodies were sheltered by the ripe green leaves and fading blossoms.
She punched the accelerator, and her weapon was in her hand before she saw who they were, and what they were doing.
Peabody’s parents stood under those fragrant limbs locked in a passionate embrace.
Embarrassed amusement had her shoving her weapon back in its harness, and averting her eyes as she continued down the drive. She parked at the base of the steps because it served two purposes. It was convenient, and Summerset hated it. But her hopes that everyone would pretend that they hadn’t seen everyone else were dashed as Sam and Phoebe strolled toward her, holding hands.
Eve stuck hers in her pockets. “How’s it going?”
“A gorgeous day.”
Phoebe’s lips curved, but her gaze was steady and direct and made the back of Eve’s neck itch. Deliberately Eve focused on a point in the center of Phoebe’s forehead.
Don’t look in her eyes, she reminded herself. Don’t make direct visual contact.
“Sam and I were taking advantage of it.” Phoebe shook back her hair and it tinkled musically from the silver rings woven through it. “I saw your interview with Nadine Furst of Channel 75 on the entertainment screen before I came out. You looked very strong and determined.”
“I am determined.”
“And strong. Roarke tells us the two of you need to go out of town tomorrow.”
“Yeah. It’s case-related,” Eve replied uneasily, avoiding looking at Sam.
“Is there anything we can do for you here while you’re gone?”
“No, thanks. Not unless you run into Julianna Dunne and want to make a citizen’s arrest.”
“I think we’ll leave that to you and Delia. I need to check on something in the greenhouse. Sam, talk Eve into finishing your walk with you.”
Before either of them could speak, Phoebe was gliding off with a swish of flowing, flowered skirts.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said immediately. “She knows there’s some kind of tension. I didn’t say anything to her.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not okay.” For the first time since she’d known him, Eve heard temper in his voice, saw it on his face as he turned to her. “I’m making you uncomfortable and upset in your own home. You and Roarke opened that home to us, and I abused the privilege. I was about to work up to talking Phoebe into moving to a hotel for our last few days, but you drove up . . .”
He trailed into silence, and like Eve, stuck his hands in his pockets as if he didn’t know what else to do with them.
They stood like that a moment, staring out at the lawn, at the color and the green. She was no sensitive, but Eve thought the misery pumping off the man would have dented a steel wall.
“Look, let’s just put it away. It’s a couple of days, and I’m not here half the time anyway.”
“I have a code,” he said quietly. “Part of it’s Free-Ageism, part of it’s simply the way I believe a life should be led. To cherish family, to do good work. To enjoy the time we’re given in this lifetime, and to try as best as we’re able to cause no harm. With the gift I was given comes another responsibility, another code. To respect, always, the privacy and the well-being of others. Never to use what I’ve been given for my own gain, my own amusement or curiosity, or to cause harm. That’s what I did.”
Eve let out a heavy sigh. He’d hit her exactly where she lived. “I understand codes. Living by them, living up to them. I also understand mistakes. I know you didn’t do it on purpose, and you’d probably bite off your own tongue before you discussed this with anyone but me. But I barely know you, and it’s hard having someone who’s practically a stranger look at me and see that kind of . . . ugliness.”
“Do you think I see ugliness when I look at you?” His hand came out of his pocket, started to reach for her, then retreated. “I don’t. I saw the ugliness of a memory, the horror no child should know exists much less experience. I’m not a violent man, by nature or creed, but I wish I could . . .”
He trailed off, his face flushed with fury, the hand at his side balled into a fist that looked oddly capable.
“I wish I could do what any father should do.” He steadied himself, opened his fist again. “But when I look at you I see strength and courage and purpose beyond anything I’ve ever known. I see my daughter’s friend, a woman I trust with my child’s life. I know you’re going back there tomorrow. Roarke said you were going to Dallas. I’ll pray for you.”
She stared at him. “Does anyone manage to stay pissed-off at you?”
His smile was slow, tentative. “Phoebe manages it for short spaces of time.”
“Then she’s tougher than she looks. We’ll put it away,” she said, and held out a hand.
When she walked inside, she saw Summerset polishing the newel post while the cat sat like a furry Buddha on the bottom step. They both gave her a long, gimlet stare.
“Your bag is packed for your trip. Roarke indicated a single day’s supply of clothing would be sufficient.
“I’ve told you, I pack for myself. I don’t want you poking your bony fingers through my things.” She stepped over the cat, who studiously ignored her, froze. Then her hand whipped out and latched on the end of Summerset’s polishing rag. “That’s my shirt.”
“I beg to differ.” He’d counted on her making the ID. “While this may, at one time very long ago, have masqueraded as an article of clothing, it is now a rag. One which had somehow found its way into your bureau and has been removed and put to its only possible use.”
“Give me my goddamn shirt, you pruny, skinny-assed cockroach.”
She tugged. He tugged back.
“You have a number of perfectly respectable shirts.”
“I want this shirt.”
“This is a rag.” They yanked at opposite ends, and the cloth ripped handily down the middle. “Now,” he said with satisfaction, “it’s two rags.”
Eve snarled, and balling what was left of an ancient NYPSD T-shirt in her fist, stomped up the stairs. “Stay out of my drawers, you pervert, or I’ll bite your fingers off at the knuckles.”
“There now,” Summerset addressed to the cat. “Isn’t it nice to know the Lieutenant will go off on this difficult trip in a good frame of mind?”
She stormed into the bedroom, heaved the ripped cloth just as Roarke stepped out of the elevator. It hit him right on the chin.
“Well then, it’s lovely to see you, too.”
“Look what that son of a bitch did to my shirt.”
“Mmm.” Roarke examined the tattered scrap of material. “Is that what this was?” Idly, he poked a finger through an old hole. “Pity. I heard you and Summerset exchanging your usual words of affection. At the top of your lungs.”
“I could say because you have enough to do, which is true. But let’s be frank, darling Eve; you’re a miserable packer and never take what you end up needing if left to yourself.”
“I bet he sniffs my underwear.”
Roarke’s lips trembled. “Now that’s quite the image you’ve put in my brain.” He crossed to her, cupped her face in his hands. “You made it up with Sam. I saw you out the window.”
“He was so busy beating himself up I had a hard time getting a shot in.”
“Softie.”
“Watch it, pal.”
He bent down and kissed her scowling mouth. “It’ll be our little secret. Believe me, no one watching you in that interview with Nadine would suspect you’ve a soft center in there. You looked formidable, Lieutenant. Diamond bright and just as hard. But she still won’t come after you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Aye, you do.”
She shrugged, started to step back, but he simply tightened his grip. “It’s worth a shot.”
“You won’t stand in front of me on this, or anything else.”
“Don’t tell me my job.”
“Fair enough. Don’t tell me mine. I’ve one question to ask you, then we’ll let this matter go for a bit. I want the truth, Eve, and I’ll see the truth in your eyes whatever the words are.”
He would, she thought. He was better at sifting out lies than a Truth Testor. “Why don’t you ask the damn question instead of putting me on the defensive and irritating me?”
“Are we going to Dallas tomorrow to get me out of Julianna’s way?”
“No. That’s not the reason, but it’s a side benefit and buys me some time. It’s not the reason. Ease back a little, will you?”
He let his hands stroke down her cheeks, her shoulders, her arms. Then he let her go.
“I could ask Feeney to go. He could handle the interview with Parker. I nearly did ask him. Either one of us could make the trip, and I started justifying asking him to do it by telling myself he might get more out of Parker. Man to man, that kind of thing. Which is bullshit, because when it’s cop to witness gender better not have dick to do with it. You’re the badge, and that’s that. I was on the point of asking him to take it because I wanted to save myself.”
“There’s no shame in that, Eve, if you’re not ready.”
“When will I be ready?” It burst out of her, bitter and bright. “Tomorrow, a year from tomorrow? Never? If I let this interfere with standard investigative procedure, where does that leave me next time I ram into something that scares me on a personal level? I won’t be a coward. So I’m going to do my job. That’s number one. Number two, I get you out of the way for a day or two so I can think it through. The rest . . . I’ll deal with it when I get there.”
She buried herself in work. Peabody had come through with a reasonably workable list of disbarred doctors who fit the basic criteria, and maintained a residence in New York.
“What are you looking for here to link one of these hundred and twenty disgraced physicians with Julianna?”
“A possible connection to her original source,” Eve told Roarke. “Personality type. I figure any doctor who’d supply Mad Munch with enough curare and cyanide to take out the entire Church of Hereafter wouldn’t quibble about supplying a psychopathic man-killer with what she needed. Or would know someone who would.”
She studied the data as Roarke stood behind her office chair, rubbing her shoulders in that absent and perfect way he had that zeroed in on the exact spot that needed attention.
“If he’s not her source, he might know her source. If I crap out on her connection, but ID Doctor Doom, I pass him to the Feds as my good deed for the decade.”
“Why don’t they already have him?”
“They didn’t punch the right button with Mook at the right time and he was the only one left. I always knew he had a little more in his gut, but they thought he’d spilled it all, and I didn’t have any juice to push it back then. They roughed him up a little instead of threatening to take away his pain, and when he said he’d told them everything, they figured he had.”
“That case was ten years back, wasn’t it?” Roarke asked.
“Yeah, I was still in uniform. So?”
“Born a cop,” he declared and kissed the top of her head.
“According to Mook the doctor didn’t help himself to any lemonade that night. That tells me the religious angle didn’t tickle his fancy. So maybe it was the self-termination—as long as it wasn’t his own—that pulled him in. I’ve got three guys here who lost their licenses to practice because they helped patients along to Jesus without their consent.”
“Playing God’s a weighty business.”
“Oscar Lovett, David P. Robinson and Eli Young, in alphabetical order. Those are my three best bets. I’ll sic Feeney on them. They don’t play out, we’ll start working our way down.”
Her desk ’link beeped and as she was still frowning at the screen Roarke answered.
“Hello, Roarke.” Louise Dimatto smiled silkily. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Always a pleasure to hear from you. How are you, Louise?”
“If I got much better, I’d be illegal, on the personal front at least. Professionally, I’m overworked, which is just the way I like it. I’d hoped you and Dallas might be able to come by the shelter sometime soon. We’ve finished and opened three more rooms, and the recreation area’s complete. Dochas is already making an impact on lives.”
“We’ll make sure we stop in when you’re on duty.”
“That’ll be great. Is Dallas available? I have some information for her.”
“Right here. Overworking. I’ll see you soon, Louise. Best to Charles.”
“I’m sure giving him mine. Dallas,” she continued, briskly now when Eve came on-screen. “I think I might have something useful for you regarding my little assignment. I remembered hearing bits of scandal discussed in my family when I was a girl. Things I wasn’t supposed to hear, of course. Regarding a doctor who’d interned with my uncle. Apparently his private behavior was unseemly, and covered up by the white wall for years. He enjoyed young women, very young women. Some of whom were also patients. The white wall wouldn’t stand for him when it was discovered he’d begun to terminate patients without specific and clear-cut authorization.”
“Got a name?”
“I didn’t, but I called my cousin upstate. And that you owe me for, Dallas, as my cousin Mandy is a thoroughly annoying diva who proceeded to interrogate me about my love life, my social life, and lecture me on wasting my skills on the dregs of humanity at the clinic. Et cetera.”
“The name, Louise. You can bitch later.”
“Eli Young. He was a chief resident, internal medicine, at Kennedy Memorial before going into private practice.” Louise paused, lifted her elegant eyebrows. “And I can see by your expression you already have the data on him. Why did I waste my time?”
“You didn’t. You just saved me considerable effort. Appreciate it.” Eve glanced toward Roarke, shifted in her head. “Ah, listen, I tapped Charles for a favor today, too, and I feel kind of weird about it.”
“The conjugal at Dockport?”
“Oh, well, then . . . Guess he mentioned it.”
“Yes, he told me.” Louise let out a quick laugh. “Dallas, loosen up. By the way, Peabody looked wonderful. Love’s in the air.”
“Something’s in the air,” Eve grumbled when they ended transmission. “What are you grinning at?” she demanded of Roarke.
“That, despite it all, there are some areas of sex that embarrass you.”
“I’m not embarrassed, I’m baffled. But it’s none of my never mind.”
“The whole point of love is that it has no reason. It just is.”
She looked at him. “I guess I’ve got that one.” She pushed away from the desk. “I’m going to go pay a visit to this E
li Young, see what I can shake out.”
“I’ll go with you. Don’t start the civilian routine, Lieutenant. Let’s just say I’d enjoy taking a drive with my wife. It’s a pretty night. Besides.” He draped an arm around her shoulders as they started out of the room. “If memory serves, the bad doctor’s address is in one of my buildings. You won’t have any hassles getting up to see him with me along, will you?”
It did have certain advantages. When the electronic security panel informed Eve that Doctor Young was not in, she held up a hand to hold Roarke back. And pressed her badge against the view screen.
“Not in, or not accepting visitors?”
I AM NOT AUTHORIZED TO PROVIDE YOU WITH THAT SPECIFIC INFORMATION. DUE TO THE NECESSITY OF PROTECTING THE PRIVACY OF OUR RESI DENTS, I CAN ONLY REPEAT THAT DR. YOUNG IS NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. YOU MAY CHOOSE FROM THE FOLLOWING MENU TO LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR DR. YOUNG OR ANOTHER RESIDENT. MY APOLOGIES, DALLAS, LIEUTENANT EVE, FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO ASSIST YOU IN YOUR REQUEST.
“You must admit,” Roarke commented, “it’s very good security, as well as polite.”
“With a warrant stuffed up its electronic butt it might not be so polite.”
LOITERING ON THE PREMISES BY NONRESIDENTS OR APPROVED AND AUTHORIZED GUESTS IS DISCOURAGED. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO REQUEST ANOTHER RESIDENT OR LEAVE A MESSAGE, I MUST ASK YOU TO VACATE THIS LOBBY. IN FORTY-FIVE SECONDS, BUILDING SECURITY WILL BE INFORMED OF YOUR FAILURE TO COOPERATE. MY APOLOGIES FOR THIS INCONVENIENCE.
“Would now be a good time?” Roarke asked. “Lieutenant, you know how it excites me when you snarl at me.”
“Just get us past this thing, and stop looking so smug.”
Roarke simply laid his hand on the palm plate, then coded in.