The In Death Collection, Books 1-5 Page 7

  Remembering her role, she pouted. “I like videos. We can watch, and then you can show me how to be a good girl again.” She smiled at him, hoping for a bonus. “I could touch you this time. I’d like to touch you.”

  He smiled and took the SIG 210 with silencer out of his coat pocket. He watched her blink in curiosity as he aimed the gun.

  “What’s that? Is it a toy for me to play with?”

  He shot her in the head first, the weapon barely making more than a pop as she jerked back. Coolly, he shot again, between those young, firm breasts, and last, as the silencer eroded, into her smooth, bare pubis.

  Switching the camera off, he arranged her carefully among blood-soaked pillows and soiled, smiling animals while she stared up at him in wide-eyed surprise.

  “It was no life for a young girl,” he told her gently, then went back to the camera to record the last scene.

  chapter five

  All Eve wanted was a candy bar. She’d spent most of the day testifying in court, and her lunch break had been eaten up by a call from a snitch that had cost her fifty dollars and gained her a slim lead on a smuggling case that had resulted in two homicides, which she’d been beating her head against for two months.

  All she wanted was a quick hit of sugar substitute before she headed home to prep for her seven o’clock meeting with Roarke.

  She could have zipped through any number of drive-through InstaStores, but she preferred the little deli on the corner of West Seventy-eighth—despite, or perhaps because of the fact that it was owned and run by Francois, a rude, snake-eyed refugee who’d fled to America after the Social Reform Army had overthrown the French government some forty years before.

  He hated America and Americans, and the SRA had been dispatched within six months of the coup, but Francois remained, bitching and complaining behind the counter of the Seventy-eighth Street deli where he enjoyed dispensing insults and political absurdities.

  Eve called him Frank to annoy him, and dropped in at least once a week to see what scheme he’d devised to try to short credit her.

  Her mind on the candy bar, she stepped through the automatic door. It had no more than begun to whisper shut behind her when instinct kicked in.

  The man standing at the counter had his back to her, his heavy, hooded jacket masking all but his size, and that was impressive.

  Six-five, she estimated, easily two-fifty. She didn’t need to see Francois’s thin, terrified face to know there was trouble. She could smell it, as ripe and sour as the vegetable hash that was today’s special.

  In the seconds it took the door to clink shut, she’d considered and rejected the idea of drawing her weapon.

  “Over here, bitch. Now.”

  The man turned. Eve saw he had the pale gold complexion of a multiracial heritage and the eyes of a very desperate man. Even as she filed the description, she looked at the small round object he held in his hand.

  The homemade explosive device was worry enough. The fact that it shook as the hand that held it trembled with nerves was a great deal worse.

  Homemade boomers were notoriously unstable. The idiot was likely to kill all of them by sweating too freely.

  She shot Francois a quick, warning look. If he called her lieutenant, they were all going to be meat very quickly. Keeping her hands in plain sight, she crossed to the counter.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” she said, letting her voice tremble as nervously as the thief’s hand. “Please, I got kids at home.”

  “Shut up. Just shut up. Down on the floor. Down on the fucking floor.”

  Eve knelt, slipping a hand under her jacket where the weapon waited.

  “All of it,” the man ordered, gesturing with the deadly little ball. “I want all of it. Cash, credit tokens. Make it fast.”

  “It’s been a slow day,” Francois whined. “You must understand business is not what it was. You Americans—”

  “You want to eat this?” the man invited, shoving the explosive in Francois’s face.

  “No, no.” Panicked, Francois punched in the security code with his shaking fingers. As the till opened, Eve saw the thief glance at the money inside, then up at the camera that was busily recording the entire transaction.

  She saw it in his face. He knew his image was locked there, and that all the money in New York wouldn’t erase it. The explosive would, tossed carelessly over his shoulder as he raced out to the street to be swallowed in traffic.

  She sucked in a breath, like a diver going under. She came up hard, under his arm. The solid jolt had the device flying free. Screams, curses, prayers. She caught it in her fingertips, a high fly, shagged with two men out and the bases loaded. Even as she closed her hand around it, the thief swung out.

  It was the back of his hand rather than a fist, and Eve considered herself lucky. She saw stars as she hit a stand of soy chips, but she held on to the homemade boomer.

  Wrong hand, goddamn it, wrong hand, she had time to think as the stand collapsed under her. She tried to use her left to free her weapon, but the two hundred and fifty pounds of fury and desperation fell on her.

  “Hit the alarm, you asshole,” she shouted as Francois stood like a statue with his mouth opening and closing. “Hit the fucking alarm.” Then she grunted as the blow to her ribs stole her breath. This time he’d used his fist.

  He was weeping now, scratching and clawing up her arm in an attempt to reach the explosive. “I need the money. I got to have it. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you all.”

  She managed to bring her knee up. The age old defense bought her a few seconds, but lacked the power to debilitate.

  She saw stars again as her head smacked sharply into the side of a counter. Dozens of the candy bars she’d craved rained down on her.

  “You son of a bitch. You son of a bitch.” She heard herself saying it, over and over as she landed three hard short arm blows to his face. Blood spurting from his nose, he grabbed her arm.

  And she knew it was going to break. Knew she would feel that sharp, sweet pain, hear the thin crack as bone fractured.

  But just as she drew in breath to scream, as her vision began to gray with agony, his weight was off her.

  The ball still cupped in her hand, she rolled over onto her haunches, struggling to breathe and fighting the need to retch. From that position she saw the shiny black shoes that always said beat cop.

  “Book him.” She coughed once, painfully. “Attempted robbery, armed, carrying an explosive, assault.” She’d have liked to have added assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, but as she hadn’t identified herself, she’d be skirting the line.

  “You all right, ma’am? Want the MTs?”

  She didn’t want the medi-techs. She wanted a fucking candy bar. “Lieutenant,” she corrected, pushing herself up and reaching for her ID. She noted that the perp was in restraints and that one of the two cops had been wise enough to use his stunner to take the fight out of him.

  “We need a safe box—quick.” She watched both cops pale as they saw what she held in her hand. “This little boomer’s had quite a ride. Let’s get it neutralized.”

  “Sir.” The first cop was out of the store in a flash. In the ninety seconds it took him to return with the black box used for transporting and deactivating explosives, no one spoke.

  They hardly breathed.

  “Book him,” Eve repeated. The moment the explosive was contained, her stomach muscles began to tremble. “I’ll transmit my report. You guys with the Hundred and twenty-third?”

  “You bet, lieutenant.”

  “Good job.” She reached down, favoring her injured arm and chose a Galaxy bar that hadn’t been flattened by the wrestling match. “I’m going home.”

  “You didn’t pay for that,” Francois shouted after her.

  “Fuck you, Frank,” she shouted back and kept going.

  The incident put her behind schedule. By the time she reached Roarke’s mansion, it was 7:10. She’d used over the counter medication to ease
the pain in her arm and shoulder. If it wasn’t better in a couple of days, she knew she’d have to go in for an exam. She hated doctors.

  She parked the car and spent a moment studying Roarke’s house. Fortress, more like, she thought. Its four stories towered over the frosted trees of Central Park. It was one of the old buildings, close to two hundred years old, built of actual stone, if her eyes didn’t deceive her.

  There was lots of glass, and lights burning gold behind the windows. There was also a security gate, behind which evergreen shrubs and elegant trees were artistically arranged.

  Even more impressive than the magnificence of architecture and landscaping was the quiet. She heard no city noises here. No traffic snarls, no pedestrian chaos. Even the sky overhead was subtly different than the one she was accustomed to farther downtown. Here, you could actually see stars rather than the glint and gleam of transports.

  Nice life if you can get it, she mused, and started her car again. She approached the gate, prepared to identify herself. She saw the tiny red eye of a scanner blink, then hold steady. The gates opened soundlessly.

  So, he’d programmed her in, she thought, unsure if she was amused or uneasy. She went through the gate, up the short drive, and left her car at the base of granite steps.

  A butler opened the door for her. She’d never actually seen a butler outside of old videos, but this one didn’t disappoint the fantasy. He was silver haired, implacably eyed and dressed in a dark suit and ruthlessly knotted old-fashioned tie.

  “Lieutenant Dallas.”

  There was an accent, a faint one that sounded British and Slavic at once. “I have an appointment with Roarke.”

  “He’s expecting you.” He ushered her into a wide, towering hallway that looked more like the entrance to a museum than a home.

  There was a chandelier of star-shaped glass dripping light onto a glossy wood floor that was graced by a boldly patterned rug in shades of red and teal. A stairway curved away to the left with a carved griffin for its newel post.

  There were paintings on the walls—the kind she had once seen on a school field trip to the Met. French Impressionists from what century she couldn’t quite recall. The Revisited Period that had come into being in the early twenty-first century complimented them with their pastoral scenes and gloriously muted colors.

  No holograms or living sculpture. Just paint and canvas.

  “May I take your coat?”

  She brought herself back and thought she caught a flicker of smug condescension in those inscrutable eyes. Eve shrugged out of her jacket, watched him take the leather somewhat gingerly between his manicured fingers.

  Hell, she’d gotten most of the blood off it.

  “This way, Lieutenant Dallas. If you wouldn’t mind waiting in the parlor, Roarke is detained on a transpacific call.”

  “No problem.”

  The museum quality continued there. A fire was burning sedately. A fire out of genuine logs in a hearth carved from lapis and malachite. Two lamps burned with light like colored gems. The twin sofas had curved backs and lush upholstery that echoed the jewel tones of the room in sapphire. The furniture was wood, polished to an almost painful gloss. Here and there objects d’art were arranged. Sculptures, bowls, faceted glass.

  Her boots clicked over wood, then muffled over carpet.

  “Would you like a refreshment, lieutenant?”

  She glanced back, saw with amusement that he continued to hold her jacket between his fingers like a soiled rag. “Sure. What have you got, Mr.—?”

  “Summerset, lieutenant. Simply Summerset, and I’m sure we can provide you with whatever suits your taste.”

  “She’s fond of coffee,” Roarke said from the doorway, “but I think she’d like to try the Montcart forty-nine.”

  Summerset’s eyes flickered again, with horror, Eve thought. “The forty-nine, sir?”

  “That’s right. Thank you, Summerset.”

  “Yes, sir.” Dangling the jacket, he exited, stiff-spined.

  “Sorry I kept you waiting,” Roarke began, then his eyes narrowed, darkened.

  “No problem,” Eve said as he crossed to her. “I was just . . . Hey—”

  She jerked her chin as his hand cupped it, but his fingers held firm, turning her left cheek to the light. “Your face is bruised.” His voice was cool on the statement, icily so. His eyes as they flicked over the injury betrayed nothing.

  But his fingers were warm, tensed, and jolted something in her gut. “A scuffle over a candy bar,” she said with a shrug.

  His eyes met hers, held just an instant longer than comfortable. “Who won?”

  “I did. It’s a mistake to come between me and food.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He released her, dipped the hand that had touched her into his pocket. Because he wanted to touch her again. It worried him that he wanted, very much, to stroke away the bruise that marred her cheek. “I think you’ll approve of tonight’s menu.”

  “Menu? I didn’t come here to eat, Roarke. I came here to look over your collection.”

  “You’ll do both.” He turned when Summerset brought in a tray that held an uncorked bottle of wine the color of ripened wheat and two crystal glasses.

  “The forty-nine, sir.”

  “Thank you. I’ll pour out.” He spoke to Eve as he did so. “I thought this vintage would suit you. What it lacks in subtlety . . .” He turned back, offering her a glass. “It makes up for in sensuality.” He tapped his glass against hers so the crystal sang, then watched as she sipped.

  God, what a face, he thought. All those angles and expressions, all that emotion and control. Just now she was fighting off showing both surprise and pleasure as the taste of the wine settled on her tongue. He was looking forward to the moment when the taste of her settled on his.

  “You approve?” he asked.

  “It’s good.” It was the equivalent of sipping gold.

  “I’m glad. The Montcart was my first venture into wineries. Shall we sit and enjoy the fire?”

  It was tempting. She could almost see herself sitting there, legs angled toward the fragrant heat, sipping wine as the jeweled light danced.

  “This isn’t a social call, Roarke. It’s a murder investigation.”

  “Then you can investigate me over dinner.” He took her arm, lifting a brow as she stiffened. “I’d think a woman who’d fight for a candy bar would appreciate a two-inch fillet, medium rare.”

  “Steak?” She struggled not to drool. “Real steak, from a cow?”

  A smile curved his lips. “Just flown in from Montana. The steak, not the cow.” When she continued to hesitate, he tilted his head. “Come now, lieutenant, I doubt if a little red meat will clog your considerable investigative skills.”

  “Someone tried to bribe me the other day,” she muttered, thinking of Charles Monroe and his black silk robe.

  “With?”

  “Nothing as interesting as steak.” She aimed one long, level look. “If the evidence points in your direction, Roarke, I’m still bringing you down.”

  “I’d expect nothing less. Let’s eat.”

  He led her into the dining room. More crystal, more gleaming wood, yet another shimmering fire, this time cupped in rose-veined marble. A woman in a black suit served them appetizers of shrimp swimming in creamy sauce. The wine was brought in, their glasses topped off.

  Eve, who rarely gave a thought to her appearance, wished she’d worn something more suitable to the occasion than jeans and a sweater.

  “So, how’d you get rich?” she asked him.

  “Various ways.” He liked to watch her eat, he discovered. There was a single-mindedness to it.

  “Name one.”

  “Desire,” he said, and let the word hum between them.

  “Not good enough.” She picked up her wine again, meeting his eyes straight on. “Most people want to be rich.”

  “They don’t want it enough. To fight for it. Take risks for it.”

  “But y
ou did.”

  “I did. Being poor is . . . uncomfortable. I like comfort.” He offered her a roll from a silver bowl as their salads were served—crisp greens tossed with delicate herbs. “We’re not so different, Eve.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “You wanted to be a cop enough to fight for it. To take risks for it. You find the breaking of laws uncomfortable. I make money, you make justice. Neither is a simple matter.” He waited a moment. “Do you know what Sharon DeBlass wanted?”

  Her fork hesitated, then pierced a tender shoot of endive that had been plucked only an hour before. “What do you think she wanted?”

  “Power. Sex is often a way to gain it. She had enough money to be comfortable, but she wanted more. Because money is also power. She wanted power over her clients, over herself, and most of all, she wanted power over her family.”

  Eve set her fork down. In the firelight, the dancing glow of candle and crystal, he looked dangerous. Not because a woman would fear him, she thought, but because she would desire him. Shadows played in his eyes, making them unreadable.

  “That’s quite an analysis of a woman you claim you hardly knew.”

  “It doesn’t take long to form an opinion, particularly if that person is obvious. She didn’t have your depth, Eve, your control, or your rather enviable focus.”

  “We’re not talking about me.” No, she didn’t want him to talk about her—or to look at her in quite that way. “Your opinion is that she was hungry for power. Hungry enough to be killed before she could take too big a bite?”

  “An interesting theory. The question would be, too big a bite of what? Or whom?”

  The same silent servant cleared the salads, brought in oversize china plates heavy with sizzling meat and thin, golden slices of grilled potatoes.

  Eve waited until they were alone again, then cut into her steak. “When a man accumulates a great deal of money, possessions, and status, he then has a great deal to lose.”

  “Now we’re speaking of me—another interesting theory.” He sat there, his eyes interested, yet still amused. “She threatened me with some sort of blackmail and, rather than pay or dismiss her as ridiculous, I killed her. Did I sleep with her first?”