Big Jack Read online

  “Yeah, yeah. Answer the question.”

  “He’s right behind you.”

  “Jesus!” She whirled, biting back another curse as she saw Roarke leaning casually in the archway to the parlor. “Why don’t you just pull a blaster and fire away?”

  “That wasn’t the welcome home I’d planned. You’ve blood on your pants.”

  She glanced down. “It’s not mine.” Rubbing at it absently, she studied him.

  It wasn’t just his greeting that spiked her heart rate. That could happen, did happen, just by looking at him. It wasn’t the face. Or not just the face, with its blinding blue eyes, with that incredible mouth curved now in an easy smile, or the miracle of planes and angles that combined into a stunning specimen of male beauty framed by a mane of silky black hair. It wasn’t just that long, rangy build, one she knew was hard with muscle under the business elegance of the dark suit he wore.

  It was all she knew of him, all she had yet to discover, that combined and blew love through her like a storm.

  It was senseless and impossible. And the most true and genuine thing she knew.

  “How did you plan to welcome me home?”

  He held out a hand, linking his fingers with hers when she crossed the marble floor to take it. Then he leaned in, leaned down, watching her as he brushed his lips over hers, watching her still as he deepened the kiss.

  “Something like that,” he murmured, with Ireland drifting through his voice. “To start.”

  “Good start. What’s next?”

  He laughed. “I thought a glass of wine in the parlor.”

  “All by ourselves, you and me, drinking wine in the parlor.”

  The glee in her voice had him lifting a brow. “Yes, I’m sure Summerset’s enjoying his holiday. How sweet of you to ask.”

  “Blah blah.” She strolled into the parlor, dropped down on one of the antique sofas and deliberately planted her boots on a priceless coffee table. “See what I’m doing? Think he just felt a sharp pain in his ass?”

  “That’s very childish, Lieutenant.”

  “What’s your point?”

  He had to laugh, and poured wine from a bottle he’d already opened. “Well then.” He gave her a glass, sat and propped his feet on the table as well. “How was your day?”

  “Uh-uh, you first.”

  “You want to hear about my various meetings, and the progress of plans for the acquisition of the Eton Group, the rehab of the residential complex in Frankfurt and the restructuring of the nanotech division in Chicago?”

  “Okay, enough about you.” She lifted her arm to make room when Galahad, their enormous cat, landed on the cushion beside her with a thump.

  “I thought so.” Roarke toyed with Eve’s hair as she stroked the cat. “How is our new detective?”

  “She’s fine. She’s loaded down with paperwork yet. Clearing up old business so she can start on the new. I wanted to give her a few days as a desk jockey before she takes her shiny new detective’s badge out on the street.”

  He glanced down at the bloodstain on Eve’s pants. “But you’ve caught a case.”

  “Mmm.” She sipped the wine, let it smooth out the edges of the day. “I handled the on-scene solo.”

  “Having a little trouble adjusting to having a partner rather than an aide, Lieutenant?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” She gave an irritable shrug. “I couldn’t just cut her loose, could I?”

  He flicked a finger down the shallow dent in her chin. “You didn’t want to cut her loose.”

  “Why should I? We work well together. We’ve got a rhythm. I might as well keep her around. She’s a good cop. Anyway, I didn’t tag her for this because she had this whole big night planned, and she was already gone. You get enough plans fucked in this job without me pulling her in and botching her big celebration.”

  He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Very sweet of you.”

  “It was not.” Her shoulders wanted to hunch. “It was easier than hearing her bitch and moan about losing reservations and wasting some fancy dress or something. I’ll fill her in tomorrow anyway.”

  “Why don’t you fill me in tonight?”

  “Planned on it.” She slid her gaze in his direction, smirked. “I think you could be useful.”

  “And we know I love being useful.” His fingers skimmed up her thigh.

  She set down her glass, then lifted the tonnage of Galahad, who’d sprawled his girth over her lap. “Come along with me then, pal. I got a use for you.”

  “That sounds . . . interesting.”

  He started out with her, then cocked his head when she stopped halfway up the stairs. “Problem?”

  “I had this thought. You know how Summerset took that header down the steps?”

  “I could hardly forget.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sorry he busted his pin and so on, even over and above the fact that it delayed his getting the hell out of the house for several days.”

  “You’re entirely too sensitive, darling Eve. It can’t be good for you to take on the weight of the world this way.”

  “Ha-ha. So it’s like bad luck. The stairs, I mean. We need to fix that or one of us could be next.”

  “How do you propose to—”

  It was impossible to finish the question, and difficult to remember what that question was when her mouth was hot on his, and her hands already busy tugging at his belt.

  He all but felt his eyes roll up in his skull and out the back of his head.

  “Can’t have enough good luck, to my mind,” he managed, and spun her around so her back hit the wall and he could yank off her jacket.

  “If we don’t fall and kill ourselves, then we’ve broken the curse. This is a really good suit, right?”

  “I have others.”

  She laughed, pulled at his jacket, bit his throat. He hit the release on the weapon harness, shoved at the straps so it and the weapon thudded down the steps.

  Restraints followed, and pocket ’links, a raw-silk tie, a single boot. He had her pinned to the wall, not quite naked, when she came. Her nails bit into his back, then slid down so she could squeeze his butt. “I think it’s working.”

  With a breathless laugh, he pulled her down to the steps. They bumped and rolled. Thumped down, climbed up. In self-defense, she flung out a hand and gripped one of the spindles of the banister, hooked her legs around him like a vise to keep them both from tumbling down in a heap to the bottom.

  He ravaged her breasts while her arching hips drove him toward delirium. When she shuddered, when she choked out his name, he pressed his hand between them and watched her crest again.

  For all that he’d wanted the whole of his life, he’d never wanted anything as he did her. The more he had of her, the more he craved in an endless cycle of love and lust and longing. He could live with whatever had come before, whatever would come after, as long as there was Eve.

  “Don’t let go.” He cupped her hips, lifted them. “Don’t let go.” And drove himself into her.

  There was a moment of blind, blasting pleasure, and her fingers trembled on the wood. The force of his need for her, and hers for him, rammed together, all but stopped her heart. Dazed, she opened her eyes, looked into his. She could see him lose himself, as linked with her now as if there’d been steel forging them.

  So she wrapped herself around him and didn’t let go.

  They sprawled together on the stairs like two survivors of an earthquake. She wasn’t entirely sure the ground didn’t tremble still.

  She had on one boot, and her pants were inside out and stuck on one leg at the ankle. She had no doubt it looked ridiculous, but couldn’t drum up the energy to care.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s safe now,” she commented.

  “I hope to Christ, as I don’t fancy having a go at it on these stairs a second time right at the moment.”

  “I’m the one with a tread in my back.”

  “So you are. Sorry.” He rolled off her, sat u
p, skimmed back his hair. “That was . . . I’m not entirely sure. Memorable. I’d say memorable.”

  She wouldn’t forget it anytime soon. “Most of our stuff’s at the bottom, or nearly.”

  He looked down, as she did. For a moment, while they pondered, there was no sound except their ragged breathing. “There, you see, this is where having someone come along picking up after you comes in handy.”

  “If a certain someone—who shall remain nameless for the next wonderful three weeks—was here to pick up after us, you wouldn’t have gotten your rocks off on the steps.”

  “Point taken. I suppose I’ll go gather things up then. You’re still wearing a boot,” he pointed out.

  She debated for a moment, then decided working the boot off would be simpler than untangling the trousers. Once she had, she picked up whatever was reasonably in reach.

  Then she sat where she was, chin on fist, and watched him tidy up the mess they’d made. It was never a hardship to look at him naked. “I’ve got to dump this stuff, throw something on.”

  “Why don’t we eat while you tell me how else I might be useful?”

  “Deal.”

  Since they’d eat in her home office for her convenience, she let him pick the menu. She even manned the AutoChef herself for the lobster salad he had a yen for. She decided the sex had burned the alcohol out of her system and allowed herself a second glass of wine as they ate.

  “Okay, woman who owns the residence—private town house, Upper East—was out of town for two weeks. A female friend was house-sitting. Owner comes home this afternoon, late this afternoon, sees her living area trashed. Her statement is that the doors were locked, the security alarm set. She goes upstairs. There’s a strong odor, which pisses her off as much as the mess downstairs. She walks into her bedroom, finds her house sitter dead. Dead for five days, according to my on-site. Throat slit. No other visible injuries. Indications are the attack came from behind. The security camera at the entrance was deactivated, disks removed. There’s no sign of forced entry. The victim was wearing a lot of baubles. Possible—even probable—they’re fake, but her wrist unit was a good brand.”

  “Sexual assault?”

  “My prelim on-scene indicates no. I’ll wait and see what the ME says on that one. She was still dressed in club clothes. When the owner settles down some, we’ll have her check to see if anything was taken. I saw what appeared to be antiques, original artworks, upscale electronics. My initial search of the crime scene turned up some jewelry in a drawer. It looked like good stuff, but I’m no judge. Possibly, it was a standard B and E that went wrong, but—”

  “And here you are a judge.”

  “It didn’t look like it. It doesn’t feel like it. It looks like, and feels like, somebody breaking in looking for something, or someone, specific. It looked like this woman came home before he was finished.”

  “Bad timing, all around.”

  “Absolutely. It was known that the owner was out of town. Could be he wasn’t expecting anyone to be there. She walked into the bedroom, he stepped in behind her, slit her throat from ear to ear, and either continued his search or left.”

  “No, not your average B-and-E man. They want in and out quickly, no mess, no fuss. No weapons. You get an extra boot on your time if you get tagged carrying.”

  “You’d know.”

  He merely smiled. “As I was never tagged, or booted, I find that dry sarcasm inappropriate. He didn’t burgle in the traditional sense,” Roarke continued, “so traditional burglary wasn’t the purpose.”

  “My thought. So we run Gannon and Jacobs—owner, victim—and see if anything pops that would make someone want them dead.”

  “Ex-spouses, lovers?”

  “According to the witness, Jacobs liked to play. No specific playmate. Gannon has a recent ex. Claims they parted ways amicably, and no hard feelings, about a month back. But people can be really stupid about that sort of thing, hold grudges, or torches.”

  “You’d know.”

  She went blank for a moment, then had an image of Roarke pounding the crap out of one of her colleagues and a former one-nighter. “Webster wasn’t an ex. You have to be naked with somebody for more than two hours for them to qualify as an ex. It’s a law.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  “You can stop looking smug anytime. I’ll run the ex. Chad Dix. Upper East addy.” It wasn’t pizza, she mused, but the lobster salad wasn’t bad. She scooped up more as she flipped through her mental files. “The victim was a travel agent, worked for Work or Play Travel, midtown. Know them?”

  “No. Don’t use them.”

  “Some people travel for reasons other than work or play. Smuggling, for instance.”

  He lifted his glass, contemplated his wine. “To some points of view, smuggling might fall into the categories of either work or play.”

  “It’ll get boring to keep saying ‘you should know.’ We’ll look into the travel agency, but I don’t think Jacobs was a target. It was Gannon’s house, Gannon’s things. She was out of town, known to be out of town.”

  “Work or play?”

  “Work. She was on some sort of a tour deal for a book. It’s the book that interests me.”

  “Really? Now you have my attention.”

  “Look, I read.” She scooped up more lobster. “Stuff.”

  “Case files don’t count.” He gestured with his fork. “But go on. What interests you about this book?”

  “Do too count,” she retorted. “It’s some sort of family story, but the big hook is a diamond heist, early twenty-first, here in New York. It—”

  “The Forty-seventh Street job. Hot Rocks. I know this book.”

  “You read it?”

  “As a matter of fact. The property was auctioned last year. Starline acquired.”

  “Starline? Publishing? That’s yours.”

  “It is. I caught the pitch from the acquiring editor in one of the monthly reports. It interested me. Everyone—well, everyone with certain interests—knows about the Forty-seventh Street job.”

  “You’d have those certain interests.”

  “I would, yes. Close to thirty million in diamonds walks out of the Exchange. About three-quarters of them are scooped back up. But that leaves a lot of sparkling stones out there. Gannon. Sylvia . . . Susan . . . no, Samantha Gannon. Of course.”

  Yeah, Roarke was a guy who came in handy. “Okay, so you know what you know. Her grandfather recovered or helped recover the stones they got back.”

  “Yes. And her great-grandfather—mother’s side—was one of the team who stole them.”

  “Is that so?” She leaned back, considered. “We didn’t get into that end.”

  “It’s in the book. She doesn’t hide the connection. In fact, the connections, the ins and outs, are strong selling points.”

  “Give me the highlights.”

  “There were four known members of the heist team. One was an inside man, who handled the switch. The others posed as clients or part of the investigative team after the diamonds were discovered missing. Each scheduled a meeting with one of the designers or wholesalers upstairs. Each picked up a novelty item planted by the inside man. A ceramic dog, a rag doll, and so on.”

  “Back up. A doll?”

  “Hide in plain sight,” he explained. “Innocuously. In each blind was a quarter share of the take. They walked in, walked out in broad daylight. Legend has it—and Samantha Gannon perpetuates this in her book—that two of them had lunch a block or so away with their share on their person.”

  “They just walked out.”

  “Brilliant in its simplicity, really. There’s a retail section, street level. Almost a bazaar. And in those days—still in these from time to time—some of the jewelers walk from store to store, from shop to shop, carrying a fortune in gems tucked into paper cups they call briefkes. With enough balls, data and some inside assistance, it’s easier than you might think to walk off with sparkles in the daylight. Easier by far tha
n an after-hours job. Do you want coffee?”

  “Are you getting it?”

  “I will.” He rose to go into the kitchen. “They’d never have gotten away with it,” he called out. “There are careful records kept for stones of that sort. It would take a great deal of patience and willpower to wait until enough time had passed to turn them, and careful research and a strong sense of character to select the right source for that liquidation. Human nature being human nature, they were bound to get nipped.”

  “They got away with a chunk.”

  “Not exactly.” He came back in with a pot and two cups. “Things went wrong almost immediately, starting with dishonor among thieves—as there invariably is. One of the lot, who went by the name of Crew, decided why take a quarter when you can take all. He was a different sort than O’Hara—that’s the great-grandfather—and the others, and they should’ve known better than to throw in with him. He lured the inside man—probably promising a sweeter deal. He gave him two bullets in the brain. They used bullets with alarming regularity back then. He took his dead partner’s share, and so had half.”

  “And went after the others.”

  “He did. News traveled, and they rabbited before he got to them. And that’s how they ended up bringing O’Hara’s daughter into it. It got messy, as you’ll see when you read the book yourself. Another of them was killed. Both Crew and the insurance cop sniffed out the trail. The cop and the thief’s daughter fell in love, happily enough, and she helped him with the recovery of the half O’Hara had access to. Though they rounded up Crew as well, with some drama and heroics, he was killed in prison less than three years after his term began. They found his original share tucked away in a safe-deposit box here in the city, tracked from a key he had on his person at the time of arrest. But he never revealed where the other portion of the diamonds was.”

  “More than fifty years ago. They could be long gone by now. Right back in some jewelry case in the form of rings, bracelets, whatever.”

  “Certainly. But it’s more fun to imagine them hidden inside some ceramic cat getting dusty on a shelf in a thrift store, isn’t it?”

  The fun didn’t register with her, but the motive did. “She talks about the family connection in her book, missing diamonds. Sexy stuff. Somebody’s going to decide she must have them, or know where they are.”