by J. D. Robb
It was a bracelet, a kind of cuff with a pattern of minute diamond shapes etched into the gold to give it sparkle. In the center was a stone—and as it was bloodred, she assumed it was a ruby—big as her thumb and smooth to the touch.
It looked old, and important, in that priceless antique way that made her stomach jitter.
“Roarke—”
“You forgot the thank-you part.”
“Roarke,” she said again. “You’re going to tell me this once belonged to some Italian countess or—”
“Princess,” he supplied, and took the bracelet from her to slip it onto her wrist. “Sixteenth century. Now it belongs to a queen.”
“Oh, please.”
“Okay, that was laying it on a bit thick. Looks good on you, though.”
“It’d look good on a tree stump.” She wasn’t much on glitters, despite the fact that the man heaped them on her at every opportunity. But this one had . . . something, she thought as she lifted her arm and turned her wrist so the stone and etching caught and scattered light. “What if I lose it, or break it?”
“That would be a shame. But until you do, I enjoy seeing it on you. If it makes you feel any better, my aunt Sinead seemed equally flustered by the necklace I bought her.”
“She struck me as a sensible woman.”
He tugged a lock of Eve’s hair. “The women in my life are sensible, enough to indulge me as giving them gifts brings me such pleasure.”
“That’s a slick way to box it in. It’s beautiful.” And she had to admit, at least privately, that she liked the way it slid fluidly over her skin. “I can’t wear this to work.”
“I don’t suppose so. Then again, I like the way it looks on you now. When you’re wearing nothing else.”
“Don’t get any ideas, ace. I’m on shift in—six hours,” she calculated after a glance at the time.
Because she recognized the gleam in his eye, she narrowed her own. But the token protest she intended to give was interrupted by the bedside ’link.
“That’s your signal.” She nodded toward the ’link, then rolled off the bed. “At least when somebody calls you at two in the morning, nobody’s dead.”
She wandered off into the bathroom as she heard him block video, and answer.
She took her time, then as an afterthought snagged the robe off the back of the door in case he’d reinstated the video on the ’link.
She was belting it as she went back in, and saw he was up and at his closet. “Who was it?”
“Caro.”
“You’ve got to go now? At two in the morning?” His tone, just the way he’d said his admin’s name, had the skin on her neck prickling. “What is it?”
“Eve.” He pulled out a shirt to go with the trousers he’d hastily put on. “I need a favor. A very large favor.”
Not from his wife, she thought. But from his cop. “What is it?”
“One of my employees.” He dragged on the shirt, but his eyes stayed on Eve. “She’s in trouble. Considerable trouble. Someone is dead, after all.”
“One of your employees kill someone, Roarke?”
“No.” Since she continued to stand where she was, he moved to her closet, took out clothes. “She’s confused and panicked, and Caro says somewhat incoherent. These are not traits one associates with Reva. She works in Security. Design and installation, primarily. She’s solid as stone. She was with the Secret Service for a number of years, and isn’t a woman who shakes easily.”
“You’re not telling me what happened.”
“She found her husband and her friend in bed at the friend’s apartment. Dead. Already dead, Eve.”
“And finding two dead bodies, she contacted your administrative assistant instead of the police.”
“No.” He pushed the clothes he’d chosen into Eve’s hands. “She contacted her mother.”
Eve stared at him, cursed softly, then began to dress. “I have to call this in.”
“I’m asking you to wait, until you see for yourself, until you talk to Reva.” He laid his hands on hers, held them there until she looked back at him again. “Eve, I’m asking you, please, wait that long. You don’t have to call in what you haven’t seen with your own eyes. I know this woman. I’ve known her mother more than a dozen years, and trust her to the level I trust very few. They need your help. I need it.”
She picked up her weapon harness, strapped it on. “Then let’s get there. Fast.”
It was a clear night with the heaviness that had dogged the summer of 2059 lightening toward the crispness of the coming fall. Traffic was light, and the short drive required little skill or concentration on Roarke’s part. He judged by his wife’s silence that she’d closed in. She asked no questions as she wanted no more information, nothing that would influence her from her own impressions of what she would see and hear and feel.
Her narrow, angular face was set, the long golden brown eyes cop flat. Unreadable even to him. The wide mouth that had been hot and soft against his only a short time before was firm and tight-lipped.
He parked on the street, in an illegal spot, and flicked the ON DUTY light in her vehicle before she could do so herself.
She said nothing, but stepped onto the sidewalk and stood, tall and lanky, her shaggy brown hair still mussed from love-making.
He crossed to her, gently combed his own fingers through her hair to order it, as well as he could. “Thank you for this.”
“You don’t want to thank me yet. Prime digs,” she commented with a nod toward the brownstone. Before she could mount the steps, the door opened.
There was Caro, her shiny white hair like a silvery halo around her head. Without that, Eve might not have recognized Roarke’s dignified and efficient admin in the pale woman wearing a smart red jacket over blue cotton pajamas.
“Thank God. Thank God. Thank you for coming so quickly.” She reached out with a visibly trembling hand and gripped Roarke’s. “I didn’t know quite what to do.”
“You did just right,” Roarke told her, and drew her in.
Eve heard her stifle a sob, let go with a sigh. “Reva—she’s not well, not well at all. I have her in the living area. I didn’t go upstairs.”
Caro eased away from Roarke, straightened her shoulders. “I didn’t think I should. I haven’t touched anything, Lieutenant, except a glass out of the kitchen. I got Reva a glass of water, but I only touched the glass, and the bottle. Oh, and the handle of the friggie. I—”
“It’s all right. Why don’t you go sit with your daughter? Roarke, stay with them.”
“You’ll be all right with Reva for a few minutes, won’t you?” he asked Caro. “I’ll go with the lieutenant.” Ignoring the flash of irritation over Eve’s face, he gave Caro’s shoulder a comforting rub. “I won’t be long.”
“She said—Reva said it was horrible. And now she just sits there, and doesn’t say anything at all.”
“Keep her quiet,” Eve advised. “Keep her down here.” She started upstairs. She glanced at the leather jacket, ripped to shreds and tossed into a heap on the floor. “Did she tell you which room?”
“No. Just that Reva found them in the bed.”
Eve glanced at the room on the right, another on the left. Then she scented the blood. She continued down the hall, stopped at the doorway.
The two bodies were turned on their sides, facing each other. As if they were telling secrets. Blood stained the sheets, the pillows, the lacy cover that was tangled on the floor.
It stained the hilt and blade of the knife jabbed viciously into the mattress.
She saw a black bag near the door, a high-end stunner on the floor near the left side of the bed, a disordered pile of clothes heaped on a chair. Candles, still lit and wafting fragrance. Music still playing in soft, sexy notes.
“This is no walk in the meadow,” she murmured. “Double homicide. I have to call it in.”
“Will you stand as primary?”
“I’ll stand,” she agreed. “But if your fr
iend did this, that’s not going to be a favor.”
“She didn’t.”
He stepped back while Eve drew out her communicator.
“I need you to take Caro in another room,” she told him when she was finished. “Not the kitchen,” she added with another glance at the knife. “There must be a den or a library or something like that down there. Try not to touch anything. I need to question—what was it? Reva?”
“Reva Ewing, yes.”
“I need to question her, and I don’t want you or her mother around when I do. You want to help her,” she said before he could speak, “let’s keep this as much by the book as we can from this point. You said she’s security.”
“Yes.”
“Since she’s one of yours I don’t have to ask if she’s good.”
“She is. Very good.”
“And he was her husband?”
Roarke looked back at the bed. “He was. Blair Bissel, an artist of some debatable talent. Works—worked in metal. That’s one of his, I believe.” He gestured toward a tall, seemingly jumbled series of metal tubes and blocks that stood in the corner of the room.
“And people pay for that?” She shook her head. “Takes all kinds. I’m going to ask you more about her later, but I want to get to her first, then take a closer look at the scene here. How long have they had marital problems?” Eve asked as she started down the hall again.
“I wasn’t aware they had any.”
“Well, they’re over now. Keep Caro tucked away,” she ordered, then walked to the living area to get her first look at Reva Ewing.
Caro sat with her arm around a woman in her early thirties. She had dark hair, cut short in a style nearly as careless as Eve’s. She looked to have a small, compact body, the athletic sort that showed off well in the black T-shirt and jeans she wore.
Her skin was icy white, her eyes a kind of sooty gray that was nearly black with shock. Her lips were colorless, a bit on the thin side. As Eve stepped closer, those eyes flicked up, stared blindly. They were red-rimmed and puffy, and showed none of the sharp intelligence Eve assumed she owned.
“Ms. Ewing, I’m Lieutenant Dallas.”
She continued to stare, but there was a faint movement of her head, as much shudder as nod.
“I need to ask you some questions. Your mother’s going to go with Roarke while we talk.”
“Oh, couldn’t I stay with her?” Caro’s arm tightened on Reva’s shoulders. “I won’t interfere, I promise, but—”
“Caro.” Roarke moved to stand beside her, reached down and took her hand. “It’s better this way.” Gently, he drew Caro to her feet. “Better for Reva. You can trust Eve.”
“Yes, I know. It’s just . . .” She looked back as Roarke led her from the room. “I’ll be right here. Reva, I’m right here.”
“Ms. Ewing.” Eve sat across from her, set her recorder on the table between them. And saw Reva’s gaze fix on it. “I’m going to record this. I’m going to read you your rights, then ask you some questions. Do you understand?”
“Blair’s dead. I saw. They’re dead. Blair and Felicity.”
“Ms. Ewing, you have the right to remain silent.” Eve walked through the revised Miranda, and Reva closed her eyes.
“Oh God, oh God. It’s real. It’s not some horrible dream. It’s real.”
“Tell me what happened here tonight.”
“I don’t know.” A tear dribbled down her cheek. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Was your husband sexually involved with Felicity?”
“I don’t understand it. I don’t understand. I thought he loved me.” Her eyes locked on Eve’s. “I didn’t believe it at first. How could I? Blair and Felicity. My husband and my friend. But then I could see it, could see all the signs I missed, all the clues, all the mistakes—those little mistakes they both made.”
“How long have you known?”
“Just tonight. Just tonight.” Her breath shuddered in and out as she used a balled fist to wipe at the tears on her cheeks. “He was supposed to be out of town until tomorrow. A client, a new commission. But he was here, with her. I came, and I saw . . .”
“You came here tonight to confront them?”
“I was so angry. They’d made a fool out of me, and I was so angry. They broke my heart, and I was so sad. Then they were dead. All that blood. All the blood.”
“Did you kill them, Reva?”
“No!” Her whole body jerked at the question. “No, no, no! I wanted to hurt them. I wanted them to pay. But I didn’t . . . I couldn’t have. I don’t know what happened.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
“I drove over. We have a house in Queens. Blair wanted a house, and he didn’t want to live in Manhattan where we both worked. Someplace private and away, that’s what he said. Someplace just ours.”
Her voice broke on the words so that she covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry. It all seems impossible. It seems I’ll wake up any minute and none of this will have happened.”
There was some blood on her shirt. None on her hands, on her arms, her face. Eve noted it down among her observations and waited for Reva to compose herself and go on.
“I was furious, and I knew just what I wanted to do. I’d designed the security here, so I knew how to get in. I broke in.”
She dashed a tear off her cheek. “I didn’t want to give them time to prepare, so I broke in, and I went upstairs, to her bedroom.”
“Did you have a weapon?”
“No . . . Well, I had a stunner. My SS issue, reconfigured. It won’t go over minimum power, so I can carry it with a civilian license. I was . . .” She heaved a breath. “I was going to give him a jolt with it. On the balls.”
“And did you?”
“No.” She covered her face with her hands. “I can’t remember clearly. It’s like this smear over my brain.”
“You tear up the leather jacket?”
“Yeah.” She sighed now. “I saw it hanging over the rail. I gave him that goddamn jacket, and seeing it just made me crazy. I took out my minidrill and went to work on it. Petty, I know it was petty, but I was so angry.”
“Doesn’t seem petty to me,” Eve said, keeping her tone mild and just a little sympathetic. “Husband’s cheating on you with your pal, you’d want to get some of your own back.”
“That’s the way I felt. Then I saw them in the bed, together. And I saw them—dead. The blood. I’ve never seen so much blood. She screamed—no, no, I screamed. I must’ve screamed.”
She rubbed a hand over her throat, as if she could still feel the sound ripping through it. “Then I passed out—I think. I smelled something. The blood, but something. Something else, and I passed out. I don’t know how long.”
She reached for the glass of water, drank deeply. “I woke up, and I felt fuzzy and sick and strange. Then I saw them, on the bed. I saw them again and I crawled out. I couldn’t seem to stand up, so I crawled out, to the bathroom and got sick. I called my mother. I don’t know why exactly. I should’ve called the police, but I called Mom. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Did you come here tonight with the intention of killing your husband and your friend?”
“No. I came here with the intention of pitching a royal fit. Lieutenant, I’m going to be sick again. I need to—”
She clutched her stomach, then sprang up and ran. Eve was on her heels when Reva flung open a door and dived into a powder room. Dropping to her knees, she was hideously ill.
“Burns,” she managed, and gratefully took the damp cloth Eve offered. “Burns my throat.”
“You take any illegals tonight, Reva?”
“I don’t do illegals.” She mopped the cloth over her face. “Believe me, you’re raised by Caro, screened by the Secret Service, then Roarke, you don’t screw around.” Exhaustion in every line of her body, she leaned back against the wall. “Lieutenant, I’ve never killed anyone. I carried a weapon when I stood for the President, and once took a
hit for her. I’ve got a temper, and when I’m riding on it, I can be rash. Whoever did that to Blair, to Felicity, wasn’t rash. They had to be crazy. Fucking out of their minds. I couldn’t have done it. I couldn’t have.”
Eve crouched down so they were eye-to-eye. “Why do you sound like you’re trying to convince yourself of that, Reva, as much as me?”
Her lips trembled, her eyes swam with fresh tears. “Because I can’t remember. I just can’t remember.” She covered her face with her hands, and wept.
Eve left her long enough to get Caro. “I want you to sit with her,” Eve instructed. “I’m going to put a guard with you momentarily. That’s procedure.”
“Are you arresting her?”
“I haven’t made that determination. She’s cooperating, and that’s going to help. It’d be best if you bring her in here, keep her in this room until I come back.”
“All right. Thank you.”
“I’ve got to get my field kit out of the car.”
“I’ll get it.” Roarke walked out with her. “What do you think?”
“I’m not thinking anything until I secure and examine the scene.”
“Lieutenant, you’re always thinking.”
“Let me do my job. You want to help? Direct my partner and the CSU upstairs when they arrive. Until then, you need to back off or you’ll just muck up the works.”
“Tell me one thing. Should I advise Reva to contact a lawyer?”
“You put me in a hell of a fix.” She snatched the field kit from him. “I’m a cop. Let me go be a cop. You figure out the rest. Goddamn it to hell and back again.”
She stomped upstairs. Breaking open the kit, she yanked out a can of Seal-It and coated her hands and boots. Then, fixing a recorder on her lapel, she re-entered the crime scene and got to work.
She’d progressed to the bodies themselves when she heard the creak of a floorboard. She whirled, ready to snap at the intruder, and bit back the oath when she spotted Peabody.
She was going to have to get used to her former aide’s lack of clomping. The new detective no longer wore the hard-soled cop shoes of uniform, but cushy airsneaks that were all but soundless. And just, in Eve’s opinion, a little spooky.
She had them, apparently, in every color of the rainbow, including the mustard yellow she wore now to match her jacket. Despite them, and the straight-legged black pants and scoop-necked top, she managed to look pressed and polished and coplike.