by J. D. Robb
"I'm just running a little behind." She hissed as shampoo ran into her eyes and stung. "I lost my prime suspect, and I'm starting from scratch." She sprang out, took a step toward the drying tube, then stopped. "Shit, am I supposed to put that glop on my hair when it's wet or when it's dry?"
Having a fairly good idea which glop she referred to, Roarke plucked a tube from the shelf and poured a dab in his palm. "Here, allow me."
The way his hands moved through her hair made her want to purr, but she eyed him narrowly. "Don't mess with me, pal. I don't have time for you."
"I have no idea what you mean." Enjoying himself, he chose another tube and poured a generous pool of body lotion into his hands. "I'm simply helping you get ready," he began as he slid his slickened hands over her shoulders, her breasts. "Since you seem frazzled."
"Look -- " Then she closed her eyes and sighed when his hands slithered down to her waist, slipped over her butt. "I think you missed a spot."
"Careless of me." He lowered his head, sniffed at her throat. And bit. "Want to be very, very late?"
"Yeah. But I'm not going to." She wiggled away and leaped into the drying tube. "But don't forget where you left off."
"A pity you didn't get here twenty minutes ago." Having decided that watching her wasn't going to help his blood cool, he strolled back into the bedroom.
"I just have to gunk up my face some." She whipped out of the tube and dashed for the mirror without bothering with a robe. "What am I supposed to wear to something like this?"
"I have it."
She stopped fumbling ineptly with her lash dye and scowled. "Do I pick out your clothes?"
"Eve, please."
She had to laugh. "Okay, bad example, but I don't have time to think of another one." Solving the problem of hairstyle by skimming her fingers briskly through what she had, she turned into the bedroom to see Roarke studying what she supposed some people would call a dress.
"Get out of here. I'm not wearing that."
"Mavis brought it by the other night. Leonardo designed it for you. It'll look very good on you."
She frowned at the fluid panels of silver held together on the sides by thin sparkling straps. The straps were repeated at the shoulders, catching a drape of fabric in the front and much, much lower in the back.
"Why don't I just go naked and save time?"
"Let's see how it looks."
"What do I wear under it?"
He tucked his tongue in his cheek. "You're wearing it."
"Jesus Christ." With ill grace, she stepped into it, wiggled it up.
The material was soft as a waterfall and clung like a lover, the seductive side slashes exposing smooth skin and slender curves.
"Darling Eve." He took her hand, turning it over to nuzzle the palm in one of the gestures he used to turn her legs to putty. "Sometimes you take my breath away. Here, try these."
He took a pair of diamond drop earrings from the dresser and handed them to her.
"Were these already mine, or what?"
Now he grinned. "You've had them for months. No more presents until Christmas."
She fastened them on, and decided to take it philosophically when he selected her shoes. "There's no place in this thing to keep my communicator. I'm on call."
"Here." He offered her the ridiculously small evening bag that matched the shoes.
"Anything else?"
"You're perfect." He smiled when he heard the beep that signaled the first car arriving at the gate. "And prompt. Let's go down so I can show off my wife."
"I'm not a poodle," she muttered and made him laugh.
* * *
Within an hour, the house was full of people and music and light. Scanning the ballroom, Eve could only be grateful Roarke never expected her to have any input into the preparations.
There were huge tables groaning under silver platters of food: honied ham from Virginia, glazed duck from France, rare beef from Montana; lobster, salmon, oysters harvested from the rich beds on Silas I; an array of fresh vegetables picked only that morning and cleverly arranged in patterns. Desserts that would tempt a political prisoner from a hunger strike surrounded a three-foot tree fashioned out of sinfully rich cake and hung with gleaming marzipan ornaments.
She wondered that it could still amaze her what the man she had married could conjure.
A soaring pine decorated with thousands of white lights and silver stars stood at either end of the ballroom. The floor-to-ceiling windows showed not the nasty sleet that hissed over the city, but a hologram of a dreamy snowscene where couples skated on a silver pond and young children raced down a gentle slope on shiny red sleds.
Such details, she thought, were so utterly Roarke.
"Hey, sweetheart. All alone in this palace?"
She arched a brow when she felt the hand on her bottom and turned her head slowly to stare at McNab.
He went red, then white, then red again. "Christ! Lieutenant. Sir."
"Your hand's on my ass, McNab. I don't think you want it to be there."
He snatched it away as if scorched. "God. Man. Shit. Beg your pardon. I didn't recognize you. I mean ..." He jammed the hand he sincerely hoped she'd allow him to keep in his pocket. "I didn't know it was you. I thought... You look ..." Words failed him.
"I believe Detective McNab is trying to compliment you, Eve." Roarke slipped up beside them and, because it was too much to resist, stared hard into McNab's panicked eyes. "Weren't you, Ian?"
"Yeah. That is ..."
"And if I believed he'd realized it was your ass he was fondling, I'd just have to kill him. Right here." Roarke reached out and flicked at the strings of McNab's snazzy red tie. "Right now."
"Oh, I'd have already taken care of that myself," Eve said dryly. "You look like you could use a drink, Detective."
"Yes, sir. I could."
"Roarke, why don't you take care of him? Mira just came in. I want to talk to her."
"Delighted." Roarke draped an arm around McNab's shoulder and squeezed just a little harder than comfort allowed.
It took longer than Eve liked to make her way across the room. It amazed her how much people wanted to talk at parties. And about nothing in particular. That was delay enough, but she caught sight of Peabody, looking very un-Peabody-like in sweeping evening pants of dull gold and a trim sleeveless jacket. Her bare arm was tucked comfortably through Charles Monroe's.
Mira, Eve decided, could wait. "Peabody."
"Dallas. Wow, the place looks amazing."
"Yeah." Eve shifted her gaze and pinned Charles with angry eyes. "Monroe."
"Fabulous home you've got. Lieutenant."
"I don't recall your name on the guest list."
Peabody colored, stiffened. "The invitation said I was free to bring a date."
"Is that what this is?" she asked, keeping her eyes on Charles's. "A date?"
"Yes." He lowered his voice as a flicker of hurt clouded his eyes. "Delia is aware of my profession."
"Are you giving her the cop's standard discount?"
"Dallas." Horrified, Peabody stepped forward.
"It's all right." Charles tugged her back. "I'm on my own time, Dallas, and hoping to spend a pleasant evening with an attractive woman whose company I enjoy. If you'd rather I leave, it's your house, your call."
"She's a big girl."
"Yes, she is," Peabody murmured. "Just a second, Charles," she added, then gripped Eve's arm and tugged her aside.
"Hey!"
"No, you hey." Fury bubbled into her voice as Peabody boxed Eve into a corner. "I don't have to clear my personal time or relationships with you, and you have no right to embarrass me."
"Wait a minute -- "
"I'm not done." Later, Peabody would recall the look of speechless shock on Eve's face, but at the moment she was too revved to notice or react to it. "What I do off duty has nothing to do with the job. If I want to take on table dancing in my personal time, it's my business. If I want to pay six LCs to fuck me blind
on Sundays, it's my business. And if I want to have a civilized date with an interesting, attractive man who for some reason wants to have one with me, it's my business."
"I was only -- "
"I'm not done," Peabody said between clenched teeth. "On the job, you're in charge. But that's where it ends. If you don't want me here with Charles, then we'll leave."
As Peabody turned on her heel, Eve snagged her wrist. "I don't want you to leave." Her voice was quiet, controlled, and stiff as a petrified board. "I apologize for stepping into your personal life. I hope it doesn't spoil your evening. Excuse me."
Hurt, unbelievably hurt, she walked away. Her stomach was still jittering with it when she found Mira. "I don't want to take you away from the party, but I'd like a few minutes. In private."
"Of course." Concerned by the dark eyes and pale cheeks, Mira reached out. "What is it, Eve?"
"In private," she repeated, and ordered herself to bury her feelings as she led the way out. "We can talk in the library."
"Oh." The minute she stepped inside, Mira clasped her hands in sheer pleasure. "What a marvelous room. Oh, what absolute treasures. Not enough people appreciate the feel and the smell of a real book in their hands any longer. The delight of curling into a chair with the warmth of one instead of the cool efficiency of a disc."
"Roarke's into books," Eve said simply and shut the door. "The testing on Rudy. I question some of your findings."
"Yes, I thought you might." Mira wandered through, admiring, then settled onto a soft leather chair, smoothing the skirt of her rose-pink cocktail suit. "He's not your killer, Eve, nor is he the monster you want him to be."
"It has nothing to do with what I want."
"His relationship with his sister disturbs you on a deep and personal level. She isn't like you, though; she isn't a child, she isn't defenseless, and while I do believe he has an unhealthy measure of control over her, she isn't being forced."
"He uses her."
"Yes, and she him. It's mutual. I agree that he is obsessive when it pertains to her. He is sexually immature. The very thing that eliminates him from your lists, Eve, is the fact that I strongly believe he is impotent with anyone but his sister."
"He was being blackmailed and the blackmailer is dead. A client was hitting on his sister; that client is dead."
"Yes, and I admit that with that evidence I was prepared to find him capable of those murders. He isn't. He has some potential for physical violence. When roused, when threatened. But it's a flash, it's immediate. It isn't in his makeup to plan, to orchestrate, to complete the kind of killings you're dealing with."
"Then we just turn him loose?" Eve walked away. "Let him go?"
"Incest is against the law, but it has to be proven to be coerced. This isn't the case. I understand your need to punish him, and to, in your mind, release his sister from his hold."
"This isn't about me."
"Oh, I know that, Eve." Because it hurt her heart to watch, she reached up to take Eve's hand and stop the restless pacing. "Don't keep punishing yourself."
"I focused on him because of this. I know I did." Suddenly weary, she sank down beside Mira. "And because I did, I might have missed something, some detail, that would have led to the killer."
"You followed very logical, very clear-cut steps. He had to be eliminated from the list."
"But I took too long to do it. And every time my gut told me I was looking at the wrong man, I ignored it. Because I kept seeing myself. I'd look at her and I'd think, way back in my mind, I'd think,That could be me. If I hadn't killed the son of a bitch, that could be me. "
She lowered her head into her hands, then dragged them back through her hair. "Christ, I'm messing up. All over the damn place."
"How?"
"There's no point in getting into this."
Mira merely stroked Eve's hair. "How?"
"I can't even seem to handle a perfectly ordinary holiday. Just the thought of trying to figure out what to do, what to buy, how to act makes my stomach ache."
"Oh, Eve." Laughing lightly, Mira shook her head. "Christmas drives nearly everyone half crazy with just those problems. It's absolutely normal."
"Not for me, it isn't. I never had to worry about it before. I didn't have so many people in my life."
"Now you do." Mira smiled, indulged herself by stroking Eve's hair again. "Who do you want to get rid of?"
"I think I just managed to kick Peabody out." Disgusted, Eve shot to her feet again. "She comes in with an LC. Oh, he's basically okay, but he's a goddamn whore, a great looking, slick, amusing one."
"It disturbs you," Mira suggested, "that you like him on one level and despise him for what he does for a living."
"This isn't about me. It's about Peabody. He says he wants a real relationship, and she's got stars in her eyes over him and she's majorly pissed at me because I said something about it."
"Life's messy, Eve, and I'm afraid you've gone and carved yourself out a life, with all the conflicts and problems and hurt feelings that entails. If she's angry with you, it's because there's no one she admires or respects more."
"Oh, Christ."
"Being loved is a heavy responsibility. You'll mend your fences with her, because she matters to you."
"I'm getting damn crowded with people who matter."
The house screen across the room blinked on. Summerset's pinched face filled it. "Lieutenant, your guests are inquiring about you."
"Fuck off." She smiled thinly as Mira swallowed a laugh. "At least that's one person I don't have to worry about mattering. But I shouldn't have busted up your evening."
"You haven't. I enjoy talking with you."
"Well ..." Eve started to stick her hands in her pockets, remembered she didn't have any, and sighed. "Would you mind hanging out here for a minute? There's something I want to get from my office."
"All right. May I look through the books?"
"Sure, help yourself." Not wanting to take the time to go out and down the stairs, Eve slipped into the elevator. She was back in less than three minutes, but Mira was already cozied into a chair with a book.
"Jane Eyre."She sighed as she set it aside. "I haven't read it since I was a girl. It's so wrenchingly romantic."
"You can borrow it if you want. Roarke wouldn't mind."
"I have my own copy. I just haven't taken the time. But thank you."
"I wanted to give you this. It's a couple of days early, but... I might not see you." Feeling ridiculously awkward, she held out the elegantly wrapped box.
"Oh, how sweet of you." With obvious delight, Mira clasped the box in her hands. "May I open it now?"
"Sure, that's the deal, right?" She shifted her feet, then rolled her eyes as Mira delicately untied the fussy bow and painstakingly unfolded the corners on the paper.
"Drives my family crazy, too," she said with a laugh. "I just can't bear to rip in; then I save the paper and ribbon like a pack rat. I have a closet full of it which I constantly forget to reuse. But..." She trailed off as she opened the lid and found the bottle of scent inside. "Why, it's lovely, Eve. It has my name etched on it."
"It's this personalized sort of fragrance. You give the guy physical and personality traits, then he creates an individual fragrance."
"Charlotte," Mira murmured. "I wasn't sure you knew my first name."
"I guess I heard it somewhere."
Mira blinked at sentimental tears. "It's wonderfully thoughtful." She set the bottle down and turned to draw Eve into a hug. "Thank you."
Swamped with warmth, and embarrassment, Eve let herself be held. "I'm glad you like it. I'm pretty new at this kind of thing."
"You did very well." She drew back, but caught Eve's face in her hands. "I'm so fond of you. Now I need the powder room because another of my Christmas traditions is to weep a little over my gifts. I know where it is," she added, patting Eve's cheeks lightly. "You go dance with your husband and drink a little too much champagne. The world outside will still be there
tomorrow."
"I need to stop him."
"And you will. But tonight, you need your life. Go find Roarke and take it."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Eve did what the doctor ordered. It wasn't such a bad deal, she decided, getting a little light-headed, swaying in Roarke's arms to some sort of dreamy music in a room filled with color and scent and light.
"I can live with it," she murmured.
"Hmm?"
She smiled as his lips skimmed her ear. "I can live with it," she repeated, drawing back enough to look at his face. "All the Roarke stuff."
"Well." His hands stroked up her back, then down again. "That's good to know."
"You got a whole bunch of stuff, Roarke."
"I do, indeed, have a whole bunch of stuff." And a wife, he thought with an amused glint in his eyes, who was heading toward drunk.
"Sometimes it's spooky. But not now. Now it's pretty nice." Sighing, she rubbed her cheek against his. "What kind of music is this?"
"Do you like it?"
"Yeah, it's sexy."
"Twentieth century, primarily the nineteen forties. It was called Big Band. That's a hologram of Tommy Dorsey's band doing this little number. 'Moonlight Serenade.' "
"That's a million years ago."
"Almost."
"How do you know all that stuff anyway?"
"Maybe I was born out of my time."
She sighed in his arms as the music swelled. "No, you hit your time just right." She tilted her head on his shoulder so she could watch the room. "Everybody looks happy. Feeney's dancing with his wife. Mavis is sitting on Leonardo's lap in the corner over there with Mira and her husband. They're all laughing. McNab's hitting on every woman in the room, and giving Peabody the hairy eyeball while he sucks down your Scotch."
Idly, Roarke glanced over, lifted a brow. "Trina's got him now. Jesus, she'll eat that boy alive."
"He doesn't look worried about it." She leaned back again. "It's a nice party."
The music changed, a quick beat bouncing out. Eve's mouth dropped open. "Holy shit, look at Dickhead. What's he doing?"
Grinning, Roarke slipped a hand around Eve's waist, turning so they were hip to hip. "I believe it's called jitterbug."