by J. D. Robb
“Sure thing.”
“Let me help you.” Roarke bent down, lifted Rockman by the lapels. He jerked the man up, steadied him. “Look at me, Rockman. Vision clear?”
Rockman blinked blood out of his eyes. “I can see you.”
“Good.” Roarke’s arm shot up, quick as a bullet, and his fist connected with Rockman’s already battered face.
“Oops,” Feeney said mildly, when Rockman crumbled to the floor again. “Guess he’s not too steady on his feet.” He bent over himself, slipped on the cuffs. “Maybe a couple of you boys ought to carry him out. Hold the ambulance for me. I’ll ride with him.”
He took out an evidence bag, slipped the gun into it. “Nice piece—ivory handle. Bet it packs a wallop.”
“Tell me about it.” Her hand went automatically to her arm.
Feeney stopped admiring the gun and gaped at her. “Shit, Dallas, you shot?”
“I don’t know.” She said it almost dreamily, surprised when Roarke ripped off the sleeve of her already tattered shirt. “Hey.”
“Grazed her.” His voice was hollow. He ripped the sleeve again, used it to stanch the wound. “She needs to be looked at.”
“I figure I can leave that to you,” Feeney remarked. “You might want to stay somewhere else tonight, Dallas. Let a team come in and clean this up for you.”
“Yeah.” She smiled as the cat leaped onto the bed. “Maybe.” He whistled through his teeth. “Busy day.”
“It comes and goes,” she murmured, stroking the cat. Galahad, she thought, her white knight.
“See you around, kid.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Feeney.”
Determined to get through, Roarke crouched in front of her. He waited until Feeney’s whistling faded away. “Eve, you’re in shock.”
“Sort of. I’m starting to hurt though.”
“You need a doctor.”
She moved her shoulders. “I could use a pain pill, and I need to clean up.”
She looked down at herself, took inventory calmly. Her blouse was torn, spotted with blood. Her hands were a mess, ripped and swollen knuckles—she couldn’t quite make a fist. A hundred bruises were making themselves known and the wound on her arm where the bullet had nicked it was turning to fire.
“I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks,” she decided, “but I’d better check.”
When she started to rise, he picked her up. “I kind of like when you carry me. Makes me all wobbly inside. Then I feel stupid about it after. There’s stuff in the bathroom.”
Since he wanted to see the damage for himself, he carried her in, set her on the toilet. He found strong, police issue pain pills in a nearly empty medicine cabinet. He offered one, and water, before dampening a cloth.
She pushed at her hair with her good arm. “I forgot to tell Feeney. DeBlass is dead. Suicide. What they used to call eating your gun. Hell of a phrase.”
“Don’t worry about it now.” Roarke worked on the bullet wound first. It was a nasty gash, but the bleeding had already slowed. Any competent MT could close it in a matter of minutes. It didn’t make his hands any steadier.
“There were two killers.” She frowned at the far wall. “That was the problem. I clicked onto it, but then I let it go. Data indicated low probability percentage. Stupid.”
Roarke rinsed out the cloth and started on her face. He was deliriously relieved that most of the blood on it wasn’t hers. Her mouth was cut, her left eye already beginning to swell. There was raw color along her cheekbone.
He managed to take a full, almost easy breath. “You’re going to have a hell of a bruise.”
“I’ve had them before.” The medication was seeping in, turning pain into a mist. She only smiled when he stripped her to the waist and began checking for other injuries. “You’ve got great hands. I love when you touch me. Nobody ever touched me like that. Did I tell you?”
“No.” And he doubted she’d remember she was telling him now. He’d make sure to remind her.
“And you’re so pretty. So pretty,” she repeated, lifting a bleeding hand to his face. “I keep wondering what you’re doing here.”
He took her hand, wrapped a cloth gently around it. “I’ve asked myself the same question.”
She grinned foolishly, let herself float. Need to file my report, she thought hazily. Soon. “You don’t really think we’re going to make anything out of this, do you? Roarke and the cop?”
“I guess we’ll have to find out.” There were plenty of bruises, but the bluing along her ribs worried him most.
“Okay. Maybe I could lie down now? Can we go to your place, ’cause Feeney’s going to send a team in to record the scene and all that. If I could just take a little nap before I go in to make my report.”
“You’re going to the closest health center.”
“No, uh-uh. Can’t stand them. Hospitals, health centers, doctors.” She gave him a glassy-eyed smile and lifted her arms. “Let me sleep in your bed, Roarke. Okay? The great big one, up on the platform, under the sky.”
For lack of anything closer to hand, he took off his jacket and slipped it around her. When he picked her up again, her head lolled on his shoulder.
“Don’t forget Galahad. The cat saved my life. Who’d have thought?”
“Then he gets caviar for the whole of his nine lives.” Roarke snapped his fingers and the cat fell happily into step.
“Door’s broken.” Eve chuckled as Roarke stepped around it and into the hall. “Landlord’s going to be pissed. But I know how to get around him.” She pressed a kiss to Roarke’s throat. “I’m glad it’s over,” she said, sighing. “I’m glad you’re here. Be nice if you stuck around.”
“Count on it.” Shifting her, he bent down and retrieved the package he’d dropped in the hallway in his race to her door. There was a fresh pound of coffee inside. He figured he’d need it as a bribe when she woke up and found herself in a hospital bed.
“Don’t wanna dream tonight,” she murmured as she drifted off.
He stepped into the elevator, the cat at his feet. “No.” He brushed his lips over Eve’s hair. “No dreams tonight.”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
GLORY IN DEATH
A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1995 by Nora Roberts
This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.
For information address:
The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://us.penguingroup.com
ISBN: 978-1-1012-2103-7
A BERKLEY BOOK®
Berkley Books first published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.
First edition (electronic): September 2001
Berkley Books by J. D. Robb
NAKED IN DEATH
GLORY IN DEATH
Fame then was cheap . . .
And they have kept it since, by being dead.
—DRYDEN
Chok’d with ambition of the meaner sort.
—SHAKESPEARE
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
&n
bsp; CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
chapter one
The dead were her business. She lived with them, worked with them, studied them. She dreamed of them. And because that didn’t seem to be enough, in some deep, secret chamber of her heart, she mourned for them.
A decade as a cop had toughened her, given her a cold, clinical, and often cynical eye toward death and its many causes. It made scenes such as the one she viewed now, on a rainy night on a dark street nasty with litter, almost too usual. But still, she felt.
Murder no longer shocked, but it continued to repel.
The woman had been lovely once. Long trails of her golden hair spread out like rays on the dirty sidewalk. Her eyes, wide and still with that distressed expression death often left in them, were a deep purple against cheeks bloodlessly white and wet with rain.
She’d worn an expensive suit, the same rich color as her eyes. The jacket was neatly buttoned in contrast to the jerked-up skirt that exposed her trim thighs. Jewels glittered on her fingers, at her ears, against the sleek lapel of the jacket. A leather bag with a gold clasp lay near her outstretched fingers.
Her throat had been viciously slashed.
Lieutenant Eve Dallas crouched down beside death and studied it carefully. The sights and scents were familiar, but each time, every time, there was something new. Both victim and killer left their own imprint, their own style, and made murder personal.
The scene had already been recorded. Police sensors and the more intimate touch of the privacy screen were in place to keep the curious barricaded and to preserve the murder site. Street traffic, such as it was in this area, had been diverted. Air traffic was light at this hour of the night and caused little distraction. The backbeat from the music of the sex club across the street thrummed busily in the air, punctuated by the occasional howl from the celebrants. The colored lights from its revolving sign pulsed against the screen, splashing garish colors over the victim’s body.
Eve could have ordered it shut down for the night, but it seemed an unnecessary hassle. Even in 2058 with the gun ban, even though genetic testing often weeded out the more violent hereditary traits before they could bloom, murder happened. And it happened with enough regularity that the fun seekers across the street would be miffed at the idea of being moved along for such a minor inconvenience as death.
A uniform stood by continuing video and audio. Beside the screen a couple of forensics sweepers huddled against the driving rain and talked shop and sports. They hadn’t bothered to look at the body yet, hadn’t recognized her.
Was it worse, Eve wondered, and her eyes hardened as she watched the rain wash through blood, when you knew the victim?
She’d had only a professional relationship with Prosecuting Attorney Cicely Towers, but enough of one to have formed a strong opinion of a strong woman. A successful woman, Eve thought, a fighter, one who had pursued justice doggedly.
Had she been pursuing it here, in this miserable neighborhood?
With a sigh, Eve reached over and opened the elegant and expensive bag to corroborate her visual ID. “Cicely Towers,” she said for the recorder. “Female, age forty-five, divorced. Resides twenty-one thirty-two East Eighty-third, number Sixty-one B. No robbery. Victim still wearing jewelry. Approximately . . .” She flipped through the wallet. “Twenty in hard bills, fifty credit tokens, six credit cards left at scene. No overt signs of struggle or sexual assault.”
She looked back at the woman sprawled on the sidewalk. What the hell were you doing out here, Towers? she wondered. Here, away from the power center, away from your classy home address?
And dressed for business, she thought. Eve knew Cicely Towers’s authoritative wardrobe well, had admired it in court and at City Hall. Strong colors—always camera ready—coordinated accessories, always with a feminine touch.
Eve rose, rubbed absently at the wet knees of her jeans.
“Homicide,” she said briefly. “Bag her.”
It was no surprise to Eve that the media had caught the scent of murder and were already hunting it down before she’d reached the glossy building where Cicely Towers had lived. Several remotes and eager reporters were camped on the pristine sidewalk. The fact that it was three A.M. and raining buckets didn’t deter them. In their eyes, Eve saw the wolf gleam. The story was the prey, ratings the trophy.
She could ignore the cameras that swung in her direction, the questions shot out like stinging darts. She was almost used to the loss of her anonymity. The case she had investigated and closed during the past winter had catapulted her into the public eye. The case, she thought now as she aimed a steely glance at a reporter who had the nerve to block her path, and her relationship with Roarke.
The case had been murder. And violent death, however exciting, soon passed out of the public interest.
But Roarke was always news.
“What do you have, Lieutenant? Do you have a suspect? Is there a motive? Can you confirm that Prosecuting Attorney Towers was decapitated?”
Eve slowed her ground-eating stride briefly and swept her gaze over the huddle of soggy, feral-eyed reporters. She was wet, tired, and revolted, but she was careful. She’d learned that if you gave the media any part of yourself, it squeezed it, twisted it, and wrung it dry.
“The department has no comment at this time other than that the investigation into Prosecuting Attorney Towers’s death is proceeding.”
“Are you in charge of the case?”
“I’m primary,” she said shortly, then swung between the two uniforms guarding the entrance to the building.
The lobby was full of flowers: long banks and flows of fragrant, colorful blooms that made her think of spring in some exotic place—the island where she had spent three dazzling days with Roarke while she’d recovered from a bullet wound and exhaustion.
She didn’t take time to smile over the memory, as she would have under other circumstances, but flashed her badge and moved across the terra-cotta tiles to the first elevator.
There were more uniforms inside. Two were behind the lobby desk handling the computerized security, others watched the entrance, still others stood by the elevator tubes. It was more manpower than necessary, but as PA, Towers had been one of their own.
“Her apartment’s secured?” Eve asked the closest cop.
“Yes, sir. No one’s been in or out since your call at oh two ten.”
“I’ll want copies of the security discs.” She stepped into the elevator. “For the last twenty-four hours, to start.” She glanced down at the name on his uniform. “I want a detail of six, for door-to-doors beginning at seven hundred, Biggs. Floor sixty-one,” she ordered, and the elevator’s clear doors closed silently.
She stepped out into the sixty-first’s lush carpet and museum quiet. The halls were narrow, as they were in most multihabitation buildings erected within the last half century. The walls were a flawless creamy white with mirrors at rigid intervals to lend the illusion of space.
Space was no problem within the units, Eve mused. There were only three on the entire floor. She decoded the lock on 61-B using her Police and Security master card and stepped into quiet elegance.
Cicely Towers had done well for herself, Eve decided. And she liked to live well. As Eve took the pocket video from her field kit and clipped it onto her jacket, she scanned the living area. She recognized two paintings by a prominent twenty-first century artist hanging on the pale rose-toned wall above a wide U-shaped conversation area done in muted stripes of pinks and greens. It was her association with Roarke that had her identifying the paintings and the easy wealth in the simplicity of decor and selected pieces.
/>
How much does a PA pull in per year? she wondered as the camera recorded the scene.
Everything was tidy, meticulously so. But then, Eve reflected, from what she knew of Towers, the woman had been meticulous. In her dress, in her work, in maintaining her privacy.
So, what had an elegant, smart, and meticulous woman been doing in a nasty neighborhood in the middle of a nasty night?
Eve walked through the room. The floor was white wood and shone like a mirror beneath lovely rugs that echoed the dominant colors of the room. On a table were framed holograms of children in varying stages of growth, from babyhood on through to the college years. A boy and girl, both pretty, both beaming.
Odd, Eve thought. She’d worked with Towers on countless cases over the years. Had she known the woman had children? With a shake of her head, she walked over to the small computer built into a stylish workstation in the corner of the room. Again she used her master card to engage it.
“List appointments for Cicely Towers, May two.” Eve’s lips pursed as she read the data. An hour at an upscale private health club prior to a full day in court followed by a six o’clock with a prominent defense attorney, then a dinner engagement. Eve’s brow lifted. Dinner with George Hammett.
Roarke had dealings with Hammett, Eve remembered. She’d met him now twice and knew him to be a charming and canny man who made his rather exorbitant living with transportation.
And Hammett was Cicely Towers’s final appointment of the day.
“Print,” she murmured and tucked the hard copy in her bag.
She tried the tele-link next, requesting all incoming and outgoing calls for the past forty-eight hours. It was likely she would have to dig deeper, but for now she ordered a recording of the calls, tucked the disc away, and began a long, careful search of the apartment.
By five A.M., her eyes were gritty and her head ached. The single hour’s sleep she had managed to tuck in between sex and murder was beginning to wear on her.