by J. D. Robb
Eve poked into a cold box, found soft drinks, fruit, wine. One of the wine bottles had been opened and air sealed, but there was no glass to indicate Cerise had started drinking early. And it wasn’t a couple of belts that had put that look in her eyes, Eve mused.
In the adjoining bath, complete with whirlpool, personal sauna, and mood enhancer tube, she found a cupboard filled with soothers and tranqs and legalized lifters. “A big believer in chemical assistance, our Cerise,” she commented. “Take them in for testing.”
“Jesus, she’s got her own pharmacy. The mood tube’s set on concentration mode, and the last use was yesterday morning. She didn’t take a spin this morning.”
“So what does she do to relax?” Eve stepped into an adjoining room, which was a small sitting room, she noted, complete with full entertainment unit, sleep chair, serving droid.
A lovely, sage-green suit was neatly folded on a small table. Matching shoes stood on the floor under it. Jewelry—a heavy linked gold chain, complicated twists of earrings, a slim bracelet watch-recorder—had been slipped tidily in a glass bowl.
“She undressed in here. Why? What was the point?”
“Some people relax better without the confines of clothes,” Peabody said, then flushed when Eve cast a considering glance over her shoulder. “I’ve heard.”
“Yeah. Maybe. But it doesn’t suit her. She was a real put-together woman. Her assistant told me he’d never even seen her without shoes, and suddenly she’s a closet nudist. I don’t think so.”
Her gaze landed on the VR goggles on the arm of the sleep chair. “Maybe she took a trip after all,” Eve murmured. “She’s frazzled, wants to smooth the edges. So she comes in here, stretches out, programs something, and takes a little ride.”
Eve sat, picked up the goggles. VR goggles, she mused. Fitzhugh and Mathias had taken trips before death as well. “I’m going to see where she went and when. Ah, if I appear to have any suicidal urges after I’m done—or decide I can relax better without the confines of my clothes—you’re ordered to knock me cold.”
“Without hesitation, sir.”
Eve cocked a brow. “But you’re not expected to enjoy it.”
“I’ll hate every minute of it,” Peabody promised, and folded her hands.
With a weak laugh, Eve slipped the goggles on. “Display log,” she ordered. “Bull’s-eye. She went VR at 8:17 this morning.”
“Dallas, if that’s the case, maybe you shouldn’t do this. We can take it in and test it under controlled conditions.”
“You’re my control, Peabody. If I look too happy to live shortly, zap me. Replay last run program,” Eve ordered and settled back. “Jesus.” She hissed it out as two young studs walked toward her. Dressed only in strips of glossy black leather studded with silver, they were oiled, muscled, and fully aroused.
Her environment was now a white room, mostly bed, and there was satin under her naked body, gauze draped overhead to filter the candlelight from a soaring chandelier of glittery crystal.
Music, something low and pagan, throbbed on the air. She was draped over a mountain of feather pillows, and as she started to shift, the first young god straddled her.
“Hey, listen, pal—”
“For your pleasure only, mistress,” he crooned and rubbed her breasts with scented oil.
This is a bad idea, she thought as little involuntary shivers of pleasure centered in her gut. Oil was slicked over her stomach, her thighs, down her legs to her toes.
She could understand how the current situation could make a woman strip and smile, but not how it could drive her to suicide.
Stick it out, she ordered herself and turned her mind to something else. She thought of the report she needed to give her commander. Of unexplained shadows on the brain.
Teeth closed delicately over her nipple, a tongue slid wetly over the captured point. She arched in reaction, but the hand she shot out in protest slipped off a taut, oil-slicked shoulder.
Then the second stud knelt between her legs and went to work on her with his mouth.
She came before she could stop herself, a small pop of release. Panting, she ripped the goggles off and found Peabody gaping at her.
“It wasn’t a walk on a quiet beach,” Eve managed.
“I could see that. What was it, exactly?”
“A couple of mostly naked guys and a big satin bed.” Eve blew out a breath, set the goggles down. “Who’d have thought she relaxed with sex fantasies?”
“Ah, Lieutenant. Sir. As your aide, I believe it’s my responsibility to test that unit. For evidence control.”
Eve tucked her tongue in her cheek. “Peabody, I couldn’t let you take that kind of risk.”
“I’m a cop, sir. Risk is my life.”
Eve rose, held out the goggles as Peabody’s eyes lit. “Bag it, Officer.”
Deflated, Peabody dumped the goggles into a seal. “Hell. Were they good looking?”
“Peabody, they were gods.” She stepped back into the office proper, gave it one more scan. “I’m going to order in sweepers, but I don’t think they’ll find anything. I’ll take the disc you downloaded into Central, contact next of kin—though the media will already have this all over the fucking airwaves.”
She hitched up her field kit. “I don’t feel at all suicidal.”
“I’m relieved to hear it, Lieutenant.”
Still, Eve frowned at the goggles. “How long was I riding that, five minutes?”
“Nearly twenty.” Peabody gave a sour smile. “Time flies when you’re having sex.”
“I wasn’t having sex.” Guilt had her worrying her wedding ring. “Exactly. If there’d been something in that program, I should have felt it, so that looks like a dead end. Have it analyzed anyway.”
“Will do.”
“You wait for Feeney. Maybe he’ll find something interesting on her ’link logs. I’m going to go grovel to the commander. When you finish here, deliver the bags to the lab, then report to my office.” Eve started for the door, tossed a look over her shoulder. “And Peabody, no playing with the evidence.”
“Spoilsport,” she muttered when Eve was out of earshot.
chapter twelve
Commander Whitney sat behind his massive, well-organized desk and listened. He appreciated the fact that his lieutenant delivered a clean and concise report, and he admired that she could omit certain details without a flicker.
A good cop had to stand cool under fire. Eve Dallas, he was pleased to know, was ice.
“You had the autopsy data on Fitzhugh analyzed outside the department.”
“Yes, sir.” She didn’t blink. “The analysis required more sophisticated equipment than NYPSD currently has access to.”
“And you had access to this more sophisticated equipment.”
“I was able to gain access.”
“And run the analysis?” he asked, quirking a brow. “Computer science is not your strong suit, Dallas.”
She looked him dead in the eye. “I’ve been working on improving my skills in that area, Commander.”
He doubted that, sincerely. “Subsequently, you gained entry to the files at the Government Security Center, and there, confidential reports fell into your hands.”
“That’s correct. I don’t wish to reveal my source.”
“Your source?” he repeated. “Are you telling me you have a weasel at GSC?”
“There are weasels everywhere,” Eve said coolly.
“That might fly,” he murmured. “Or you might find yourself facing a subcommittee back in East Washington.”
Eve’s stomach shimmied, but her voice stayed steady. “I’m prepared for that.”
“You’d better be.” Whitney sat back, steepled his hands, tapped his fingertips against his chin. “The case on the Olympus Resort. You also accessed data there. That’s quite a bit out of your jurisdiction, Lieutenant.”
“I was on scene during that incident, and I reported my findings to interspace authorities.”
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“Who then took over the disposition of the matter,” Whitney added.
“I’m authorized to request data when an outside case relates to one of mine, Commander.”
“That’s yet to be substantiated.”
“The data’s necessary for me to substantiate the connection.”
“That would hold, Dallas, if there was a homicide.”
“I believe there are four of them, including Cerise Devane.”
“Dallas, I’ve just viewed the recording of that incident. I saw a cop and a jumper on a ledge, the cop attempting to talk the subject in, and the subject choosing the leap. She was not pushed, she was not coerced, she was not threatened in any way.”
“It’s my professional opinion that she was coerced.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” And for the first time, frustration leaked through. “But I’m sure, dead sure, that if they had enough of her brain to scrape up off the street for analysis, they’d find that same burn on the frontal lobe. I know it, Commander. I just don’t know how it’s getting there.” She waited a beat. “Or being put there.”
His eyes flickered. “Are you theorizing that someone is influencing certain individuals to self-termination through some sort of brain implant?”
“I can’t find any genetic link among the subjects. No social group, education sphere, or religious affiliation. They didn’t grow up in the same town, they didn’t drink the same water, attend the same health clubs or centers. But they all had the same flaw in the brain. That’s beyond coincidence, Commander. It was caused, and if by being caused it coerced those people to end their lives, then it’s murder. And it’s mine.”
“You’re walking a thin wire, Dallas,” Whitney said after a moment. “The dead have families, and the families want this put away. Your continued investigation extends the grieving process.”
“I’m sorry for that.”
“It’s also raising questions from The Tower,” he added, referring to the Chief of Police and Security.
“I’m willing to present my report to Chief Tibble, if directed.” But she hoped she wouldn’t be. “I’ll stand on my record, Commander. I’m not a rookie playing terrier with a dead case.”
“Even experienced cops overfocus, make mistakes.”
“Then let me make them.” She shook her head before he could speak. “I was on that ledge today, Commander. I looked at her face, into her eyes when she went off. And I know.”
He folded his hands on the edge of the desk. Administration was always a struggle in compromise. He had other cases, and he needed her on them. The budget was thin, and there was never enough time or man power. “I can give you a week, no more. If you don’t have the right answers by then, you close the files.”
She drew a breath. “And the chief?”
“I’ll speak with him personally. Get me something, Dallas, or be prepared to move on.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Dismissed,” he said, then added when she reached the door. “Oh, and Dallas, if you’re going to go outside the official sphere for . . . research, watch your step. And give my best to your husband.”
She colored slightly. He’d pinned her source, and they both knew it. She mumbled something and escaped. Dodged that stun stream, she thought and dragged a hand through her hair. Then, with an oath, she dashed toward the nearest down glide. She was going to be late for court.
She was approaching the end of her shift when she made it back to her office and found Peabody settled at the desk, a cup of coffee in her hand.
Eve leaned against the doorjamb. “Comfortable, Officer?”
Peabody jerked, sloshed a little coffee, cleared her throat. “I didn’t know your ETA.”
“Apparently. Something wrong with your unit?”
“Ah, no. No, sir. I thought it more efficient to enter the new data directly into yours.”
“That’s a good story, Peabody, you stick with it.” Eve walked to her AutoChef and programmed coffee for herself. It was Roarke’s blend rather than the poison served in the bull pen area, which explained Peabody cozying up at her superior’s desk.
“What new data?”
“Captain Feeney pulled all communications on Devane’s ’links. Doesn’t appear to be anything that relates, but it’s all here. We have her personal datebook with all appointments and the most current data from her last health exam.”
“She have any problems there?”
“Not a one. She was a tobacco addict, registered, and took regular anticancer injections. She had no sign of disease: physical, emotional, or mental. Tended toward stress and overwork, which was counteracted with soothers and tranqs. She was cohabitating, happily, by all reports. Her partner is currently off planet. You have the name of next of kin, her son from a previous partnership.”
“Yeah, I contacted him. He’s based at the Tattler offices in New L.A. He’s coming in.” Eve angled her head. “Comfortable, Peabody?”
“Yes, sir. Oh, sorry.” She got up quickly from behind the desk and resettled in the ratty chair beside it. “Your meeting with the commander?”
“We’ve got a week,” Eve said briskly as she sat. “Let’s make the most of it. ME’s report on Devane?”
“Not yet available.”
Eve turned to her ’link. “Let’s see if we can give him a little shove.”
By the time she got home, she was staggering. She’d missed dinner, which she thought was just as well since she’d ended the day at the morgue viewing what was left of Cerise Devane.
Even the stomach of a veteran cop could turn.
And she would get nothing there, nothing at all. She doubted even Roarke’s equipment could reconstruct enough of Devane to be of any help.
She walked in, nearly tripped over the cat who was stretched at the threshold, and drummed up the energy to bend down and lift him. He studied her, annoyance gleaming in his bicolored eyes.
“You wouldn’t get kicked, pal, if you draped your fat ass somewhere else.”
“Lieutenant.”
She shifted the cat, looked over at Summerset who, as usual, had appeared out of nowhere. “Yeah, I’m late,” she snapped. “Give me a demerit.”
He didn’t add his normal withering remark. He had seen the clips on the news channel, and he had watched her on the ledge. He had seen her face. “You’ll want dinner.”
“No, I don’t.” She wanted bed and headed for the stairs.
“Lieutenant.” He waited for her bad-tempered oath, waited until she’d turned her head to scowl at him. “A woman who steps out on a ledge is either very brave or very stupid.”
The scowl turned into a sneer. “I don’t have to ask what category you put me in.”
“No, you don’t.” He watched her climb up and thought her courage was terrifying.
The bedroom was empty. She told herself she’d run a house scan for Roarke’s location in just a minute, then fell facedown on the bed. Galahad wiggled out of the crook of her arm and climbed onto her butt to circle and knead his way to comfort.
Roarke found her there minutes later, sprawled out in exhaustion, a sausage-shaped cat guarding her flank.
He simply studied her for a while. He, too, had seen the news clips. They had paralyzed him, dried the saliva in his mouth, and turned his bowels to water. He knew how often she faced death—others’ and her own—and told himself he accepted it.
But that morning he had watched, helpless, while she’d teetered on the brink. He’d looked into her eyes, seen the grit and the fear. And he had suffered.
Now she was here, home, a woman with more bone and muscle than curves, with hair that badly needed tending and boots worn out at the heels.
He walked over, sat on the edge of the bed, and laid a hand over the one curled loosely on the spread.
“I’m just getting my second wind,” she murmured.
“I can see that. We’ll go dancing in a minute.”
She managed a chuckle. “Can you move t
hat boulder off my butt?”
Obligingly, Roarke picked up Galahad, smoothed the ruffled fur. “You’ve had quite a day, Lieutenant. The media’s been full of you.”
She rolled over but kept her eyes shut a minute longer. “I’m glad I missed it. You know about Cerise then.”
“Yes, I had Channel 75 on while I was preparing for my first meeting this morning. I caught it all live.”
She heard the strain in his voice and opened her eyes. “Sorry.”
“You’ll say you were doing your job.” He set the cat aside and brushed the hair back from Eve’s cheek. “But it was above and beyond, Eve. She could have taken you with her.”
“I wasn’t ready to go.” She cupped a hand over the one he held to her cheek. “I had a flash when I was up there. Memory flash of when I was a kid, standing at the window of some filthy flop he’d booked us into. I thought about jumping then, just getting it the hell over with. I wasn’t ready to go. I’m still not.”
Galahad climbed out of Roarke’s lap and stretched his bulk over Eve’s belly. It made Roarke smile. “Looks like we both intend to keep you here for a while. What have you eaten today?”
She pursed her lips. “Is this a quiz?”
“Nothing to speak of,” he decided.
“Food’s not high on my list right now. I’ve just come from the morgue. Contact with concrete after seventy-story flights does unattractive things to flesh and bone.”
“I don’t imagine there was enough to scan for comparison with the others.”
Despite the grisly image, she grinned, sat up, and gave him a quick, loud kiss. “You’re cued up, Roarke. That’s one of the things I like best about you.”
“I thought it was my body.”
“That’s right up on the list,” she told him as he rose and went over to the recessed AutoChef. “No, there isn’t going to be enough, but there has to be a connection. You see it, don’t you?”
He waited until the protein drink he’d ordered came through. “Cerise was an intelligent, sensible, and driven woman. She was often selfish, continually vain, and could be an enormous pain in the ass.” He came back to the bed, held out the glass. “She wasn’t the type to jump off the roof of her own building—and let the visual media scoop her own organization.”