by J. D. Robb
“Been a cop thirty-three years. Used to it.”
Another long shot, Eve thought when she ended transmission. But they were starting to pay off.
When Roarke walked in she had to struggle to focus. Her eyes wanted to give up. “Anything?”
“Nothing on the competitor search, nothing that fits cleanly.”
“How about messily?”
“A handful of men who somewhat fit the description who are, in some way, involved in the upper echelons of competitors. No real hits. And a portion of those are out of the country, or off planet. When I take them through the other locations and times, none of them coordinates. I’ve gone down a few levels—supposing one of the lower-rung employees has a hard-on against me or my organization. I’m not finding anything there. And while I was running that, I realized that’s chasing the wild goose.”
“You gotta chase it to catch it.”
“Eve, it’s not my business. It’s not even me that’s the root. It’s you.”
She blinked twice. “I—”
“No, I can see it in your face.” Temper whipped out in the words. “You’re too damn tired to pull it off. This is no surprise to you. Goddamn it to bloody hell. You’ve had this in mind for some time now, and you’ve been fobbing me off with busywork.”
“Whoa. Wait.”
He simply strode over, lifted her right out of the chair. “You’ve no right. None. You knew or you believe that he’s using me because I’m connected to you. You, who connect to him, his first spree, the first investigation.”
“Ease off.”
“I damn well won’t.”
His wrath, hot or cold, was dangerous at the best of times. Add emotional turmoil and brittle fatigue and it was deadly.
“You’d be a target. The biggest jewel in his bloody crown. You’ve had that in your head, and never said, never gave me the courtesy of telling me.”
“Don’t. I’ve had about enough of people telling me I didn’t give them courtesy. This is a murder investigation and I left my etiquette disc at the office. Ease off!”
He just drew her up until she was on her toes. “If I hadn’t been so guilty and distracted, thinking it was something I did, or was, or had that was causing him to take my people, I’d have come to this myself long before. You let me think it.”
“I don’t know if it’s me or if it’s you, but I did know—and boy are you proving it out—that if I told you this possibility, you’d go off.”
“So you lied to me.”
Her fury bloomed, so ripe and real at the accusation she had to fight, viciously, to stop herself from punching him. “I did not lie to you.”
“By omission.” He dropped her back on her feet. “I thought we trusted each other more than this.”
“Fuck it. Just fuck it.” She sat down, pressed her hands to her head. “Maybe I’m screwing up, right, left, back, forth. Feeney, you. I do trust you, and if I haven’t shown you that by now with every goddamn thing I have, I don’t know how else to do it.”
“Mentioning this bloody business might’ve done the job.”
“I needed to think it through. It never really occurred to me until Mira brought it up. And that was just today. I haven’t had time to think, goddamn it. I haven’t even run the probability yet.”
“Run it now.”
She dropped her hands, looked up at him. Her own temper had fizzled like a wet fuse, and all that was left were the soggy dregs.
“I can’t take it. You’ve got to know, however spineless it is, I can’t take it if you slap me back, too. I can’t take it from both of you in one day. I wasn’t trying to hurt either of you. I was just doing my job the best I know how. I wasn’t keeping this from you, I just hadn’t…assimilated it yet.”
“Or figured out how to use it, if your assimilation indicated it had merit.”
“Yes. If it has merit, I will use it. You know that if you know me.”
“I know that, yes.” He turned away, walked to her windows.
“There was a time I wouldn’t have had anyone to consult on a decision. There was a time,” she continued, “I wouldn’t have considered it necessary to take anyone’s thoughts or feelings into account in any decision I made. That’s not true anymore. When I’d thought it through, when I’d come up with ideas or options, I would have told you. I wouldn’t have moved forward without telling you.”
True enough, he told himself as he mastered his own fury and fear. That was all true enough, for both of them. And small, hard comfort.
“Still, you’ll move forward, if you believe you must, regardless of my thoughts and feelings.”
“Yes.”
He turned back. “I probably wouldn’t love you so much it all but chokes me if you were otherwise.”
She let out a breath. “I probably wouldn’t love you, et cetera, et cetera, if you didn’t understand I can’t be otherwise.”
“Well, then.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s hard for you.”
“You do.” He crossed back. “Aye, you do, but you don’t understand the whole of it. How could you? Why should you?” He touched her cheek. “I wouldn’t have been so angry if it hadn’t taken me so bloody long to realize it wasn’t about me, but about you.”
“Not everything’s about you, ace.”
He smiled, as she’d meant him to, but his eyes stayed intense. “We’ll talk through, thoroughly, any plans you make to try to use this angle. To use yourself as bait.”
“Yes. My word on that.”
“All right, then. We need to go to bed. I’ll have my way on that, Lieutenant. It’s nearly two in the morning, and you’ll want to be up around five, I’d guess.”
“Yeah, okay. We’ll catch some sleep.”
She walked with him, but couldn’t stop the ball he’d launched from bouncing around in her mind. “It was shuffling around in my head,” she began. “The idea of me being a target. A lot of information and supposition was shuffling around in my head.”
“As I’ve marched along with you on this one for the past two days and three nights, I have a good understanding of how much is crowded in your head on this.”
“Yeah, but see—God, I’m becoming a woman even before the words come out of my mouth.”
“Please, you must be stopped.”
“I’m serious.” Mildly embarrassed by it, she shoved her hands in her pockets. “The way women just nibble and gnaw at something, just can’t let it alone. Any minute I’m going to start wondering which color lip dye works best with my complexion. Or my shoes.”
He laughed, shook his head. “I think we’re safe from that.”
“If I ever start going that way, put me down. Okay?”
“My pleasure.”
“But what I have to say, which is annoying, is that I don’t even know if it’s a viable angle. I’m not going to drop over to some guy’s house to plan a party for him or teach him the samba.”
“You often go to strangers’ houses to interview them or take statements.”
“Okay, yeah.” She pushed at her hair as they entered the bedroom. “But I’m rarely solo, and I’m logged, and Jesus, Roarke, I’m a cop. It wouldn’t be a snap for some old guy to get the drop on me.”
“Which makes you quite the challenge. That would be an added appeal.”
“And that’s shuffling around, too. But—”
“He might have targeted you instead of Ariel Greenfeld. If you’ve been in his sights the last few days—weeks, come to that—it could’ve been you he took today.”
“No, it couldn’t.” And this, she realized as she undressed, was why she was gnawing at this. He had to see, accept, and relax. “Think about it. I’ve barely had an hour alone in my own office since Friday night. Outside this house or Central, I’ve been with you or Peabody. Maybe you think he can get the drop on me, but is he going to get the drop on both of us, or on two cops?”
He stopped, studied her. The clenched fist in his gut relaxed fractionally. “You have
a point. But you’re considering changing that.”
“Considering. If we go that route, and that’s still a major if, I’ll be wired, I’ll be protected. I’ll be armed.”
“I want a homing beacon on your vehicle.”
“There will be.”
“No, I want one on before we leave the grounds in the morning. I’ll see to it.”
Give and take, she reminded herself. Even when—maybe especially when—give and take was a pain in the ass. “Okay. But there go my plans to slip off and meet Pablo the pool boy for an hour of hot, sticky sex.”
“We all have to make sacrifices. Myself, I’ve had to reschedule my liaison with Vivien the French maid three times in the last couple of days.”
“Blows,” Eve said as they slipped into bed.
“She certainly does.”
She snorted, jabbed her elbow back lightly as he drew her back against him. “Perv.”
“There you go, stirring me up when we need our sleep.” His fingers brushed lightly over her breast, trailed down her torso, teased, trailed lightly up again.
On a sigh, she laid her hand over his, encouraging the caress. This was better, she thought, this was the way to end a long, hard day. Body to body, sliding away in the dark.
When his lips found the nape of her neck, she stretched like a lazy cat. “Sleep’s only one way to recharge.”
“So it seems. Just as it seems I can’t keep my hands off you.”
She felt him harden against her, and heat. “Funny place for a hand. You ought to see a doctor about that. It could…Oh.” She shuddered, seemed to shimmer when he slipped into her.
“There’s a better place.” Now his hand glided down, pressed against her as he pleasured them both with long, slow strokes.
She went soft, breath catching, body fluid as wine. His hands were free to touch, to take, to tease. Breasts, torso, belly, that glorious heat where they joined.
He could feel every quiver and quake that passed through her even as she surrounded him.
She breathed out his name as she rolled up and over, rolled through the climax. In the utter dark he knew all of her: body, heart, mind. Steeped in the moment, he murmured to her in the language of his shattered childhood. With her, he was complete.
So easy, so exquisite and simple, this merging, this melding. No empty spaces when he was with her, no haunting images of blood and death. Just peace, she knew only peace and pleasure. Those hands, so skilled, so patient. The whispers she knew were love dipped from a deep and turbulent well.
Here she could be pliant, here she could yield. So she rose up, and up, trembling as she clung, one moment, just one moment more to that breathless peak. Holding as she felt him climb with her, hold with her.
And so she slid down again, wrapped with him.
In the dark, she smiled, clutched his hand to bring it between her breasts. “Buenas noches, Pablo.”
“Bonne nuit, Vivien.”
She dropped, grinning, into sleep.
It was a shame. A true shame. But he could do nothing more with Gia. Nothing in his research of her had indicated she would have a mind so easily broken. Honestly, he felt as if they’d barely begun, and now he had to end it.
He’d risen early, hoping against hope that she’d revived sometime in the night. He’d given her dopamine, tried lorazepam—which weren’t easy to come by, but he felt the trouble he’d gone to was necessary.
He’d tried electric shock, and that he could admit had been very interesting. But nothing—not music, not pain, not drugs, not the systemic jolts—had been able to reach in and find the lock to the door her mind had hidden behind.
After the truly rousing success with Sarifina, this was a crushing disappointment. But still, he reminded himself, it took two to make a partnership.
“I don’t want you to blame yourself, Gia.” He laid her arms in the channels that ran the length of the table so the blood would drain. “Perhaps I rushed things with you, approached the process poorly. After all, we each have our own unique tolerance for pain, for stress, for fear. Our minds and bodies are built to withstand only so much. Now, it’s true,” he continued as he made the first cut on her wrist, “that training, exercise, diet, education can and do increase those levels. But I want you to know I understand you did your very best.”
When he’d opened the veins on her right wrist, he walked around the table, took her left. “I’ve enjoyed our time together, even though it was brief. It’s simply your time, that’s all. As my grandfather taught me, every living thing is merely a clock that begins winding down with the very first breath. It’s how we use that time that counts, isn’t it?”
When he was done, he moved away to wash and sterilize the scalpel, to scrub the blood off his hands. He dried them thoroughly under the warm air of his blower.
“Well now,” he said cheerfully, “we’ll have some music. I often play ‘Celeste Aida’ for my girls when it’s time for them to go. It’s exquisite. I know you’ll enjoy it.”
He ordered the aria and, as the music filled the room, sat, eyes dreamy, his memory stretching back decades, to her.
And watched the last moments of Gia Rossi’s life drain away.
13
EVE SHUFFLED INTO THE SHOWER AS ROARKE was drying off from his. Her voice was rusty when she ordered the jets on, and her eyes felt as if someone had coated a thin adhesive inside her lids during the night.
The hot blast helped, but she knew it was going to take considerably more to get all engines firing. She considered the departmentally approved energy pill, then opted to hold that in reserve. It would boost her, no question, and it would leave her feeling overwired and jumpy all day.
She’d stick with caffeine. Lots and lots of caffeine.
When she came out, Roarke was wearing trousers. Just trousers, she noted—all bare-chested, bare-footed, with all that gorgeous black hair still a little damp from the shower.
There were other things that gave the system a good jolt, and he was certainly top of her personal list.
And when he crossed to her, offering a mug of black coffee, her love knew no bounds.
The sound she made was as much in appreciation of him as that first life-giving gulp.
“Thanks.”
“Food’s next. We didn’t quite make it through dinner, and you’re not going through the day on coffee and attitude.”
“I like my attitude.” But she went to the closet, pulled out what looked warm and comfortable. “How come you can look sexy and rested after a couple hours’ sleep, and I feel like my brain’s been used for Arena Ball practice?”
“Enormous strength of will and lucky metabolism.” He selected a shirt, slipped it on, but didn’t bother to button it. He studied her as she pulled on stone gray trousers. “I could order up an energy drink.”
“No. They always have a crappy aftertaste and make me feel like my eyes are crossing and uncrossing. Weirds me.” She pulled on a long-sleeved white tee, dragged a black sweater over it. “I’m just going to—”
She stopped, frowned at the knock on the bedroom door. “Who else in their right mind would be up at this hour?”
“Let’s find out.” Roarke walked to the door, and opened it to Mavis and Belle.
“I saw the light under the door.”
“Is something wrong with the baby?” Roarke asked. “Is she sick?”
“Bella? No, she’s trip T’s—Totally Tip-Top. Just needed her morning change and snuggle. But I peeked out, saw the light. Okay if we come in a minute?”
“Of course. I was just about to deal with breakfast. Would you like something?”
“No, just too early for me to fuel up. Well, maybe some juice. Papaya maybe?”
“Have a seat.”
“Everything okay?” Eve asked her.
“Yeah, well, you know. When Belle sent out the morning call, I just didn’t want to cuddle in. Restless.”
Mavis stood, in red-and-white–striped pajamas Summerset must have unearth
ed from somewhere. They were too big for her, and way too conservative.
They made her look, to Eve’s eyes, tiny and fragile.
“Everything’s fine, going to be fine. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“I guess I just wanted to see if you were okay, and if there was something I could do.”
“It’s under control.” Since Mavis was standing, swaying gently side to side in a way that was making Eve vaguely seasick, Eve gestured to a chair in the sitting area. “Sit down.”
“I was thinking Trina and I could look over the appointment books, and maybe we could try to find the hair enhancement.” Mavis shrugged. “And Trina was telling me she thinks the guy was using one of a couple of product lines—face and body creams and lotions. I could maybe track down where they’re available, and—I don’t know. Maybe it would help.”
“Maybe it would.”
Roarke set down a tall glass of juice, some fresh fruit, and a basket of muffins. Mavis glanced at them, then up at Roarke. “If I wasn’t gone squared over my huggie bear, I’d fight Dallas for you.”
“I’d squash you like a bug,” Eve told her.
“Yeah, but you’d limp awhile after. Would it be all right if we stayed here—Belle and me—until…Leonardo’s going to be back this afternoon. I thought—”
“You can stay as long as you like,” Roarke told her as he brought over two plates from the AutoChef.
“Thanks. He’s just worried. He started thinking what if Belle and I had been with Trina, and this guy had made a move on her. I know it’s fetched, but you have a kid and you start winding through the crazed meadow.”
“All meadows are crazed,” Eve commented. “You and Belle relax and hang.”
On cue, Belle began to fuss and whimper. Mavis shifted, smoothly unbuttoning the pajama top. “I thought maybe if Trina was finished before—”
“Sure, sure.” Instinctively Eve averted her eyes, grabbed her coffee. “I’ll have her brought back here when she’s done. No problem.”
“Mag. Big relief. So—”
“Oh, well then.” Roarke pushed to his feet as Mavis’s breast popped out and Belle’s eager mouth popped on. “I’ll just…” Go anywhere else.