The In Death Collection, Books 1-5 Read online

  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

  Naked in Death

  Glory in Death

  Immortal in Death

  Rapture in Death

  Ceremony 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.

  NAKED IN DEATH

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1995 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: 978-1-1012-0354-5

  A BERKLEY BOOK®

  Berkley Books first published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  Berkley and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: May, 2002

  What’s past is prologue.

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  Violence is as American as cherry pie.

  —RAP (HUBERT GEROLD) BROWN

  Contents

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven

  chapter twelve

  chapter thirteen

  chapter fourteen

  chapter fifteen

  chapter sixteen

  chapter seventeen

  chapter eighteen

  chapter nineteen

  chapter twenty

  chapter one

  She woke in the dark. Through the slats on the window shades, the first murky hint of dawn slipped, slanting shadowy bars over the bed. It was like waking in a cell.

  For a moment she simply lay there, shuddering, imprisoned, while the dream faded. After ten years on the force, Eve still had dreams.

  Six hours before, she’d killed a man, had watched death creep into his eyes. It wasn’t the first time she’d exercised maximum force, or dreamed. She’d learned to accept the action and the consequences.

  But it was the child that haunted her. The child she hadn’t been in time to save. The child whose screa
ms had echoed in the dreams with her own.

  All the blood, Eve thought, scrubbing sweat from her face with her hands. Such a small little girl to have had so much blood in her. And she knew it was vital that she push it aside.

  Standard departmental procedure meant that she would spend the morning in Testing. Any officer whose discharge of weapon resulted in termination of life was required to undergo emotional and psychiatric clearance before resuming duty. Eve considered the tests a mild pain in the ass.

  She would beat them, as she’d beaten them before.

  When she rose, the overheads went automatically to low setting, lighting her way into the bath. She winced once at her reflection. Her eyes were swollen from lack of sleep, her skin nearly as pale as the corpses she’d delegated to the ME.

  Rather than dwell on it, she stepped into the shower, yawning.

  “Give me one oh one degrees, full force,” she said and shifted so that the shower spray hit her straight in the face.

  She let it steam, lathered listlessly while she played through the events of the night before. She wasn’t due in Testing until nine, and would use the next three hours to settle and let the dream fade away completely.

  Small doubts and little regrets were often detected and could mean a second and more intense round with the machines and the owl-eyed technicians who ran them.

  Eve didn’t intend to be off the streets longer than twenty-four hours.

  After pulling on a robe, she walked into the kitchen and programmed her AutoChef for coffee, black; toast, light. Through her window she could hear the heavy hum of air traffic carrying early commuters to offices, late ones home. She’d chosen the apartment years before because it was in a heavy ground and air pattern, and she liked the noise and crowds. On another yawn, she glanced out the window, followed the rattling journey of an aging airbus hauling laborers not fortunate enough to work in the city or by home-links.

  She brought the New York Times up on her monitor and scanned the headlines while the faux caffeine bolstered her system. The AutoChef had burned her toast again, but she ate it anyway, with a vague thought of springing for a replacement unit.

  She was frowning over an article on a mass recall of droid cocker spaniels when her tele-link blipped. Eve shifted to communications and watched her commanding officer flash onto the screen.

  “Commander.”

  “Lieutenant.” He gave her a brisk nod, noted the still wet hair and sleepy eyes. “Incident at Twenty-seven West Broadway, eighteenth floor. You’re primary.”

  Eve lifted a brow. “I’m on Testing. Subject terminated at twenty-two thirty-five.”

  “We have override,” he said, without inflection. “Pick up your shield and weapon on the way to the incident. Code Five, lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir.” His face flashed off even as she pushed back from the screen. Code Five meant she would report directly to her commander, and there would be no unsealed interdepartmental reports and no cooperation with the press.

  In essence, it meant she was on her own.

  Broadway was noisy and crowded, a party where rowdy guests never left. Street, pedestrian, and sky traffic were miserable, choking the air with bodies and vehicles. In her old days in uniform she remembered it as a hot spot for wrecks and crushed tourists who were too busy gaping at the show to get out of the way.

  Even at this hour there was steam rising from the stationary and portable food stands that offered everything from rice noodles to soydogs for the teeming crowds. She had to swerve to avoid an eager merchant on his smoking Glida-Grill, and took his flipped middle finger as a matter of course.

  Eve double-parked and, skirting a man who smelled worse than his bottle of brew, stepped onto the sidewalk. She scanned the building first, fifty floors of gleaming metal that knifed into the sky from a hilt of concrete. She was propositioned twice before she reached the door.

  Since this five-block area of Broadway was affectionately termed Prostitute’s Walk, she wasn’t surprised. She flashed her badge for the uniform guarding the entrance.

  “Lieutenant Dallas.”

  “Yes, sir.” He skimmed his official compu-seal over the door to keep out the curious, then led the way to the bank of elevators. “Eighteenth floor,” he said when the doors swished shut behind them.

  “Fill me in, officer.” Eve switched on her recorder and waited.

  “I wasn’t first on the scene, lieutenant. Whatever happened upstairs is being kept upstairs. There’s a badge inside waiting for you. We have a Homicide, and a Code Five in number Eighteen-oh-three.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “I don’t have that information.”

  He stayed where he was when the elevator opened. Eve stepped out and was alone in a narrow hallway. Security cameras tilted down at her and her feet were almost soundless on the worn nap of the carpet as she approached 1803. Ignoring the handplate, she announced herself, holding her badge up to eye level for the peep cam until the door opened.

  “Dallas.”

  “Feeney.” She smiled, pleased to see a familiar face. Ryan Feeney was an old friend and former partner who’d traded the street for a desk and a top level position in the Electronics Detection Division. “So, they’re sending computer pluckers these days.”

  “They wanted brass, and the best.” His lips curved in his wide, rumpled face, but his eyes remained sober. He was a small, stubby man with small, stubby hands and rust colored hair. “You look beat.”

  “Rough night.”

  “So I heard.” He offered her one of the sugared nuts from the bag he habitually carried, studying her, and measuring if she was up to what was waiting in the bedroom beyond.

  She was young for her rank, barely thirty, with wide brown eyes that had never had a chance to be naive. Her doe-brown hair was cropped short, for convenience rather than style, but suited her triangular face with its razor-edge cheekbones and slight dent in the chin.

  She was tall, rangy, with a tendency to look thin, but Feeney knew there were solid muscles beneath the leather jacket. More, there was a brain, and a heart.

  “This one’s going to be touchy, Dallas.”

  “I picked that up already. Who’s the victim?”

  “Sharon DeBlass, granddaughter of Senator DeBlass.”

  Neither meant anything to her. “Politics isn’t my forte, Feeney.”

  “The gentleman from Virginia, extreme right, old money. The granddaughter took a sharp left a few years back, moved to New York, and became a licensed companion.”

  “She was a hooker.” Dallas glanced around the apartment. It was furnished in obsessive modern—glass and thin chrome, signed holograms on the walls, recessed bar in bold red. The wide mood screen behind the bar bled with mixing and merging shapes and colors in cool pastels.

  Neat as a virgin, Eve mused, and cold as a whore. “No surprise, given her choice of real estate.”

  “Politics makes it delicate. Victim was twenty-four, Caucasian female. She bought it in bed.”

  Eve only lifted a brow. “Seems poetic, since she’d been bought there. How’d she die?”

  “That’s the next problem. I want you to see for yourself.”

  As they crossed the room, each took out a slim container, sprayed their hands front and back to seal in oils and fingerprints. At the doorway, Eve sprayed the bottom of her boots to slicken them so that she would pick up no fibers, stray hairs, or skin.

  Eve was already wary. Under normal circumstances there would have been two other investigators on a homicide scene, with recorders for sound and pictures. Forensics would have been waiting with their usual snarly impatience to sweep the scene.

  The fact that only Feeney had been assigned with her meant that there were a lot of eggshells to be walked over.

  “Security cameras in the lobby, elevator, and hallways,” Eve commented.

  “I’ve already tagged the discs.” Feeney opened the bedroom door and let her enter first.

  It wasn’t pretty. Death
rarely was a peaceful, religious experience to Eve’s mind. It was the nasty end, indifferent to saint and sinner. But this was shocking, like a stage deliberately set to offend.

  The bed was huge, slicked with what appeared to be genuine satin sheets the color of ripe peaches. Small, soft focused spotlights were trained on its center where the naked woman was cupped in the gentle dip of the floating mattress.

  The mattress moved with obscenely graceful undulations to the rhythm of programmed music slipping through the headboard.

  She was beautiful still, a cameo face with a tumbling waterfall of flaming red hair, emerald eyes that stared glassily at the mirrored ceiling, long, milk white limbs that called to mind visions of Swan Lake as the motion of the bed gently rocked them.

  They weren’t artistically arranged now, but spread lewdly so that the dead woman formed a final X dead center of the bed.

  There was a hole in her forehead, one in her chest, another horribly gaping between the open thighs. Blood had splattered on the glossy sheets, pooled, dripped, and stained.

  There were splashes of it on the lacquered walls, like lethal paintings scrawled by an evil child.

  So much blood was a rare thing, and she had seen much too much of it the night before to take the scene as calmly as she would have preferred.

  She had to swallow once, hard, and force herself to block out the image of a small child.

  “You got the scene on record?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then turn that damn thing off.” She let out a breath after Feeney located the controls that silenced the music. The bed flowed to stillness. “The wounds,” Eve murmured, stepping closer to examine them. “Too neat for a knife. Too messy for a laser.” A flash came to her—old training films, old videos, old viciousness.

  “Christ, Feeney, these look like bullet wounds.”

  Feeney reached into his pocket and drew out a sealed bag. “Whoever did it left a souvenir.” He passed the bag to Eve. “An antique like this has to go for eight, ten thousand for a legal collection, twice that on the black market.”

  Fascinated, Eve turned the sealed revolver over in her hand. “It’s heavy,” she said half to herself. “Bulky.”

  “Thirty-eight caliber,” he told her. “First one I’ve seen outside of a museum. This one’s a Smith & Wesson, Model Ten, blue steel.” He looked at it with some affection. “Real classic piece, used to be standard police issue up until the latter part of the twentieth. They stopped making them in about twenty-two, twenty-three, when the gun ban was passed.”