by J. D. Robb
He fed there, where her pulse hammered, then at her breast, so firm, so smooth, where her heartbeat thundered.
Her body was a constant joy and wonder to him. So slim, so tight. Satin skin over tough muscle. He knew where to touch to make her quiver, where to taste to loose a sigh in her.
He did both as they struggled themselves and each other out of clothes.
There, she thought, there he was, naked and hard and hungry for her. Everything about him so familiar and only more exciting for the knowledge. All that glorious hair sliding over her skin, those strong shoulders, the narrow hips.
She curled her fingers around him—hot, ready, as she was—would have guided him into her, but he pulled her up with him. Her arms locked tight around his neck to pull him closer.
And joined with him.
Shuddering, shuddering, she dropped her face to his shoulder. Impossible to feel so much, incredible to know there was more to give, to take.
The fire simmered, casting shadows and subtle light. The tree sparkled, casting joy.
Once again their lips met, clung.
She moved with him, surrounded him. Her hands came to frame his face in a gesture that burst through his heart.
Only with her had love and lust so perfectly twined. Only she met every need, every longing, every wish he’d ever made, every one he’d never thought of.
She bowed back, caught, caught on that final rise. Her hair streamed with the firelight, her skin glistened in it.
Once more he pressed his lips to her throat—a taste to take with him on the fall. And surrendered with her.
• • •
All the pretty young girls sat in a circle, cross-legged on the floor. She recognized three—Linh, Lupa, Shelby. All the others wore masks. All the masks were of Eve’s face.
“We’re all the same anyway,” one of the Eves said. “Under it. We’re all the same until you know.”
“We’ll find your names, your faces, who you were. We’ll find who killed you.”
“I just wanted to have some fun. My parents are so strict, so totally lame about stuff.” Linh sulked, shrugged. “I needed to show them they couldn’t treat me like a kid anymore. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s not fair.”
“Fair’s a bunch of shit.” Shelby snorted out a bitter laugh. “Life sucks. Dead just sucks louder. You can’t trust anybody,” she told Eve. “That’s the deal. You know the deal.”
“Who did you trust?” Eve demanded.
“You have to trust people,” Lupa insisted. “Bad things happen even when you’re good. Most people are good.”
“Most people are assholes, and just out for themselves.” But even as she said it, a tear rolled down Shelby’s face. “If I’d had a knife like you did, I wouldn’t be here. You just got lucky. I never had a chance, not ever. Nobody gives a shit about me.”
“I do,” Eve said. “I give a shit.”
“It’s a job. We’re a job.”
“I’m good at my job because I give a shit. I’m what you’ve got, kid.”
“You’re just like us. Not even as much as us,” Shelby shot back. Bitter, bitter. “They didn’t even give you a name. The one you have’s just made up.”
“Not anymore. It’s who I am now. I made myself who I am now.”
And all the pretty girls sitting in the circle stared at her. And all of them said, “We’ll never have a chance to be anything.”
She woke with a jolt. Roarke sat, fully dressed, on the bed beside her, his hand on her cheek.
“Wake up now.”
“I am. I’m awake.” She sat up, stupidly relieved to have him so close as she shook off the sorrow of the dream. “It wasn’t a nightmare.” And still she was comforted by him, and by the cat who stopped bumping his head against her hip to worm his way across her lap. “Just my subconscious giving me a little mind fuck to start the day. I’m okay.”
He cupped her chin, his thumb brushing lightly over the shallow dent in it as he studied her face. Then nodded as he could see she was. “You’ll want coffee then.”
“As much as my next breath.”
He got up to fetch it, and to give her another moment to settle.
She sat, replaying the dream as she stroked the cat.
“All the vics, sitting in a circle,” she told him when he came back in. “The ones we haven’t ID’d had my face.”
“Disturbing.”
“Weird, but . . . apt, I guess. The lost and nameless. That’s what I was.” She took the coffee he brought her, drank some down—strong and black. “Mostly Shelby Stubacker had her say, being she’s really pissed off. Who did she trust? Who did she trust enough he or she or they got by her defenses, because I’d think her defenses, her survival instincts would’ve been pretty sharp.”
“Someone she trusted, or someone she thought she could manipulate. Like she did Clipperton.”
“Looking to score. Yeah, it could’ve been.”
She glanced over to the sitting area where the screen ran its financial reports on mute. “Been up long?”
“A bit.”
“I better catch up. Thanks for the coffee service.” She rolled Galahad over, gave his pudge of a belly a rub, then slid out of bed.
When she stepped out of the shower, warm from the drying tube and the cashmere robe, she found him on his pocket ’link with two covered plates and a pot of coffee on the table—and the stream of numbers and symbols still scrolling by on screen.
The man was the god of multitasking, she thought.
She sat beside him, cautiously lifted the dome over the plate. Then did a little butt-on-cushion dance when she found thick slices of French toast and a pretty bowl of mixed berries instead of the oatmeal she’d feared.
She popped a raspberry, poured more coffee—and he ended transmission.
“I thought a morning mind fuck deserved the French toast.”
“It might be worth waking up with one every day. Did you just buy a solar system?”
“Just a minor planet.” He passed her the syrup, watched her drown the bread. “Actually, just a quick conference with Caro, some schedule juggling.”
His über-efficient admin could juggle schedules while balanced on a flaming ball. “You don’t need to shift your stuff around for mine.”
“I wanted a little more time this morning. You’ll be starting in your home office, I assume.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Mine’s to do the same. Things can be rescheduled further if I can be useful. We can’t resume work on the building until you close the case,” he added. “And on a less practical level, I couldn’t begin it until you close the case. These girls aren’t mine, Eve, as they’re yours. But . . .”
“You found them.”
“And need to know their names, their faces, see their killer dealt with as much as you. What we hope to accomplish in that place is to keep the young, the vulnerable, the wounded safe. Those twelve girls epitomize the purpose.”
She wanted to give him the closure, she realized, almost as much as the dead and those they’d left behind.
He wanted to build something good and strong and needed. She wanted to give him those names, so he could.
“It’s going to be someone who lived or worked there. That’s playing the odds, but they’re good odds. It’s not that big a pool. Added to it, it stopped—if DeWinter and Dickhead are right on the estimates, and the remains were all sealed in there approximately fifteen years ago. So the focus starts on someone who lived or worked there who died, relocated, or was put in a cage shortly after that time.”
“Or moved his burial grounds.”
“I thought of that.” She ate while the cat watched her with a mixture of hope and resentment. “But why? It’s working. It’s locked up, no buyers, no plans. And it symbolizes the girls. It’s whe
re those vulnerable and wounded came. He knows how to access it, it’s familiar. Why find another place that’s not so well suited?”
“I hope you’re right about that.”
“If he had to relocate, for some reason, he would’ve found a place in his new area. But so far I haven’t found any like crimes. And damn if I think he could create another mausoleum.”
No, she thought, he didn’t pull this off a second time.
“This one basically fell into his lap,” she pointed out. “There can’t be that many opportunities like it.
“Still, there are spaces in that theory,” she admitted over a mouthful of syrupy toast. Take Lemont Frester. He’s made some money, travels all over. If he’s a sick-fuck predator he could be carrying on his sick-fuck predatory ways all over the world—and off it.”
“Happy thought.”
“I’m taking a look at him, but for anyone to pull this sort of thing off for this long? And someone like him, who puts himself in the public eye? It’s hard to swallow it. Not impossible, but it doesn’t go down easy.”
“You’ll interview him today.”
“On my list. Along with nagging DeWinter and her team, notifying Lupa Dison’s next of kin, and getting what I can there, maybe another pass through HPCCY and blah blah blah. Top of the list is ID the nine we have left. So I better get started.”
She rose to go to her closet.
“The black jean-style trousers. The snug ones,” he added, “with the black jacket, the cropped one with the leather trim and the zippers on the sleeves, black tank with a scoop neck, and the black motorcycle style boots. Wear the pants inside the boots.”
She’d paused at her closet to listen to him as he reeled off the wardrobe.
“You’re telling me to wear all black? You’re always trying to paint me up with color.”
“In this case it’ll be the lines and the textures, as well as the unrelieved black. You’ll look just a little dangerous.”
“Yeah?” She brightened right up. “I’m all about that.”
“I’ll be in my office when you’re done.”
She grabbed what he’d listed, dressed, then curious, glanced in the mirror. Damned if he hadn’t hit it again, she thought. She did look just a little dangerous.
Half hoping she had a chance to put the look to use, she went to her office.
Sitting at her desk, she called up the results of her auto-search.
She scanned the remaining sixty-three names, found four deceased within a year of the murders, and separated them as possibles.
She separated any who’d done time, with a subset for violent crime.
With all, she looked for any indication the subject had skill or interest in construction, then crossed them with the staff Peabody and Roarke had run.
“Could’ve been a team,” she said when Roarke came in. “One to kill, one to clean up, or both together. I don’t like that as much as it’s a damn long time for two people to suppress the urge to kill, and for two people to keep their mouths shut about it.”
“One or both could be dead or incarcerated.”
“Yeah, it’s an angle. Pairs like that usually have a dominant and a submissive.” She drummed her fingers. “Older, trusted staff member exploits boy’s dark side. Maybe. Maybe, but again it means keeping a secret for a long time, and two people don’t keep them very well as a rule, especially when one of them’s in a cage. Still, teamwork’s efficient. You’ve got to get the girls, kill the girls, hide the girls. It’s a lot of work.”
“It’s not work if you enjoy it.”
She looked back at her board. “No, it’s not, and he must have. You don’t keep doing something unless you like it—or are compelled—until someone, something stops you.”
She gestured to her screen where she’d put up three faces, three names. “The three chronic runaways. At least one of them. The odds again, but at least one of them is probably in DeWinter’s lab. I’m going to send them to the reconstructionist, in case it helps.”
“Why don’t you give me a portion of the male residents to look at more closely? I can do that off and on today when there’s time.”
“Okay. I’ll send you a few. If you don’t get to them, just let me know. I’ve got to get going. I contacted Peabody to have her meet me at Rosetta Vega’s. We’ll get the notification done, see if she can add anything.”
“Frester’s booked to speak at the main ballroom of the Roarke Palace Hotel this afternoon.”
Eve leveled a speculative look. “Is that so?”
“Excellent synchronicity, isn’t it? It’s a luncheon speech, the event runs from noon to two. I had no idea. I don’t get into the weeds such as event bookings, but I thought I’d check on what he might be doing while in New York, and there you are. There’s a twenty-minute question-and-answer period after his speech.”
“Handy, as I’ve got some questions. Thanks. I need to go.”
“Send me names for the girls as you get them, would you?”
“Okay.” She laid her hands on his shoulders. “Go buy that solar system.”
“I’ll see if I can squeeze it in.”
“Fair enough.” She kissed him, then strode out to tell a woman any hope she’d clung to was gone.
• • •
Upscale neighborhood, Eve thought as she slid into a street-level slot. Nice, tidy townhomes, condos, glossy shops, and eateries. Dog walkers, nannies, domestics already bustled around on their early duties along with a few people in good coats, good boots on their way to work.
She caught the sugar and yeast scent from a bakery when one of the good coats slipped inside, and the chatter of kids, many in spiffy uniforms, marching along to school.
Then Peabody in her big purple coat and pink cowboy boots, clomping around the corner.
“I think it’s not as cold” was the first thing she said. “Maybe. More like frigid instead of fucking frigid. I don’t think . . .” She paused, sniffed the air like a retriever. “Do you smell that? It’s that bakery. Oh my God, do you smell that? We should—”
“You’re not going in to do a notification and interview with pastry breath.”
“More like pastry ass. I think I gained a couple pounds just standing here smelling that.”
“Then let’s save your ass and get this done.”
Eve walked up to the door of one of the pretty townhomes, rang the bell.
Instead of the usual computer security check, the door opened almost immediately in front of a pretty, attractive woman in a gray suit. “Did you forget your—oh, I’m sorry.” She brushed back her dark curly hair. “I thought you were my daughter. She’s always forgetting something when she leaves for school, so I—sorry,” she said again with another laugh. “How can I help you?”
“Rosetta Delagio.”
“That’s right. Actually, I have to leave for work myself in a few minutes, so—”
“I’m Lieutenant Dallas, and this is Detective Peabody.” Eve took out her badge. “NYPSD.”
The woman looked at the badge, slowly lifted her gaze back to Eve’s face. The easy laughter in her eyes died away, and what replaced it was old grief turned over fresh.
“Oh. Oh, Lupa.” She laid a hand on her heart. “It’s about Lupa, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry to—”
“Please, don’t. Don’t tell me out here. Come in. Please come in. We’ll sit down. I want to get my husband, and we’ll sit down. You’ll tell me what happened to Lupa.”
“All this time.” Rosetta sat in a pretty, family-cluttered living area with her hand in her husband’s.
Juan Delagio wore his winter-weight uniform squared away, his cop shoes polished. He had a striking face of sharply defined angles, set off by deep, dark-hooded eyes.
“I think I knew,” Rosetta began. “I knew because she w
ould never run away, as some thought she had. We loved each other, and for that time, had no one but each other.”
“She stayed for a time at what was The Sanctuary.”
“Yes. It was very hard for both of us. When I was hurt, there was no one to care for her. I knew of the place from a friend, so I arranged for her to stay there. They were very kind, and tended to her for only a small donation as I couldn’t afford more. And one of the counselors brought her to see me in the hospital every day. But still, it was hard. I knew there were troubled young people there, and my Lupa was so innocent—young for her age, if you understand? But I was afraid if they took her from me, into the child protection, they might not give her back.”
“Was there a question of your guardianship?”
“No, no, but . . . I was very young myself, and not yet a citizen. So I was afraid, but I thought she would be safe at The Sanctuary, and she was. She did well there, though Ms. Jones told me Lupa had some fears as well, that I would leave her, too. We talked of it in counseling.”
“The report states that when she came back, she began to come home late, and wasn’t clear about where she’d been.”
“It wasn’t like her, the sneaking. She was an accommodating young girl. I thought maybe too much—afraid to do anything wrong or even a little bit wrong, afraid she’d be sent away. So I didn’t punish her. I should have been more firm,” she said and looked desperately at her husband.
He only shook his head, brought their joined hands to his lips.
“I said I wanted to meet her new friends, and we could have them over for pizza, or I could cook. She was evasive, just said maybe sometime. She was loving with me, and sweet, so I let it go. I thought she just wants something all of her own for a little while, and why should she sit alone in the apartment until I come home from work? She’s a good girl, and she’s making friends. Maybe it would help her with the grief. She had such grief, and still questioned why her mother and father died. Was it her fault? Had she done something? Had she not been good enough? Had they not been good enough?”
She glanced toward a table littered with photos. Eve picked out one of her sister—strong resemblance—young and smiling.