The In Death Collection, Books 21-25 Read online

  J.D. ROBB IN COLLECTION BOOKS 21-25

  ORIGIN IN DEATH

  MEMORY IN DEATH

  BORN IN DEATH

  INNOCENT IN DEATH

  CREATION IN DEATH

  J. D. ROBB

  Nora Roberts

  Hot Ice

  Sacred Sins

  Brazen Virtue

  Sweet Revenge

  Public Secrets

  Genuine Lies

  Carnal Innocence

  Divine Evil

  Honest Illusions

  Private Scandals

  Hidden Riches

  True Betrayals

  Montana Sky

  Sanctuary

  Homeport

  The Reef

  River’s End

  Carolina Moon

  The Villa

  Midnight Bayou

  Three Fates

  Birthright

  Northern Lights

  Blue Smoke

  Angels Fall

  High Noon

  Tribute

  Black Hills

  The Search

  Chasing Fire

  Series

  IRISH BORN TRILOGY

  Born in Fire

  Born in Ice

  Born in Shame

  DREAM TRILOGY

  Daring to Dream

  Holding the Dream

  Finding the Dream

  CHESAPEAKE BAY SAGA

  Sea Swept

  Rising Tides

  Inner Harbor

  Chesapeake Blue

  GALLAGHERS OF ARDMORE TRILOGY

  Jewels of the Sun

  Tears of the Moon

  Heart of the Sea

  THREE SISTERS ISLAND TRILOGY

  Dance Upon the Air

  Heaven and Earth

  Face the Fire

  KEY TRILOGY

  Key of Light

  Key of Knowledge

  Key of Valor

  IN THE GARDEN TRILOGY

  Blue Dahlia

  Black Rose

  Red Lily

  CIRCLE TRILOGY

  Morrigan’s Cross

  Dance of the Gods

  Valley of Silence

  SIGN OF SEVEN TRILOGY

  Blood Brothers

  The Hollow

  The Pagan Stone

  BRIDE QUARTET

  Vision in White

  Bed of Roses

  Savor the Moment

  Happy Ever After

  Nora Roberts & J. D. Robb

  Remember When

  J. D. Robb

  Naked in Death

  Glory in Death

  Immortal in Death

  Rapture in Death

  Ceremony in Death

  Vengeance in Death

  Holiday in Death

  Conspiracy in Death

  Loyalty in Death

  Witness in Death

  Judgment in Death

  Betrayal in Death

  Seduction in Death

  Reunion in Death

  Purity in Death

  Portrait in Death

  Imitation in Death

  Divided in Death

  Visions in Death

  Survivor in Death

  Origin in Death

  Memory in Death

  Born in Death

  Innocent in Death

  Creation in Death

  Strangers in Death

  Salvation in Death

  Promises in Death

  Kindred in Death

  Fantasy in Death

  Indulgence in Death

  Treachery in Death

  Anthologies

  From the Heart

  A Little Magic

  A Little Fate

  Moon Shadows

  (with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)

  THE ONCE UPON SERIES

  (with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)

  Once Upon a Castle

  Once Upon a Star

  Once Upon a Dream

  Once Upon a Rose

  Once Upon a Kiss

  Once Upon a Midnight

  Silent Night

  (with Susan Plunkett, Dee Holmes, and Claire Cross)

  Out of This World

  (with Laurell K. Hamilton, Susan Krinard, and Maggie Shayne)

  Bump in the Night

  (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  Dead of Night

  (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  Three in Death

  Suite 606

  (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  In Death

  The Lost

  (with Patricia Gaffney, Mary Blayney, and Ruth Ryan Langan)

  The Other Side

  (with Mary Blaney, Patricia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  Also available…

  The Official Nora Roberts Companion

  (edited by Denise Little and Laura Hayden)

  Table of Contents

  Origin in Death

  Memory in Death

  Born in Death

  Innocent in Death

  Creation in Death

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Origin in Death

  A G. P. Putnam’s Sons Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2005 by Nora Roberts

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-0504-4

  A G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS BOOK®

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons Books first published by The G. P. Putnam’s Sons Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS and the “P” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: June, 2005

  Blood is thicker than water.

  —JOHN RAY

  There will be time to murder and create.

  —T. S. ELIOT

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  PROLOGUE

  DEATH SMILED AT HER, AND KISSED HER GENTLY ON THE cheek. He had nice eyes. She knew they were blue, but not like the blue in her box of crayons. She was allowed to draw with them for one hour every day. She liked coloring best of all.

  She could speak three languages, but she was having trouble with the Cantonese. She could draw the figures, and loved to make the lines and shapes. But it was hard for her to see them as words.

  She couldn’t read very well in any of the languages, and knew the man she and
her sisters called Father was concerned.

  She forgot things she was supposed to remember, but he never punished her—not like others did when he wasn’t there. She thought of them as The Others, who helped the father teach her and care for her. But when he wasn’t there, and she made a mistake, they did something that hurt her, and made her body jump.

  She wasn’t allowed to tell the father.

  The father was always nice, just like he was now, when he sat beside her, holding her hand.

  It was time for another test. She and her sisters took a lot of tests, and sometimes the man she called Father got wrinkles in his forehead, or a sad look in his eyes when she couldn’t do all the steps. In some of the tests he had to stick her with a needle, or hook machines to her head. She didn’t like those tests very much, but she pretended she was drawing with her crayons until they were over.

  She was happy, but sometimes she wished they could go outside instead of pretending to go outside. The hologram programs were fun, and she liked the picnic with the puppy best of all. But whenever she asked if she could have a real puppy, the man she called Father just smiled and said, “Some day.”

  She had to study a lot. It was important to learn all that could be learned, and to know how to speak and dress and play music, and discuss everything she’d learned or read or seen on-screen during her lessons.

  She knew her sisters were smarter, faster, but they never teased her. They were allowed to play together for an hour in the morning and an hour before bed, every day.

  That was even better than the picnic with the puppy.

  She didn’t understand loneliness, or might have known she was lonely.

  When Death took her hand, she lay quietly and prepared to do her best.

  “This will make you feel sleepy,” he told her in his kind voice.

  He’d brought the boy today. She liked when he brought the boy, though it made her feel shy. He was older, and had eyes the same color blue as the man she called Father. He never played with her or her sisters, but she always hoped he would.

  “Are you comfortable, sweetheart?”

  “Yes, Father.” She smiled shyly at the boy who stood beside her bed. Sometimes she pretended the little room where she slept was a chamber, like the ones in the castles she sometimes read about or saw on-screen. And she was the princess of the castle, under a spell. The boy would be the prince who came to save her.

  But from what, she wasn’t sure.

  She hardly felt the needle stick. He was so gentle.

  There was a screen in the ceiling over her bed, and today the man she called Father had programmed it with famous paintings. Hoping to please him, she began to name them as they slid on, then off.

  “Garden at Giverny 1902, Claude Monet. Fleurs et Mains, Pablo Picasso. Figure at a Window, Salvador Da . . . Salvador . . .”

  “Dalí,” he prompted.

  “Dalí. Olive Trees, Victor van Gogh.”

  “Vincent.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice began to slur. “Vincent van Gogh. My eyes are tired, Father. My head feels heavy.”

  “That’s all right, sweetheart. You can close your eyes, you can rest.”

  He took her hand while she drifted off. He held it tenderly in his while she died.

  She left the world five years, three months, twelve days, and six hours after she’d come into it.

  1

  WHEN ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS FACES ON OR off planet was beaten to a bloody, splintered pulp, it was news. Even in New York City. When the owner of that famous face punctured several vital organs of the batterer with a fillet knife, it was not only news, it was work.

  Getting an interview with the woman who owned the face that had launched a thousand consumer products was a goddamn battle.

  Cooling her heels in the plush-to-the-point-of-squishy waiting area of the Wilfred B. Icove Center for Reconstructive and Cosmetic Surgery, Lieutenant Eve Dallas was fully prepared to go to war.

  She’d had just about enough.

  “If they think they can turn me out a third time, they’re ignorant of the greatness of my wrath.”

  “She was unconscious the first time.” Content to lounge in one of the luxurious, overstuffed chairs and sip some complimentary tea, Detective Delia Peabody crossed her legs. “And heading into surgery.”

  “She wasn’t unconscious the second time.”

  “Recovery and Observation. It’s been less than forty-eight, Dallas.” Peabody sipped more tea and fantasized what she would have done if she were here for face or body sculpting.

  Maybe she’d just start with hair extensions. No pain, some gain, she decided, combing her fingers through her dark, bowl-cut ’do.

  “And self-defense looks pretty clear.”

  “She put eight holes in him.”

  “Okay, maybe a little excessive, but we both know her lawyer’s going to claim self-defense, fear of bodily harm, diminished capacity—all of which any jury’s going to buy.” Maybe blonde hair extensions, Peabody thought. “Lee-Lee Ten is an icon. Perfection of female beauty, and the guy played a mighty tune on her face.”

  Broken nose, shattered cheekbone, broken jaw, detached retina. Eve ran through the list in her head. She wasn’t looking to hang a homicide on the woman, for God’s sake. She’d interviewed the medical tech who’d treated Ten on-scene, and she’d investigated and documented the scene itself.

  But if she didn’t close this case down today, she was going to be dealing with the drooling hounds of the media yet again.

  If it came to that, she’d be tempted to play a tune on Ten’s face herself.

  “She talks to us today, and we shut this down. Or I’m slapping her bevy of attorneys and reps with obstruction of justice.”

  “When’s Roarke due home?”

  With a frown, Eve stopped pacing long enough to look at her partner. “Why?”

  “Because you’re getting a little edgy . . . edgier than usual. I think you have Roarke-withdrawal.” Peabody let out a wistful sigh. “Who could blame you?”

  “I’m not having anything-withdrawal.” She muttered it, and began pacing again. She had long legs on a long body, and felt a little confined in the overly decorated space. Her hair was shorter than her partner’s, a deer-hide brown worn carelessly choppy around a lean face with large brown eyes.

  Unlike many of the patients and clients of the Wilfred B. Icove Center, physical beauty wasn’t one of her priorities.

  Death was.

  Maybe she missed her husband, she admitted. It wasn’t a crime. In fact, it was probably one of those marriage rules she was still trying to learn after more than a year in the game.

  It was rare for Roarke to take a business trip that lasted more than a day or two now, and this one had stretched to a week.

  She’d pushed for it, hadn’t she? she reminded herself. She was very aware he’d set a lot of his work aside in the past months to help with hers, or just to be there when she needed him.

  And when a man owned or had interest in nearly every area of business, art, entertainment, and development in the known universe, he had to keep a lot of balls in the air.

  She could handle not being juggled in for a week. She wasn’t a moron.

  But neither was she sleeping very well.

  She started to sit, but the chair was so big, and so pink. It gave her an image of being swallowed whole by a big, shiny mouth.

  “What’s Lee-Lee Ten doing in the kitchen of her three-level penthouse at two in the morning?”

  “Late-night snack?”

  “AutoChef in her bedroom, another in the living area, one in each guest room, one in her home office, one in her home gym.”

  Eve wandered to one of the banks of windows. She preferred the dull, rainy day outside to the perky pink of the waiting area. Fall of 2059 had, so far, proved cold and mean.

  “Everyone we’ve managed to interview stated that Ten had dumped Bryhern Speegal.”

  “They were completely the couple over the
summer,” Peabody put in. “You couldn’t watch a celeb report on-screen or pick up a gossip mag without . . . not that I spend all my time on celebrity watch or anything.”

  “Right. She dumps Speegal last week, according to informed sources. But she’s entertaining him in her kitchen at two in the morning. Both of them are wearing robes, and there is evidence of intimate behavior in the bedroom.”

  “Reconciliation that didn’t work?”

  “According to the doorman, her security discs, and her domestic droid, Speegal arrived at twenty-three fourteen. He was admitted, and the household droid was dismissed to its quarters—but left on-call.”

  Wineglasses in the living area, she thought. Shoes—his, hers. Shirt, hers. His was on the wide curve of the stairs leading to the second level. Her bra had been draped over the rail at the top.

  It hadn’t taken a bloodhound to follow the trail, or to sniff out the activity.

  “He comes over, he comes in, they have a couple of drinks downstairs, sex comes into it. No evidence it wasn’t consensual. No signs of struggle, and if the guy was going to rape her, he wouldn’t bother to drag her up a flight of steps and take off her clothes.”

  She forgot her image of the chair long enough to sit. “So they go up, slap the mattress. They end up downstairs, bloody in the kitchen. Droid hears a disturbance, comes out, finds her unconscious, him dead, calls for medical and police assistance.”

  The kitchen had looked like a war zone. Everything white and silver, acres of room, and most of it splashed and splattered with blood. Speegal, the hunk of the year, had been facedown, swimming in it.

  Maybe it had reminded her, just a little too horribly, of the way her father had looked. Of course, the room in Dallas hadn’t been so shiny, but the blood, the rivers of blood, had been just as thick, just as wet after she’d finished hacking the little knife into him.

  “Sometimes there’s no other way,” Peabody said quietly. “There’s no other way to stay alive.”

  “No.” Edgy? Eve thought. More like losing her edge if her partner could see into her head that easily. “Sometimes there’s not.”

  She rose, relieved when the doctor stepped into the room.

  She’d done her homework on Wilfred B. Icove, Jr. He’d stepped competently into his father’s footsteps, oversaw the myriad arms of the Icove Center. And was known as the sculptor to the stars.