by J. D. Robb
“You scared the hell out of her,” Charles said.
“She’d be smart not to walk home alone, and to keep her windows closed.” She put the sketch away, sipped at her beer. “Do you know any of Rosenthall’s lab people?” she asked Louise.
“No.”
“Okay, we’ll set them aside for now. Did Rosenthall ever move on you?”
“No! He was with Arianna when we met, then I was with Charles not long after. He’s in love with Ari, and added to that, his work doesn’t give him a lot of time for moving on other women.”
“It doesn’t take that much time. She’s the one backing his research and work—or the Group is. If she cut him loose, it’d be a big loss.”
“She’s in love with him, and they’re bonded over the work,” Louise began. “If something went wrong between them, it would be a blow for both of them, personally and professionally.”
“But scientists are easier to find than backers like the Whitwood Group. If his work’s important to him.”
“Essential, I’d say.”
“Then he’d do a lot to protect it.”
“Not this, Dallas. Never this. Not Justin.”
“I’m going on the theory the three victims knew something about the killer. Something he killed to protect. Has Justin ever sampled product?”
“Absolutely not.”
Okay, Eve thought, as long as Louise spoke in absolutes they wouldn’t get anywhere on Rosenthall.
“How about Billingsly?”
“I can’t say. I’d certainly doubt it, but I don’t know him well.” Louise smiled a little over her wine. “That’s a deliberate choice.”
“He put moves on you.”
“He puts them on every female he finds attractive or believes can enhance his career. But Ari’s the gold ring.”
“How’d he react when you brushed him off?”
“Like it was my loss. He has a temper, but I’ve never seen anything to indicate he’s capable of murder or real violence. He’s rude and demanding, but from what I’ve heard, very good in therapy.”
“And if Arianna cut him off—from the Center?”
“He has money of his own, and should have a lot of contacts. But it would be humiliating, and he wouldn’t take it well. That’s just opinion, Dallas. I have as little to do with him as possible.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Not much help.”
“You confirmed and elaborated on Mira’s opinion on the killer’s face. You gave me a few more details on two of my suspects, and meeting you here gave me another wit who tells me the killer went up to Jane before heading toward Eighth. That’s pretty good over one drink.”
When they left, Roarke took her hand as she walked. “You did very well, managing nearly a half an hour on non-work-related topics after your interview with Louise.”
“I can talk about other stuff.”
“You can, yes, but I know it’s not easy when you’re steeped in a case.”
“The bar waitress was a stroke of luck. Heading toward Eighth. If it’s either of the doctors, he’s probably got a vehicle near there. If it’s Dickerson, he goes one crosstown block to home. Gupta, north on Eighth for a block and a half to home. Nobody at Slice or Get Straight lives in that direction—and they don’t fit anyway, but it’s another negative on that group.
“Where’s your car?” she asked when they reached the crime scene.
“I had it picked up so I could drive home with my adoring wife.”
“Good. You drive.” She took out her notebook, added the new information, new thoughts on the way home.
Roarke left her to it until she began to mutter.
“Is anybody really that good, the way everybody describes Rosenthall?”
“Some people have fewer shadows than others, fewer dark places. Others have more.”
“And illegals speak to those dark places, make more noise so they spread. Everyone on this list connects to illegals. Lost someone to them, works with them, lives with them. The killer’s a user—has to be. I don’t have enough on any of them to require a drug test. Yet. But if I asked each of them, and they’re clean, why wouldn’t they cooperate?”
“General principles,” he said as he drove through the gates of home. “But certainly worth a shot.”
“I’ll give it one tomorrow. Plus a scientist should be able to create an elaborate disguise.”
She chewed on it as they walked inside where Summerset and the cat waited in the foyer.
“A monumental day,” Summerset announced. “Home together, in a timely fashion, and unbloodied. Applause.”
“If he actually applauded, the bones in his skeletal hands would break and crumble to dust.”
Roarke just shook his head as Eve started upstairs. “The two of you really have to stop this love affair. I’m a jealous man. We’ll get dinner in the lieutenant’s office,” Roarke added to Summerset.
“I’m shocked beyond speech.”
“If only,” Eve muttered.
“But before.” Roarke took her hand again, turned her toward the bedroom. “Let’s deal with that arm.”
“It’s okay.”
“You’re starting to favor it.”
“It’s just a little sore.”
“Which means it’s time for some of the physical therapy and treatment. Don’t be such a baby.”
She jabbed him with a finger. “You just want to get my shirt off.”
“Always a bonus. Peel it off, Lieutenant.” To make her smile, he leered. “And take your time.”
So okay, it twinged a little when she took off her jacket, her weapon harness. Get it over with, she thought, and began the stretching exercises, working her range of motion as Roarke ditched his jacket and tie.
Her shoulder gave a couple of clicks as she stretched, punched out.
“It’s coming along.”
“So I see. Try to avoid actually punching someone for a few more days,” he suggested as he got the topical cream from a drawer. He rolled up his sleeves as he crossed to her, then started to unhook her trousers.
“I knew it. All you think about is getting in my pants.”
“With every breath I take. But for now, I just want a look at that hip. It was the worst of the cuts. Nearly healed,” he murmured, tracing a fingertip along the edges where McQueen’s knife had sliced. “Mira does good work.”
“We’ve both had worse.”
His eyes lifted to hers, held, and said a great deal. So she leaned into him a little, touched her lips to his.
“I’m okay.”
“Nearly. Lose the tank and sit down. I’ll finish you up.”
She did as he asked, thinking he needed the tending as much as, maybe more than, she. Then his hands—he had magic hands—smoothed the cream over the ache, and she closed her eyes.
“Feels good. Really good.”
“Mira credits your constitution, and your hard head, for the healing process. A couple more days, you’ll likely be good as new. Tell me if I hurt you.”
“You’re not.”
They hadn’t made love since she’d been hurt—and she realized she should have figured why he’d been so careful with her, hadn’t touched her that way, had avoiding being touched by her.
“You’re not,” she said again and, opening her eyes, turned to him. “You won’t.” And took his hand, laid it on her breast. “Feels good,” she repeated. “Really good.”
“I only want to give you time to heal. In every way.”
“I have it on good authority I have an excellent constitution. Let’s test it out.” Going with the instinct that told her they didn’t just need the physical intimacy, but the fun that could go along with it, she tossed her leg over his lap, straddled him. “Get it up, pal.”
Smoothing those magic hands down her sides, he smiled. “You’re very demanding.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.” She took his mouth, gave it a nice little bite as she ground against him. “There you are,” she murmu
red.
“Well, you’ve left me no choice.”
“A cock’s always ready to crow.”
He laughed, wrapped his arms around her. “Crowing’s not what mine’s ready for.”
“Show me.” She went to work on his trousers.
Amused, aroused, he watched her. “In a bit of a hurry, are we?”
“I’ve got to use you and get back to work, so no dawdling.” Then she laid her hands on either side of his face. “Okay, maybe a little dawdling,” she said and brought her lips to his again.
“I’m okay.” She unbuttoned his shirt so she could press against him. Skin to skin, heart to heart. “I want you to touch me. I want you to be with me. I want you.”
He could drown in her, he thought, every minute of every day he could lose himself in what she was, what she gave him, what she took. Now, with her warm and eager against him, he could drown himself, lose himself, and set his worry for her aside.
She didn’t want him to be careful, but he would take care, of her injuries at least. He gave her the controls, took his pleasure from the rise of her passion, from the sprint of her heartbeat under his lips.
When she took him in, she laid her hands on his face again. Her eyes looked deep into his. “You’re holding back. Don’t. Don’t hold back.
So he gripped her hips, careful to avoid the healing wound. And drove her as she drove him. Over the edge of that drowning pool.
With her brow resting on his, she fought to get her breath back. If anything twinged or ached, she didn’t feel it. All she felt was peace.
“Did you really have business downtown today?”
“You’re my business.”
She lifted her head, looked at him again. “You have to stop worrying.”
“That’s never going to happen. But I will stop hovering, which I’ve been doing a bit of. I love you beyond the telling of it, Eve, and what you went through—”
“We. We went through it.”
“All right, that’s true enough. What we went through doesn’t heal as quickly as a cut or a bruise.”
“Working on it, though. Okay?”
“Yes.” He pressed his lips to her healing shoulder. “Yes.”
“Okay. Well, now that I’m done with you, I’m going back to work.”
He sat where he was a moment as she got up, pulled the tank back on. “I feel so used. I find I like it.”
She rolled her injured shoulder, nodded in satisfaction. “Always more where that came from, ace.”
EIGHT
In her office she set up a second murder board while the cat sat on her sleep chair and watched her. Through the adjoining door she heard Roarke talking on the ’link. Probably dealing with business he’d postponed during the hovering mode.
Better now, she decided. Both of them were better now. Not just the sex, but the understanding that came with it—or out of it. And the normalcy that went hand in hand.
“Nothing normal about that,” she said as she studied the sketch. “Not a damn thing normal there.”
She circled around to her desk, noticed that her message light was activated. She called up the message, and actually jolted when Trina’s voice spiked into the room.
“Got the ugly bastard and the question. Could do the skin, hair, ears, nose, teeth, no prob. Could do the red eyes, but not so they look like red balloons coming out of the sockets. Couldn’t do the jaw, not that crooked. The answer is I couldn’t make anybody look like that, and I’m the best. You’ve got yourself a freakazoid, Dallas.
“You need a treatment—hair, face, body. The works. Mavis says she and Leonardo and Bella can come to your place for a visit on Saturday afternoon. I’ll be with them, and bring my gear.”
“Why,” Roarke wondered, “do you look more horrified by that than by the face on your board?”
“She’s coming. We have to stop her.”
“Don’t look at me. You could use a treatment.”
“Hey.” Though she was anything but vain, the careless comment gave her another jolt. “Insulting my hair, face, and body won’t get you banged again anytime soon.”
“You know very well I adore your hair, face, and body. You could use a massage, a relaxation treatment, and some downtime with good friends. In fact, so could I. I believe I’ll contact Trina and have her bring another operative. I’ll have a massage along with you.”
“Traitor.” She stomped to the kitchen for coffee, stomped back. “I’m not thinking about it. It’s not Saturday yet. Anything could happen.”
She wiped a hand through the air. “So. Everybody says it can’t be done. Not costuming, not physically. But it has to be one or the other. If it’s physical, maybe it’s long-term. Something he’s learned to live with. Peabody’s circus freak angle. And if that’s it, I eliminate everybody on my list.”
She scowled at her board. “Pisser.”
“Maybe one of your suspects hired the killings.”
“I’m going to run probabilities on that, but it rips up the theory—and it’s more than a theory—that the killer knew the vics. That it was personal.”
“Maybe he just takes pleasure in his work.”
“Crap. Crap. Crap. Somebody’s wrong. Either the medical experts or the cosmetic/costume experts. I like it better if the cosmetics are wrong, but I’ve got to work it both ways. I’ve got to go back to the beginning.”
“You can go back with me over a meal.”
It usually helped to do just that, talk it through with him, bounce theories and angles off him. But this time, she felt she only circled without getting any closer to the center.
“I don’t believe anyone looks like that,” she said. “And if I decided to believe somebody did, I can’t believe he’d stay off the grid. I ran that sketch through every program we’ve got and didn’t get a single hit.”
“Maybe it’s more recent.”
“The hypo-whatever, the multiple organ failure—and why isn’t he dead, if so—and whatever trauma would cause the lower part of his jaw to be so dislocated it’s nearly under his right ear? I don’t think so. If he was a hire, how did anybody know about him—because he’d have popped if he was a pro, even semipro. If he killed them for himself, why doesn’t anyone else know about him? Unless . . . maybe he’s a patient at the Center. Maybe he’s a kind of experiment they’re keeping on the down low.”
“As in botched?” Roarke twirled some seafood linguine on his fork. “As in mad science?”
“Mad, bad. Maybe. It’s something to poke at. Maybe the vics knew him from before, and found out he was there, confronted the mad-bad scientist, or threatened to tell people on the outside.”
“You don’t like that very much.”
“Not as much as one of them slapping gunk on their face, pumping themselves full of a Zeus cocktail, and whaling away, but it’s another route to take.”
She took it, working angles, running probabilities, reformulating, juggling through the pieces. When Roarke finally tugged her out of her chair hours later, she was more than ready to give it up for the night.
Clear her head, she decided. Let it simmer for a few hours.
Shortly after midnight, Eton Billingsly coded himself into Justin Rosenthall’s lab using a cloned key card and a recording he’d made of Justin’s voice.
He thought himself very clever.
It was time—past it—to prove to Arianna she was wasting her time and resources on Justin. The man was obsessed with this serum, and far too secretive about it in the last weeks.
Because he was getting nowhere, Billingsly concluded. The financial resources Justin wasted had become intolerable, particularly since they could and should be redirected to his own department. Once Arianna saw the truth, she’d rethink the relationship, and this wedding business.
He went directly to the main comp station, noted Justin had locked it down for the night.
But no problem, or very little of one. He’d worked with Justin long enough to know the man kept such things simple
, so his assistant and interns could access data when needed.
Justin called it teamwork. Billingsly called it naivete. One day one of those underlings would steal data and take credit for whatever advance Justin managed to stumble onto.
But in this case, it simply made the job easier.
He tried various names as passwords, working patiently. At one point he thought he heard a sound, froze, turned to look around. Then shook his head at his own foolishness.
He continued until, inspired, he tried Ari102260. The date they’d chosen to be married. Sentimental fool, Billingsly thought as access was granted.
Quickly now, he scanned through file names.
UNQUIET. Justin’s term for the core of addiction. Before he could call it up, something crashed behind him. “What the devil—?”
He whirled, then froze.
“Some might call me that,” the voice ground out, like rocks beneath a boot heel. “But I prefer Chaos. Dr. Chaos.” The creature issued a deep, cape-swishing bow. “At your service.”
“What kind of sick joke is this?”
“My kind. Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, aren’t you, Billingsly? Well, we’ll just have to take care of that.”
“I have every right to . . .” But he backed up as he spoke, with his heart hammering in his dry throat. “I’m contacting Security.”
“Wanna bet?”
As Billingsly began to run, the creature let out a delighted laugh. Strength, speed, excitement poured through him as he leaped. Billingsly went down under him, screaming.
Chaos used the knife. But before the knife, he used his teeth.
And continued long after the screaming stopped.
The signal of her communicator pulled Eve out of a dream where she chased her killer while he danced down an empty street juggling an ear, an eye, and a tongue.
“Gross,” she mumbled, then called for the lights at ten percent before she answered. “Dallas.”
Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Report to the Whitwood Center. See building security and officer on the door for access to Laboratory Six.
“Justin Rosenthall’s area.”
Affirmative. Possible homicide.