by J. D. Robb
“You can, and should. Why don’t I set that up for you?”
He walked to her command center, sat, and began what would—she knew—take her three times as long.
“Of course,” he continued as he worked, “it may be someone outside this range who happened to be inside it for a variety of reasons. Dinner, a meeting, work, or any number of engagements or activities.”
He glanced up at her frown. “Which you’ve already considered.”
“I have to start somewhere. I can’t filter it by gender, even if it’s a sexual connection. I don’t know if she’s bi. No condoms at her place, but her male partners may bring their own. She sure as hell doesn’t want to get pregnant before the I dos. No oral birth control at her apartment, but she may opt, and probably does, for longer-term internal.”
She gave Merit Caine’s photo a study. “I think I’m going to have to ask the ex-fiancé a couple of very personal questions.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Job done, he rose. “And I suspect he’d be in the mood to cooperate. Now, you’ll have your candidates in the morning, with a secondary list of any arrested for a violent crime.”
“Money’s a weapon, too. It could be somebody who needs it. She says get this woman off my back and I’ll pay you.”
“And, of course, I’m happy to pry into the financial business of any you select.”
He took her hand to draw her out of the room. “Tomorrow. You’ve some debt of your own to pay off.”
“I could work this another hour, then pay up.”
“Let it brew.”
Because she knew he had it right, she didn’t argue. It needed to sit until she could look at it with fresh eyes, could think about it with a rested brain.
“The connection to Shelby, that was a lucky break. You can’t count on luck, but you use it when it falls in your lap. I think I’ll pay a visit to the rejected bride in the morning, too.”
“If she has any sense at all, she’ll have a new lawyer by morning.”
“Maybe, maybe not. She’s the type who thinks she’s so irresistible she could lure the fiancé back with enough pretty tears.”
“I believe that would take more than tears, however pretty.”
“I’d say add sex, but I’m not sure about that.”
“I am,” he said as he tugged her into the bedroom.
“You’re always sure about sex. Maybe I’m too tired.”
“Want a wager on that?” He scooped her off her feet. “I’m feeling lucky.”
He carried her to the big bed and, careful to miss the cat already stretched over it, dumped her. Before Galahad finished muttering and leaping off, Roarke dropped down on Eve, body to body.
Eve twined some of his hair around her finger. “Maybe I’m not in the mood.”
“We’ll up the wager. Double or nothing.”
“What’s double?”
He closed his teeth over her jaw, worked slowly around. “I have you twice.” And his hand slid stealthily, skillfully between her legs.
“That’s cheating.”
“I call it improving the odds.” He flipped open the button of her trousers.
“I don’t make sucker bets.” Reaching up, she unbuttoned his shirt. “And I pay my debts.” Still, she ran her hand down his side. “How are the ribs?”
“They’re fine enough.”
No heat there, she confirmed. “They took a pounding.”
“Cobbe took a harder one.”
“True.” Now she stroked a hand on his cheek. “And it was pretty sexy, all in all, watching you kick a contract killer’s ass. In fact…”
Lightning fast, she scissored her legs, made her move, and reversed their positions. Then she scooted up to straddle him. “Now that you’re all healed up, I don’t have to be gentle with you and hold back.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve been holding back?”
“You tell me.” Bending down, she took his mouth with hers in a deep, aggressive kiss.
“Maybe you have, a bit.” He started undoing her vest. “Considerate of you.”
“Oh, you know me. I’m made of considerate.”
More than you think, he mused, then did the same with her shirt. “Due to my very minor injuries,” he began.
“You were a bruised, bloody, aching mess.”
“Comparatively minor injuries. I may have held back, just a bit, myself.”
“Is that so?”
He dragged her down, then rolled her over. “You tell me.”
His mouth ravished hers, and his hands got very busy.
She felt the weapon harness she’d forgotten she was wearing unhook before he dragged her up to pull off her vest, her shirt. All the while spiking a fever in her blood with his mouth.
And quickly naked to the waist, she wrapped around him.
“Maybe a little.”
But not tonight, he thought as he began to work his way, hands and lips, teeth and tongue, down her body. She arched for him, moaned for him when he tugged her trousers down, when he found her center.
And she erupted for him.
Now, all heated skin, both of them half-dressed, she dragged him up to fight with his belt. His breath as unsteady as hers, he closed his mouth over her breast—small, firm, her heart drumming under his lips.
She wanted the rush, the power and thrill, the crazed friction, the frantic movement of him inside her. Joined and locked and mated.
She freed him, guided him to her. Then dug her fingers into his hips as they rode each other, fast and hard. Need, all need, drowning her senses, clouding her mind.
When that need peaked, it tore through her like a gale. All she could do was hold on until he met his own.
She closed her eyes, and her body sighed under the good, solid weight of him.
“Yeah, maybe just a little,” she murmured.
On a breathless laugh, he lowered his head to the curve of her shoulder. “On both sides.”
“We still have a lot of clothes on—mostly on.”
“And still, somehow, managed.” He turned his head to press his lips to the side of her throat.
“We should probably take off the rest.”
“We should.”
But they stayed as they were another moment, another two.
“It was kind of sexy.”
He lifted his head. “Kind of?”
“I mean when you were pummeling Cobbe into the ground. I revisited that today. I had to deal with all the paperwork.”
“Ah.” He kissed her again. “The downside.”
“Definitely, but done, which is handy, since, you know, murder.”
“You could take on an aide again, to help with that sort of thing. Shelby, for instance.”
“No, Shelby’s where she needs to be. And I don’t want an aide. I took on Peabody because …”
“You put her where she needed to be.”
“Yeah. It’s going to work, you know. The five-point-whatever of them in that big, crazy house.”
“It will, yes, and very well.” He rolled away, sat up to take off his shoes.
She did the same with her boots. “You’ll help them with the fixing it up and all that? I know Peabody will put her crafty-girl hat on, and probably knit a sofa or something, but the big stuff. You like that kind of thing. You’re good at it.”
“I will, of course.”
“Good.”
Still naked to the waist, she took her weapon and harness to the dresser, emptied her pockets. “Did you know Trina offers a cop discount in her salon?”
“Does she?” He turned down the bed. “That’s good of her, and clever as well.”
As she undressed, her mind began to turn again. “I need to check where Gwen gets that stuff done. She might have an ex or current there, or somebody she could talk into eliminating her problem. She does some work for her family’s foundation—which I need to look at more closely. Maybe somebody there …”
Knowing her, knowing she’d start circling a
gain, Roarke took her hand, drew her over to the bed. “You’ll have a busy day tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I have to check out what’s in the safe deposit box. Need a warrant for that. I want to hit Merit Caine first thing, then the box, then—when I know what’s in it—back to Gwen.”
She got into bed, started lining up her day and the potential timing. “I can split the names from the search with Peabody. Or pull in one of the other teams if there’s too many. And I want to go over all this with Mira. Then …”
He rolled on top of her.
“No way, pal.”
“Double or nothing,” he said, and slid inside her.
“I didn’t take the bet.”
“It was implied.”
Slowly now, he moved inside her. Long, slow strokes that stirred the soul seconds before they stirred the body.
“I know this is cheating.” But already soft, subtle, seduced, she moved with him.
He touched his lips to hers, then went deeper until the kiss spun out and spun out for both of them.
He murmured Irish in her ear. Some words she knew, some she didn’t, and all were as seductive as those long, lazy strokes.
She all but felt her bones melt even as the drugging pleasure spread, as it quickened, as it gathered, and released.
When she finally curled against him, body limp, mind empty, she slept.
“There now, a ghrá.” He touched his lips to her hair. “Rest that busy brain.”
He closed his eyes and slept with her.
9
When she woke, alone, Eve stared up at the fading stars through the sky window over the bed. She lived in a house, she thought, with three males—including the cat—who insisted the day began before dawn.
With Roarke undoubtedly in his office wheeling some deal with somebody on the other side of the planet, and the cat surely gobbling down breakfast served by Summerset, she considered giving sleep another shot.
But since her brain had already started to wake enough to think about work, she gave that up. She rolled out of bed, hit the bedroom AC for coffee, then gulped down its precious, life-giving properties on the way to the shower.
There, under the hot pulsing spray of multiple jets, she went over her day’s crowded—and hopefully productive—agenda.
First up, check the search results. Since EDD would have Gwen’s electronics, she’d have them do a cross-match with the contacts.
It wouldn’t hurt to ask the desk manager at House Royale if any of those names were on Gwen’s approved guest list.
She stepped out of the shower, into the drying tube. As the warm air swirled she closed her eyes and refined her moves.
It was still shy of sunrise when she walked into her closet. Sighed.
Roarke wasn’t there to pick over her choices, and she had to admit that the picking over sometimes made it easier.
She went with brown pants that made her think of chocolate, and that made her think of checking on her hidden stash in her office at Central.
And made her think, unkindly, of the elusive Candy Thief. She grabbed a white shirt—always safe, in her opinion—then a navy jacket because it had brown buttons, but mostly because it was leather, and she was weak.
She started to grab brown boots, but saw the navy ones with the chocolate laces.
“Damn it.”
She took the navy.
By the time she dressed, the sun had started to sneak in the windows.
Since neither Roarke nor the cat had made an appearance, she headed to her office.
She heard Roarke’s voice—that don’t-fuck-with-me business mogul’s voice—so poked a head through the doorway.
“Hold,” he said, and paused the transmission. He smiled at her, easy as sunrise. “You’re up early, and looking quite put together.”
“I want to look through the search results. Don’t want to interrupt, just wanted you to know I was out here. I’m curious though. Has whoever’s on the other end of this pissed themselves yet?”
“Possibly.” His smile turned to a cold, feral grin.
“Well, when you’re done scaring the piss out of whoever, I’m in here.”
She started to go straight to her command center, then stopped and recalculated.
If she ordered up breakfast before he did, there would be no possibility of oatmeal or of something sneaky like spinach hiding in an omelet.
“Pancakes,” she murmured, and made it happen before she got to work.
The over ten thousand members stunned her. But then Roarke had, correctly, she thought, included all the boroughs, and the near reaches of New Jersey and Connecticut.
And, being Roarke, he’d ordered secondary searches.
Just New York, just Manhattan, which cut those numbers to just under six thousand, and just over two, respectively.
Too many, she admitted—and as a cop she shouldn’t have been surprised to find so many bigoted nutballs.
His search criteria for members in that geographic area with violent records dropped the number down to just over three thousand for the whole thing, and seven hundred and change for Manhattan.
She considered, drummed her fingers.
“Computer, continue search adding the following filters. First, search for violent crimes against persons—exclude animals and property. Second, search multiple counts, all violent crimes. Third, multiple counts against persons only.”
Acknowledged. Working …
She sat back with her coffee.
She started to swivel to study her board, and Galahad leaped on her counter. Stared, stared deeply, with those bicolored eyes.
“I know you’ve already eaten, so that won’t work.”
He stepped down into her lap. “No more food for you, tubby.”
But she scratched his head as the comp announced completion of the first search.
“Display. Okay, better.”
By the time Roarke came out, she had the new searches complete.
“After whoever pissed him/her/themselves, did they offer to pay you to buy their planet?”
“Manufacturing complex, not a planet, and we’ll say we came to terms. Breakfast in here, is it?”
Obviously amenable, he walked to the doors, opened them to the little terrace and the dawn of a May morning. He stood there, looking out, in his pale gray suit, dark blue tie, and shirt that somehow blended both colors.
Eve paused her work, gave Galahad another rub before dumping him. She went to Roarke, slipped her arms around him.
“Now, this is a lovely way to start the day.”
“Better than scaring the piss out of people?”
“Even better than that.” He tipped her face up, kissed her. “I thought you’d sleep longer.”
“Me, too. But I woke up, started thinking, and that was that. Gives me a jump.”
“Which you’ve made use of already.” After running a hand down her hair, he turned to the table to pour them both coffee. “What did you find in the search?”
“That there are ten thousand—and change—people who are bat-shit crazy in the geographical area.”
“Well now, I expect there are more than that, but I wouldn’t say everyone who joined Natural Order is bat-shit. People seek tribes,” he said as they sat. “Justifications for their own worldview. Others are deceived or naive or simply weak in some way. And you don’t have to be crazy to be bigoted.”
“I’ll give you that one.” She uncovered her pancakes with considerable pleasure and immediately drowned them in butter and syrup.
She dumped the mixed berries she’d ordered over that.
“Anyway, the numbers narrow some with the other filters, and narrow more with the ones I tried this morning. I’m looking at about six hundred names with multiple violent offenses in New York who are current members.”
“Still a considerable number.”
“I’m sending it all to Feeney. They can cross it with contacts on Gwen’s comp and address books and all that. If we get any matches,
it won’t be hundreds.”
“You’ve considered this murder is a first offense—or the killer has never been caught before.”
“Yeah, but this is an angle with high probability, so we’ll test it out. Plus, I’m hoping I can make her piss herself today and give me a name.”
“If anyone can. And you’re going to talk to Merit.”
“First on the list.”
As she shoveled in a bite of syrup-soaked pancake, she saw Roarke’s gaze track over. She didn’t have to turn around to know that cool, steady stare stopped Galahad’s pancake advance.
“I’m having Peabody pick up the bank-box key from Evidence while I go by Caine’s. Then she’ll meet me at the bank. Once we see what Gwen’s tucked away in it, we’ll hit her.”
“Why don’t I go with you to Merit’s? I do know him, and he might be more forthcoming with a friend—even a casual one.”
“Don’t you have other people to intimidate?”
“Scores.” He topped off her coffee, then his own. “But I’ve time for this.”
“It couldn’t hurt. You’d be sympathetic.”
“I am sympathetic.”
“So am I, at this point. But he’s still a lawyer, and lawyers tend to shut the doors on cops. So, yeah, it couldn’t hurt to have you there. If we get anything from Caine, Gwen, the bank box, Peabody and I will follow it up. If not, I think it may be time to have a chat with Stanton Wilkey.”
“Mind your six there, Lieutenant,” he warned her. “While he seems to be one who knows how to stay above the fray, he’s surrounded by—”
“Bat-shit crazies?” She smiled, very much as he had earlier. “I eat them for breakfast.”
“No doubt drowning in syrup. Still, let me know if you’re heading to Connecticut.”
She shrugged. “It won’t be until later. I’ve got a lot to cover this morning.”
“At least you’re fueled for it,” he commented as she finished off the pancakes.
“I’ve just got to finish up one thing before we go.”
He glanced at his wrist unit. “Very early.”
“That’s tactics.”
“I’ll tactically deal with the dishes then before the cat tries to reach his goal of licking the pool of syrup on your plate.”
When they did head out, Eve let Roarke take the wheel while she consulted her ’link.