Obsession in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “She might’ve taken that time to pull herself back together,” Roarke suggested.

  “Yeah, just as likely. But she’s still shaking, still running on rage. Freeze it! There, right there, just for a second, she loses it. Master doesn’t work, and she shifts. A lot of shadows on her face, but we’ve got some of it—more than before. Can you clean that up?”

  “With a bit of time and effort, yes.”

  “Name your price.”

  “Well now, I don’t work cheap.” He slid a hand around her waist, danced his fingers up her ribs.

  “I’ll give you an IOU.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “We’ve got more of her,” Eve noted. “Just a little more. She got sloppy, and we’ve got more.”

  • • •

  She wept, wept and wept. Everything she’d wanted in the world, all her hopes, her dreams, her needs, shattered like glass.

  How could it all go so wrong? She’d done everything, been so careful, so patient. So true. And now it was all for nothing.

  There was no meaning now, no goal, no joy.

  The skin on her wrist and forearm was raw and blistered, and the pain like hot knives cutting.

  She could fix it, she knew how to fix it. But what was the point? Her life was over, wasn’t it? Her purpose gone, erased. It had been a false purpose, as the single person she’d depended on was false.

  All lies, she thought. Everything a lie.

  So she’d end it. No one would care; no one ever had. She had nothing and no one now. She knew how to end it—a dozen ways to die. She had only to pick one and slide away into yet another form of oblivion.

  Empty death after an empty life.

  She lifted her head, and there was Eve, looking back at her. She could hear the voice—and there was purpose.

  Stop sniveling! Act! You know what to do. You’ve always known. All the rest was play. There’s only one way we can really be partners, be friends, be together. Are you strong enough, finally? Or are you still a coward?

  “Don’t say that! Don’t say I’m a coward. I’ve killed for you. Look what she did!”

  She held out her blistered wrist to the photo, and saw Eve sneer.

  You wasted your time with her, with the boy. It’s always been about us. Clock’s ticking. The ball’s going to drop. It’s the end of the year, so out with the old. In with the new.

  Hope, the first rays, broke in her heart. “Is it what you really want?”

  It’s what has to be. You’ll convince me. You’ll do what’s best for us. Better get started.

  “Yes, I’d better get started. I know what to do.”

  Ignoring her burning wrist, she got up, took the body armor out of her supply closet.

  Yes, yes, she could make this work. She knew what to do.

  She knew how to end it. It had to end to begin, just like one year ended so the new could dawn.

  They’d end together, and begin.

  Eve woke in the dark with Roarke’s arm wrapped snug around her. She couldn’t see the time, but her body told her it was morning. Early, probably brutally early, but morning.

  She couldn’t have said the time she’d dropped into bed, either—or been dropped, as Roarke had just plucked her up when she’d been half asleep at her desk and carted her to bed.

  A habit of his she . . . didn’t mind so much, really.

  What she could say was the narrower search parameters had netted her just over two hundred potential suspects.

  Too many, of course, but it was better than thousands.

  She could carve that down, too, she decided, now that her brain wasn’t so fogged with fatigue.

  Of course, that ran on the geography around her old building, and that was gut instinct, not solid evidence.

  Take that one out, back to thousands.

  Or go with it, narrow the area by a few blocks all around, and cut that number down.

  So she’d do both, dump a chunk on Peabody. See who in her division could take the time to take another chunk. Hack away at it.

  Pull Mira in, have her do the shrink thing on the most likelies, run a probability on same. And wear out some boot leather tracking those most likelies down for interviews.

  Check in, again, with everyone on her target list. Had she left anyone off, as she had Jamie?

  DeWinter? The forensic anthropologist wasn’t a friend, but they’d worked together—and fairly closely. Shit.

  Dawson? The head sweeper was a go-to, but that was work, not personal. And if she expanded there, what about Harvo? Where did Dickhead fall into the mix?

  Christ, did she need to send out a blanket bulletin to everyone she worked with, consulted with, socialized with at some point?

  FYI, evidence indicates I’m currently toxic. Any contact with me may result in death. Take the appropriate precautions.

  Knock it off, she ordered herself. Concentrate on the work, on the process.

  She needs to kill. Who is the next logical target? Determine, protect, and utilize the determination to apprehend the suspect.

  Utilize current data and evidence. We have a profile, a probable if incomplete description, skill sets, motivation, and pattern. Apply to current crop of potentials, and pin the bitch down.

  “Your brain’s far too busy at this hour.”

  Since they were nearly nose-to-nose, Eve stared at the shadow of Roarke’s face. “Is this a new habit?”

  “What would that be?”

  “Second time in about a week you’re not up buying a solar system before dawn. How can the worlds of business and finance continue to revolve if you’re lying around in bed?”

  “I thought I’d find out, and rescheduled my five-fifteen ’link conference.”

  “Who the hell holds conferences at five-fifteen in the morning?”

  “Someone with interests in Prague.”

  “What time is it in Prague?”

  “Later than it is here.”

  “What time is it here?”

  “Almost half-five, and it’s apparent the soother’s worn off.”

  She barely remembered gulping it down. “What the hell was in that soother?”

  “About five hours’ sleep, it seems.” He rolled on top of her.

  “Hey. Who invited you?”

  “I live here,” he reminded her, and lowered his mouth to take hers. “The last day of the year.” He roamed to her throat, to the spot just under her jaw that always allured him. “So we’ll end our year the proper way. Then we can begin it the same way after midnight.”

  “Is that your plan?”

  “Call it spur of the moment.”

  “Your alternate to Prague.”

  His lips curved against her skin. “Dobrý den.”

  “Huh?”

  “Good morning,” he murmured, and took her mouth again, slow and deep, and his hands glided down her body and up again.

  She hoped to end the year with her UNSUB in the box. But as an alternate . . . this worked.

  So she slid her hand over his cheek, into his hair—all that silk—and down the strong, tight muscles of his back.

  The weight of him, both comfort and excitement, the taste as their tongues met, both soothing and stimulating. All, all of him, oh so familiar, but never usual. Clever hands that knew her secrets stroked, brushed, lingered until her skin tingled with anticipation. Her blood, sluggish from sleep, began to heat, began to swim.

  In the deep, dreaming dark, in the last hours of a year that had brought blood and death, and joy and comfort, she embraced what fate had given her. And the man who’d changed everything.

  For a moment she held there, on that gilded curve of quiet bliss, of knowing, of belonging, with her arms around him, with her face pressed to the curve of his throat.

  “I love you, Roark
e. I love you.”

  The words spilled into the center of his heart, glowed there like a candle. Luminous. He gave them back to her, in Irish, in the language of that heart. And slipped inside her, coming home.

  She turned her head until her lips found his. She slid her hands up until their fingers linked.

  She rose with him, a welcome; fell with him, a yielding. Soft and sweet, the words spoken. Slow and loving, the rhythm set.

  Here was peace in a bloody, brutal world both knew too well. And celebration of two souls, lost, then found.

  • • •

  In the predawn dark, she rose, showered, dressed. While Roarke dealt with his rescheduled ’link conference, she checked the overnight results. In the hours she’d slept, the computer had spat out a few more names.

  She studied the faces, the data, asked herself if any of them sparked a memory. Someone she’d seen, in passing. Someone who crossed her path, performed some function.

  She disagreed with the computer on one or two. Complexion too dark, too light, a hair too young. But she couldn’t risk tossing any of them out of the mix, not yet.

  Laboriously, frustratingly, she programmed the two alternate searches, ordering one without the sector factored in, ordering another after she’d clipped two blocks off the grid.

  Though she worried it pressed her technological luck, she added another task, and started probability runs on the current results.

  Too early to check in with anyone, she decided, as the cat bumped his head against her ankle.

  “Okay, okay, I get it. Time for breakfast.”

  She started to go into the office kitchen, changed her mind.

  Some routines were worth preserving, she decided, and with the cat jogging at her heel, went back to the bedroom.

  She couldn’t know how long Prague would take, but considering the soother, the rescheduling, she’d bet her ass Roarke figured to top off his personal brand of care and nurturing with oatmeal.

  “Pig meat,” she murmured, frowning at the bedroom AutoChef. “Definitely pig meat. Not one of his full Irish deals. One of those omelet things. What’s it . . .” She scrolled through the omelet choices. “Yeah, yeah, Spanish omelet. Why is it Spanish? Why isn’t it French or Italian? Who knows, who cares? Okay!”

  With a half laugh as Galahad bumped and meowed—the sound like a curse—she got his kibble first. Since she’d made him wait, she boosted it with a saucer of milk.

  She programmed breakfast for two—and just in time as Roarke came in before she’d quite finished.

  “All good in Prague?”

  “All very good in Prague. And here you are, the dutiful wife, making breakfast.”

  “Here I am, the hungry cop, making breakfast. Why is it a Spanish omelet?”

  “Is that what we’re having?”

  “Yeah, but why? It could be an Irish omelet because it’s got potatoes.”

  “I have no idea why, but it looks good.” He tugged her down with him. “Thanks.”

  “I wasn’t sure how long you’d be in—where is Prague? Czech Republic?”

  “You get an A in Geography this morning.”

  “Geography’s part of the deal.” She picked up a slice of bacon. “It’s just a hunch about the UNSUB living in my old area.”

  “A logical hunch.”

  “Yeah, maybe. I’m going to go by that bar and grill when it opens, take the images in. But I’m running alternate searches now, tossing out the geography on one, closing it in a few blocks on another.”

  “That explains the cursing.”

  “I’m pretty tired of programming.” And in fact she’d already earned a low-grade headache from the morning session. “I don’t know how you geeks deal with it.”

  “Hence the term ‘geek,’ a club you don’t belong to.”

  “Fine by me. I’ve been looking over the pictures of potentials. I feel like a wit going through mug shots, and that’s a club I’d like to resign from really soon. Nobody pops for me, particularly.”

  “Clearly it’s no one you know well or work with on a regular basis.”

  “Agreed. But I had another thought. She showed some hair when she went for Nadine, so I’d say wig’s most likely because why show her own?”

  Roarke nodded as he ate. “That would be careless, and she hasn’t been.”

  “What we see of her shows her complexion is darker than Hastings said—and I don’t think he was wrong. He’s too tuned in to features, faces. So she could have lightened it for that, or darkened it for Nadine.”

  “Or it’s neither because she could have worn subtle disguises throughout.”

  “Yeah, exactly. So no matter what we’ve got, even when you work some magic and clean up the better look we got last night, it may not end up giving up a solid match.”

  “As a charter member of the club of geek, I have to tell you the searches are set very broadly. It’s why you’ve got so many matches in the relatively small geographic area we put in, and why there’s so many variables in those matches.”

  “At least you say it in English,” she replied. “I think, going with the odds and my gut, she went heavier on the disguise last night. She felt like she had to set the delivery ploy aside, the box she could rest on her shoulder to block her face from cams, and people. Why be that careful if you’d altered your look—the face part—that much? Some, I’m betting some because I think it’s more than careful. Obsessive again, anal about it.”

  She went back to her coffee as the theory rolled through her head. “But last night, the face is going to be partially exposed. The cameras, the possibility—and that happened—of witnesses. She’d want to look less like herself. If she’s law enforcement, she knows we’re running these searches. Even if she’s not—but she is—she’s smart enough to know the basic process.”

  “More than blending,” Roarke agreed. “More than going unnoticed by passersby.”

  “Yeah, but we can extrapolate. Easier to darken skin than lighten it, so I’m going with her natural tone on the first two hits, or lighter. She went with dark brown hair last night, so I eliminate that hair color. Not going to use her own. She went with my eye color. Brown. So—”

  “It’s more than brown eyes,” Roarke interrupted. “It’s your eyes, Eve. And there, it’s deliberate. Your eyes. She wants to see through them. And wants others to see you in her.”

  “That’s Mira’s area.” Eve stopped, poked at the omelet. “But I don’t think you’re wrong, and it’s straight-out creepy, I admit it. I get through the creepy, I have to figure out how to use it. Because I will use it when I get her in the box. To get her there, I have to find her. Do you have time to play with the image from last night?”

  “I began that.”

  “Yeah, but can you tweak what you’ve got? Merge it, morph it, whatever it is, Hastings’s description? He’s going to be the most on target, from my take of it. Go with the shorter height, because that’s going to be closer, and the slimmer build, same deal.”

  “I’ll give it some time.”

  ’Link conference with Prague, she thought, solar systems to buy. He’d already given her more time—and always did—than she could ever expect.

  “When you run out of time, can you pass it to Feeney? I want his eye, his experience. He can let McNab and Yancy play some more if he thinks that’s the way to go. But I want his take first.”

  “Of course.”

  “One more thing.”

  “Should I start taking notes?”

  “I think you’ll remember. Do me a solid, Roarke, and be extra careful today. Don’t drive yourself anywhere today. Please,” she added, before he could say anything. “Last night had to make her crazy—crazier. And pissed. If she wants to hit at me where it hurts most, it would be you. Strap on one of the weapons you’re not supposed to carry.”

  “Da
rling Eve.” He leaned over, kissed her. “I always have one of the weapons I’m not supposed to carry. You’re not to worry about me.”

  “That’s the same bullshit as me telling you not to worry about me.”

  “Fair enough. So you’ll take care of my cop, and I’ll take care of your criminal. Reformed.”

  “Semi-reformed. Since you break the law every time you go out packing.” She hissed out a breath. “Take a clutch piece, too.”

  He patted her hand, went back to his eggs.

  He always had a clutch piece.

  • • •

  She could’ve worked at home. In fact, it might have been more efficient, but she wanted to be visible. So she had Peabody meet her at the lab. She’d make the rounds.

  She harassed Dickhead because it was routine, and if anyone was watching, she wanted her to see routine. She flashed the sketch around—Roarke’s take, fully clothed.

  She took it in to Harvo, asked the queen of hair and fiber to post it on her board. Then made the trip upstairs and tracked down Garnet DeWinter over skeletal remains.

  Today’s lab coat was turquoise to match stacked-heel boots. DeWinter pushed her microgoggles up into her explosion of caramel hair, where they were all but lost.

  “Dallas, Peabody. I’m in the middle here, so if it’s not urgent—”

  “Recognize her?” Eve pushed a copy of the sketch under DeWinter’s elegant nose.

  “I can’t say I do. She looks . . . ordinary, and in need of a makeover. Good bone structure, good potential, unrealized.”

  Bone structure, Eve thought, inspired. “What can you tell me about her?”

  DeWinter glanced at the bones on her table. Sighed. “Let me have that.”

  She took the sketch, angled it toward the light. “It’s a composition, so it’s complete speculation. I can say, easily, she needs a better hair color and style.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “Everyone should and it would be a more attractive world.” She looked over the sketch at Eve. “This would be your UNSUB.”