The In Death Collection, Books 1-5

by J. D. Robb

  Absurdly touched, he nuzzled her neck. “At night, I’d play your transmissions over, just so I could look at you, hear your voice.”

  “Really?” She giggled, a rare sound from her. “God, Roarke, we’ve gotten so sappy.”

  “We’ll keep it our little secret.”

  “Deal.” She leaned back to look at his face. “I have to ask you something. It’s so lame, but I have to.”

  “What?”

  “Was it ever . . .” She winced, wished she could muffle the need to ask. “Before, with anyone else—”

  “No.” He touched his lips to her brow, her nose, the dip in her chin. “It was never, with no one else.”

  “Not for me, either.” She simply breathed him in. “Put your hands on me. I want your hands on me.”

  “I can do that.”

  He did, tumbling with her to a spread of floor cushions while the sun died brilliantly in the ocean.

  chapter sixteen

  Taking a break with Roarke wasn’t quite like stopping off at the deli for a quick veggie hash salad and soy coffee. She wasn’t sure how he managed it all, but then, great quantities of money talk, and talk big.

  They dined on succulent grilled lobster, drenched in real, creamy, rich butter. They sipped champagne so cold it frosted Eve’s throat. A symphony of fruit was there for the sampling, exotic hybrids that sprinkled harmonized flavors on the tongue.

  Long before she could admit that she loved him, Eve had accepted the fact that she was addicted to the food he could summon up with the flick of a wrist.

  She soaked naked in a small whirling lagoon cupped under palm trees and moonlight, her muscles slack from the heated water and thorough sex. She listened to the song of night birds—no simulation, but the real thing—that hung on the fragrant air like tears.

  For now, for one night, the pressures of the job were light-years away.

  He could do that to her, and for her, she realized. He could open little pockets of peace.

  Roarke watched her, pleased at the way the tension had melted from her face with a bit of pampering. He loved seeing her this way, unwound, limp with pleasuring her senses, too lax to remember to be guilty for indulging herself. Just as he loved seeing her revved, her mind racing, her body braced for action.

  No, it had never been like this for him before, with anyone. Of all the women he’d known, she was the only one he was compelled to be with, driven to touch. Beyond the physical, the basic and apparently unsatiable lust she inspired in him, was a constant fascination. Her mind, her heart, her secrets, her scars.

  He had told her once they were two lost souls. He thought now he’d spoken no more than the truth. But with each other, they’d found something that rooted them.

  For a man who had been wary of cops all of his life, it was staggering to know his happiness now depended on one.

  Amused at himself, he slipped into the water with her. Eve managed to drum up enough energy to open her eyes to slits.

  “I don’t think I can move.”

  “Then don’t.” He handed her another flute of champagne, wrapping her fingers around the stem.

  “I’m too relaxed to be drunk.” But she managed to find her mouth with the glass. “It’s such a weird life. Yours,” she elaborated. “I mean you can have anything you want, go anywhere, do anything. You want to take a night off, you zip over to Mexico and nibble on lobster and—what was that stuff again, the stuff you spread on crackers?”

  “Goose liver.”

  She winced and shuddered. “That’s not what you called it when you shoved it in my mouth. It sounded nicer.”

  “Foie gras. Same thing.”

  “That’s better.” She shifted her legs, tangled them with his. “Anyway, most people program a video or take a quick trip with their VR goggles, maybe plug a few credits into a simulation booth down at Times Square. But you do the real thing.”

  “I prefer the real thing.”

  “I know. That’s another odd piece of you. You like old stuff. You’d rather read a book than scan a disc, rather go to the trouble to come out here when you could have programmed a simulation in your holoroom.” Her lips curved a little, dreamily. “I like that about you.”

  “That’s handy.”

  “When you were a kid, and things were bad for you, is this what you dreamed about?”

  “I dreamed about surviving, getting out. Having control. Didn’t you?”

  “I guess I did.” Too many of her dreams were jumbled and dark. “After I was in the system, anyway. Then what I wanted most was to be a cop. A good cop. A smart cop. What did you want?”

  “To be rich. Not to be hungry.”

  “We both got what we wanted, more or less.”

  “You had nightmares while I was gone.”

  She didn’t have to open her eyes to see the concern in his. She could hear it in his voice. “They aren’t too bad. They’re just more regular.”

  “Eve, if you’d work with Doctor Mira—”

  “I’m not ready to remember it. Not all of it. Do you ever feel the scars, from what your father did to you?”

  Restless with the memories, he shifted and sank deeper in the hot, frothy water. “A few beatings, careless cruelty. Why should it matter now?”

  “You shrug it off.” Now she opened her eyes, looked at him, saw he was brooding. “But it made you, didn’t it? What happened then made you.”

  “I suppose it did, roughly.”

  She nodded, tried to speak casually. “Roarke, do you think if some people lack something, and that lack lets them brutalize their kids—the way we were—do you think it passes on? Do you think—”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “No.” He cupped a hand over her calf and squeezed. “We make ourselves, in the long run. You and I did. If that wasn’t true, I’d be drunk in some Dublin slum, looking for something weaker to pummel. And you, Eve, would be cold and brittle and without pity.”

  She closed her eyes again. “Sometimes I am.”

  “No, that you never are. You’re strong, and you’re moral, and sometimes you make yourself ill with compassion for the innocent.”

  Her eyes stung behind her closed lids. “Someone I admire and respect asked me for help, asked me for a favor. I turned him down flat. What does that make me?”

  “A woman who had a choice to make.”

  “Roarke, the last woman who was killed. Louise Kirski. That’s on my head. She was twenty-four, talented, eager, in love with a second-rate musician. She had a cluttered one-room apartment on West Twenty-sixth and liked Chinese food. She had a family in Texas that will never be the same. She was innocent, Roarke, and she’s haunting me.”

  Relieved, Eve let out a long breath. “I haven’t been able to tell anyone that. I wasn’t sure I could say it out loud.”

  “I’m glad you could say it to me. Now, listen.” He set his glass down, scooted forward to take her face in his hands. Her skin was soft, her eyes a narrow slant of dark amber. “Fate rules, Eve. You follow the steps, and you plan and you work, then fate slips in laughing and makes fools of us. Sometimes we can trick it or outguess it, but most often it’s already written. For some, it’s written in blood. That doesn’t mean we stop, but it does mean we can’t always comfort ourselves with blame.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing? Comforting myself?”

  “It’s easier to take the blame than it is to admit there was nothing you could do to stop what happened. You’re an arrogant woman, Eve. Just one more aspect of you that I find attractive. It’s arrogant to assume responsibility for events beyond our control.”

  “I should have controlled it.”

  “Ah, yes.” He smiled. “Of course.”

  “It’s not arrogance,” she insisted, miffed. “It’s my job.”

  “You taunted him, assuming he’d come after you.” Because the thought of that still twisted in his gut like hissing snakes, Roarke tightened his grip on her face. “Now you’re insulte
d, annoyed that he didn’t follow your rules.”

  “That’s a hideous thing to say. Goddamn you, I don’t—” She broke off, sucked in her breath. “You’re pissing me off so I’ll stop feeling sorry for myself.”

  “It seems to have worked.”

  “All right.” She let her eyes close again. “All right. I’m not going to think about it anymore right now. Maybe by tomorrow I’ll have a better shot at sorting it out. You’re pretty good, Roarke,” she said with a ghost of a smile.

  “Thousands concur,” he murmured and caught her nipple lightly between his thumb and forefinger.

  The ripple effect made it all the way down to her toes. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “It’s what I meant.” He tugged gently, listened to her breath catch.

  “Maybe if I can manage to crawl out of here, I can take you up on your interesting offer.”

  “Just relax.” Watching her face, he slid his hand between her legs, cupped her. “Let me.” He managed to catch her glass as it slipped from her hand, and he set it aside. “Let me have you, Eve.”

  Before she could answer, he shot her to a fast, wracking orgasm. Her hips arched up, pumped against his busy hand, then went lax.

  She wouldn’t think now, he knew. She would be wrapped in layered sensations. She never seemed to expect it. And her surprise, her sweet and naive response was, as always, murderously arousing. He could have pleasured her endlessly, for the simple delight of watching her absorb every touch, every jolt.

  So he indulged himself, exploring that long, lean body, suckling the small, hot breasts, wet with perfumed water, gulping in the rapid breath that gasped from her lips.

  She felt drugged, helpless, her mind and body burdened with pleasure. Part of her was shocked, or tried to be. Not so much at what she let him do, but at the fact that she allowed him complete and total control of her. She couldn’t have stopped him, wouldn’t have, even when he held her near to screaming on the edge before shoving her over into another shuddering climax.

  “Again.” Greedy, he dragged her head back by the hair and stabbed his fingers inside her, worked her ruthlessly until her hands splashed bonelessly in the water. “I’m all there is tonight. We’re all there is.” He savaged her throat on the way to her mouth, and his eyes were like fierce blue suns. “Tell me you love me. Say it.”

  “I do. I do love you.” A moan ripped from her throat when he plunged himself into her, jerked her hips high, and plunged deeper.

  “Tell me again.” He felt her muscles squeeze him like a fist and gritted his teeth to keep from exploding. “Tell me again.”

  “I love you.” Trembling from it, she wrapped her legs around him and let him batter her past delirium.

  She did have to crawl out of the pool. Her head was spinning, her body limp. “I don’t have any bones left.”

  Roarke chuckled and gave her a friendly slap on the butt. “I’m not carrying you this time, darling. We’d both end up on our faces.”

  “Maybe I’ll just lie down right here.” It was a struggle to remain on her hands and knees on the smooth tiles.

  “You’ll get cold.” With an effort, he summoned the strength to drag her to her feet where they rocked together like drunks.

  She began to snicker, teetering. “What the hell did you do to me? I feel like I’ve downed a couple of Freebirds.”

  He managed to grip her waist. “Since when did you play with illegals?”

  “Standard police training.” She bit experimentally at her bottom lip and found that it was, indeed, numb. “We have to take a course in illegals at the academy. I palmed most of mine and flushed them. Is your head spinning?”

  “I’ll let you know when I regain feeling above the waist.” He tipped her head back and kissed her lightly. “Why don’t we see if we can make it inside. We can . . .” He trailed off, eyes narrowing over her shoulder.

  She might have been impaired, but she was still a cop. Instinctively, she whirled and braced, unconsciously shielding his body with hers. “What? What is it?”

  “Nothing.” He cleared his throat, patted her shoulder. “Nothing,” he repeated. “Go on in, I’ll be right along.”

  “What?” She stood her ground, scanning for trouble.

  “It’s nothing, really. I just . . . I neglected to disengage the security camera. It’s, ah, activated by motion or voice.” Naked, he strode over toward a low stone wall, flicked a switch and palmed a disc.

  “Camera.” Eve held up a finger. “There was a recording on the entire time we’ve been out here?” She flicked a narrow-eyed stare at the lagoon. “The entire time.”

  “Which is why I generally prefer people to automations.”

  “We’re on there? All on there?”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  She started to speak again, then got a good look at his face. The devil took over. “I’ll be damned, Roarke. You’re embarrassed.”

  “Certainly not.” If he’d been wearing anything but skin, he would have pushed his hands into his pockets. “It was simply an oversight. I said I’d take care of it.”

  “Let’s play it back.”

  He stopped short, and gave Eve the rare pleasure of seeing him goggle. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You are embarrassed.” She leaned over to kiss him, and while he was distracted, snatched the disc. “That’s cute. Really cute.”

  “Shut up. Give me that.”

  “I don’t think so.” Delighted, she danced back a step and held the disc out of reach. “I bet this is very hot. Aren’t you curious?”

  “No.” He made a grab, but she was very quick. “Eve, give me the damn thing.”

  “This is fascinating.” She edged back toward the open patio doors. “The sophisticated, seen-it-all Roarke is blushing.”

  “I am not.” He hoped to Christ he wasn’t. That would top it. “I simply see no reason to document lovemaking. It’s private.”

  “I’m not going to pass it on to Nadine Furst for broadcast. I’m just going to review it. Right now.” She dashed inside while he swore and ran after her.

  She walked into her office at nine A.M. sharp with a spring to her step. Her eyes were clear and unshadowed, her system toned and her shoulders free of tension. She was all but humming.

  “Somebody got lucky,” Feeney said mournfully and kept his feet planted on her desk. “Roarke’s back on planet, I take it.”

  “I got a good night’s sleep,” she retorted and shoved his feet aside.

  He grunted. “Be grateful, ’cause you’re not going to find much peace today. Lab report’s in. The fucking knife doesn’t match.”

  Her sunny mood vanished. “What do you mean, the knife doesn’t match?”

  “The blade’s too thick. A centimeter. Might as well be a meter, goddamn it.”

  “That could be the angle of the wounds, the thrust of the blow.” Mexico vanished like a bubble of air. Thinking fast, she began to pace. “What about the blood?”

  “They managed to scrape off enough to get type, DNA.” His already gloomy face sagged. “It matches our boy. It’s David Angelini’s blood, Dallas. Lab says it’s old, six months minimum. From the fibers they got, it looks like he used it to open packages, probably nicked himself somewhere along the line. It’s not our weapon.”

  “Screw it.” She heaved a breath, refused to be discouraged. “If he had one knife, he could have had two. We’ll wait to hear from the other sweepers.” Taking a moment, she scrubbed her face with her hands. “Listen to me, Feeney, if we go with Marco’s confession as bogus, we have to ask why. He’s not a crank or a loony calling in trying to take credit. He’s saving his son’s ass is what he’s doing. So we work on him, and we work hard. I’ll bring him in to interview, try to crack him.”

  “I’m with you there.”

  “I’ve got a session with Mira in a couple hours. We’ll just let our main boy stew for awhile.”

  “While we pray one of the teams turns up something.”

&nbs
p; “Praying can’t hurt. Here’s the big one, Feeney, our boy’s lawyers get a hold of Marco’s confession, it’s going to corrupt the hearing on the minor charges. We’ll whistle for an indictment.”

  “With that, and without physical evidence, he’s going back out, Dallas.”

  “Yeah. Son of a bitch.”

  Marco Angelini was like a boulder cemented to concrete. He wasn’t going to budge. Two hours of intense interrogation didn’t shake his story. Though, Eve consoled herself, he hadn’t shored up any of the holes in it, either. At the moment, she had little choice but to pin her hopes on Mira’s report.

  “I can tell you,” Mira said in her usual unruffled fashion, “that David Angelini is a troubled young man with a highly developed sense of self-indulgence and protection.”

  “Tell me he’s capable of slicing his mother’s throat.”

  “Ah.” Mira sat back and folded her neat hands. “What I can tell you is, in my opinion, he is more capable of running from trouble than confronting it, on any level. When combining and averaging his placements on the Murdock-Lowell and the Synergy Evaluations—”

  “Can we skip over the psych buzz, Doctor? I can read that in the report.”

  “All right.” Mira shifted away from the screen where she had been about to bring up the evaluations. “We’ll keep this in simple terms for the time being. Your man is a liar, one who convinces himself with little effort that his lies are truth in order to maintain his self-esteem. He requires good opinion, even praise, and is accustomed to having it. And having his own way.”

  “And if he doesn’t get his own way?”

  “He casts blame elsewhere. It is not his fault, nor his responsibility. His world is insular, Lieutenant, comprised for the most part of himself alone. He considers himself successful and talented, and when he fails, it’s because someone else made a mistake. He gambles because he doesn’t believe he can lose, and he enjoys the thrill of risk. He loses because he believes himself above the game.”

  “How would he react at the risk of having his bones snapped over gambling debts?”

  “He would run and he would hide, and being abnormally dependent on his parents, he would expect them to clean up the mess.”