The In Death Collection, Books 1-5 Read online

  “You tell me,” Eve said evenly.

  “It would fit the scenario, considering her choice of profession. There may be a blackout on the press on this particular case, but it takes little deductive power to conclude sex reared its head. I had her, then I shot her . . . if one subscribes to the theory.” He took a bite of steak, chewed, swallowed. “There’s a problem, however.”

  “Which is?”

  “I have what you might consider an old-fashioned quirk. I dislike brutalizing women, in any form.”

  “It’s old-fashioned in that it would be more apt to say you dislike brutalizing people, in any form.”

  He moved those elegant shoulders. “As I say, it’s a quirk. I find it distasteful to look at you and watch the candlelight shift over a bruise on your face.”

  He surprised her by reaching out, running a finger down the mark, very gently.

  “I believe I would have found it even more distasteful to kill Sharon DeBlass.” He dropped his hand and went back to his meal. “Though I have, occasionally, been known to do what is distasteful to me. When necessary. How is your dinner?”

  “It’s fine.” The room, the light, the food, was all more than fine. It was like sitting in another world, in another time. “Who the hell are you, Roarke?”

  He smiled and topped off their glasses. “You’re the cop. Figure it out.”

  She would, she promised herself. By God she would, before it was done. “What other theories do you have about Sharon DeBlass?”

  “None to speak of. She liked excitement and risk and didn’t flinch from causing those who loved her embarrassment. Yet she was . . .”

  Intrigued, Eve leaned closer. “What? Go ahead, finish.”

  “Pitiable,” he said, in a tone that made Eve believe he meant no more and no less that just that. “There was something sad about her under all that bright, bright gloss. Her body was the only thing about herself she respected. So she used it to give pleasure and to cause pain.”

  “And did she offer it to you?”

  “Naturally, and assumed I’d accept the invitation.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I’ve already explained that. I can elaborate and add that I prefer a different type of bedmate, and that I prefer to make my own moves.”

  There was more, but he chose to keep it to himself.

  “Would you like more steak, lieutenant?”

  She glanced down, saw that she’d all but eaten the pattern off the plate. “No. Thanks.”

  “Dessert?”

  She hated to turn it down, but she’d already indulged herself enough. “No. I want to look at your collection.”

  “Then we’ll save the coffee and dessert for later.” He rose, offered a hand.

  Eve merely frowned at it and pushed back from the table. Amused, Roarke gestured toward the doorway and led her back into the hall, up the curving stairs.

  “It’s a lot of house for one guy.”

  “Do you think so? I’m more of the opinion that your apartment is small for one woman.” When she stopped dead at the top of the stairs, he grinned. “Eve, you know I own the building. You’d have checked after I sent my little token.”

  “You ought to have someone out to look at the plumbing,” she told him. “I can’t keep the water hot in the shower for more than ten minutes.”

  “I’ll make a note of it. Next flight up.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t have elevators,” she commented as they climbed again.

  “I do. Just because I prefer the stairs doesn’t mean the staff shouldn’t have a choice.”

  “And staff,” she continued. “I haven’t seen one remote domestic in the place.”

  “I have a few. But I prefer people to machines, most of the time. Here.”

  He used a palm scanner, coded in a key, then opened carved double doors. The sensor switched on the lights as they crossed the threshold. Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been this.

  It was a museum of weapons: guns, knives, swords, crossbows. Armor was displayed, from medieval ages to the thin, impenetrable vests that were current military issue. Chrome and steel and jeweled handles winked behind glass, shimmered on the walls.

  If the rest of the house seemed another world, perhaps a more civilized one than what she knew, this veered jarringly in the other direction. A celebration of violence.

  “Why?” was all she could say.

  “It interests me, what humans have used to damage humans through history.” He crossed over, touching a wickedly toothed ball that hung from a chain. “Knights farther back than Arthur carried these into jousts and battles. A thousand years . . .” He pressed a series of buttons on a display cabinet and took out a sleek, palm-sized weapon, the preferred killing tool of twenty-first century street gangs during the Urban Revolt. “And we have something less cumbersome and equally lethal. Progression without progress.”

  He put the weapon back, closed and secured the case. “But you’re interested in something newer than the first, and older than the second. You said a thirty-eight, Smith & Wesson. Model Ten.”

  It was a terrible room, she thought. Terrible and fascinating. She stared at him across it, realizing that the elegant violence suited him perfectly.

  “It must have taken years to collect all of this.”

  “Fifteen,” he said as he walked across the uncarpeted floor to another section. “Nearly sixteen now. I acquired my first handgun when I was nineteen—from the man who was aiming it at my head.”

  He frowned. He hadn’t meant to tell her that.

  “I guess he missed,” Eve commented as she joined him.

  “Fortunately, he was distracted by my foot in his crotch. It was a nine-millimeter Baretta semiautomatic he’d smuggled out of Germany. He thought to use it to relieve me of the cargo I was delivering to him and save the transportation fee. In the end, I had the fee, the cargo, and the Baretta. And so, Roarke Industries was born out of his poor judgment. The one you’re interested in,” he added, pointing as the wall display opened. “You’ll want to take it, I imagine, to see if it’s been fired recently, check for prints, and so forth.”

  She nodded slowly while her mind worked. Only four people knew the murder weapon had been left at the scene. Herself, Feeney, the commander, and the killer. Roarke was either innocent or very, very clever.

  She wondered if he could be both.

  “I appreciate your cooperation.” She took an evidence seal out of her shoulder bag and reached for the weapon that matched the one already in police possession. It took her only a heartbeat to realize it wasn’t the one Roarke had pointed to.

  Her eyes slid to his, held. Oh, he was watching her all right, carefully. Though she let her hand hesitate now over her selection, she thought they understood each other. “Which?”

  “This.” He tapped the display just under the .38. Once she’d sealed it and slipped it into her bag, he closed the glass. “It’s not loaded, of course, but I do have ammo, if you’d like to take a sample.”

  “Thanks. Your cooperation will be noted in my report.”

  “Will it?” He smiled, took a box out of a drawer, and offered it. “What else will be noted, lieutenant?”

  “Whatever is applicable.” She added the box of ammo to her bag, took out a notebook, and punched in her ID number, the date, and a description of everything she’d taken. “Your receipt.” She offered him the slip after the notebook spit it out. “These will be returned to you as quickly as possible unless they’re called into evidence. You’ll be notified one way or the other.”

  He tucked the paper into his pocket, fingered what else he’d tucked there. “The music room’s in the next wing. We can have coffee and brandy there.”

  “I doubt we’d share the same taste in music, Roarke.”

  “You might be surprised,” he murmured, “at what we share.” He touched her cheek again, this time sliding his hand around until it cupped the back of her neck. “At what we will share.”
/>   She went rigid and lifted a hand to shove his arm away. He simply closed his fingers over her wrist. She could have had him flat on his back in a heartbeat—so she told herself. Still, she only stood there, the breath backing up in her lungs and her pulse throbbing hard and thick.

  He wasn’t smiling now.

  “You’re not a coward, Eve.” He said it softly when his lips were an inch from hers. The kiss hovered there, a breath away until the hand she’d levered against his arm changed its grip. And she moved into him.

  She didn’t think. If she had, even for an instant, she would have known she was breaking all the rules. But she’d wanted to see, wanted to know. Wanted to feel.

  His mouth was soft, more persuasive than possessive. His lips nibbled hers open so that he could slide his tongue over them, between them, to cloud her senses with flavor.

  Heat gathered like a fireball in her lungs even before he touched her, those clever hands molding over the snug denim over her hips, slipping seductively under her sweater to flesh.

  With a kind of edgy delight, she felt herself go damp.

  It was the mouth, just that generous and tempting mouth he’d thought he’d wanted. But the moment he’d tasted it, he’d wanted all of her.

  She was pressed against him; that tough, angular body beginning to vibrate. Her small, firm breast weighed gloriously in his palm. He could hear the hum of passion that sounded in her throat, all but taste it as her mouth moved eagerly on his.

  He wanted to forget the patience and control he’d taught himself to live by, and just ravage.

  Here. The violence of the need all but erupted inside him. Here and now.

  He would have dragged her to the floor if she hadn’t struggled back, pale and panting.

  “This isn’t going to happen.”

  “The hell it isn’t,” he shot back.

  The danger was shimmering around him now. She saw it as clearly as she saw the tools of violence and death surrounding them.

  There were men who negotiated when they wanted something. There were men who just took.

  “Some of us aren’t allowed to indulge ourselves.”

  “Fuck the rules, Eve.”

  He stepped toward her. If she had stepped back, he would have pursued, like any hunter after the prize. But she faced him squarely, and shook her head.

  “I can’t compromise a murder investigation because I’m physically attracted to a suspect.”

  “Goddamn it, I didn’t kill her.”

  It was a shock to see his control snap. To hear the fury and frustration in his voice, to witness it wash vividly across his face. And it was terrifying to realize she believed him, and not be sure, not be absolutely certain if she believed because she needed to.

  “It’s not as simple as taking your word for it. I have a job to do, a responsibility to the victim, to the system. I have to stay objective, and I—”

  Can’t, she realized. Can’t.

  They stared at each other as the communicator in her bag began to beep.

  Her hands weren’t quite steady as she turned away, took the unit out. She recognized the code for the station on the display and entered her ID. After a deep breath, she answered the request for voice print verification.

  “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. No audio please, display only.”

  Roarke could just see her profile as she read the transmission. It was enough to measure the change in her eyes, the way they darkened, then went flat and cool.

  She put the communicator away, and when she turned back to him, there was very little of the woman who’d vibrated in his arms in the woman who faced him now.

  “I have to go. We’ll be in touch about your property.”

  “You do that very well,” Roarke murmured. “Slide right into the cop’s skin. And it fits you perfectly.”

  “It better. Don’t bother seeing me out. I can find my way.”

  “Eve.”

  She stopped at the doorway, looked back. There he was, a figure in black surrounded by eons of violence. Inside the cop’s skin, the woman’s heart stuttered.

  “We’ll see each other again.”

  She nodded. “Count on it.”

  He let her go, knowing Summerset would slip out of some shadow to give her the leather jacket, bid her good night.

  Alone, Roarke took the gray fabric button from his pocket, the one he’d found on the floor of his limo. The one that had fallen from the jacket of that drab gray suit she’d worn the first time he’d seen her.

  Studying it, knowing he had no intention of giving it back to her, he felt like a fool.

  chapter six

  A rookie was guarding the door to Lola Starr’s apartment. Eve pegged him as such because he barely looked old enough to order a beer, his uniform looked as if it had just been lifted from the supply rack, and from the faint green cast of his skin.

  A few months of working this neighborhood, and a cop stopped needing to puke at the sight of a corpse. Chemi-heads, the street LCs, and just plain bad asses liked to wale on each other along these nasty blocks as much for entertainment as for business profits. From the smell that had greeted her outside, someone had died out there recently, or the recycle trucks hadn’t been through in the last week.

  “Officer.” She paused, flashed her badge. He’d gone on alert the moment she’d stepped out of the pitiful excuse for an elevator. Instinct warned her, rightly enough, that without the quick ID, she’d have been treated to a stun from the weapon his shaky hand was gripping.

  “Sir.” His eyes were spooked and unwilling to settle on one spot.

  “Give me the status.”

  “Sir,” he said again, and took a long unsteady breath. “The landlord flagged down my unit, said there was a dead woman in the apartment.”

  “And is there . . .” Her gaze flicked down to the name pinned over his breast pocket. “Officer Prosky?”

  “Yes, sir, she’s . . .” He swallowed, hard, and Eve could see the horror flit over his face again.

  “And how did you determine the subject is terminated, Prosky? You take her pulse?”

  A flush, no healthier than the green hue, tinted his cheeks. “No, sir. I followed procedure, preserved crime scene, notified headquarters. Visual confirmation of termination, the scene is uncorrupted.”

  “The landlord went in?” All of this she could learn later, but she could see that he was steadying as she forced him to go over the steps.

  “No, sir, he says not. After a complaint by one of the victim’s clients who had an appointment for nine P.M., the landlord checked the apartment. He unlocked the door and saw her. It’s only one room, Lieutenant Dallas, and she’s—You see her as soon as you open the door. Following the discovery, the landlord, in a state of panic, went down to the street and flagged down my patrol unit. I immediately accompanied him back to the scene, made visual confirmation of suspicious death, and reported in.”

  “Have you left your post, officer? However briefly?”

  His eyes settled finally, met hers. “No, sir, lieutenant. I thought I’d have to, for a minute. It’s my first, and I had some trouble maintaining.”

  “Looks like you maintained fine to me, Prosky.” Out of the crime bag she’d brought up with her, she took out the protective spray, used it. “Make the calls to forensics and the ME. The room needs to be swept, and she’ll need to be bagged and tagged.”

  “Yes, sir. Should I remain on post?”

  “Until the first team gets here. Then you can report in.” She finished coating her boots, glanced up at him. “You married, Prosky?” she asked as she snapped her recorder to her shirt.

  “No, sir. Sort of engaged though.”

  “After you report in, go find your lady. The ones who go for the liquor don’t last as long as the ones who have a nice warm body to lose it in. Where do I find the landlord?” she asked and turned the knob on the unsecured door.

  “He’s down in one-A.”

  “Then tell him to stay put. I’ll take his s
tatement when I’m done here.”

  She stepped inside, closed the door. Eve, no longer a rookie, didn’t feel her stomach revolt at the sight of the body, the torn flesh, or the blood-splattered child’s toys.

  But her heart ached.

  Then came the anger, a sharp red spear of it when she spotted the antique weapon cradled in the arms of a teddy bear.

  “She was just a kid.”

  It was seven A.M. Eve hadn’t been home. She’d caught one hour’s rough and restless sleep at her office desk between computer searches and reports. Without a Code Five attached to Lola Starr, Eve was free to access the data banks of the International Resource Center on Criminal Activity. So far, IRCCA had come up empty on matches.

  Now, pale with fatigue, jittery with the false energy of false caffeine, she faced Feeney.

  “She was a pro, Dallas.”

  “Her fucking license was barely three months old. There were dolls on her bed. There was Kool-Aid in her kitchen.”

  She couldn’t get past it—all those silly, girlish things she’d had to paw through while the victim’s pitiful body lay on the cheap, fussy pillows and dolls. Enraged, Eve slapped one of the official photos onto her desk.

  “She looks like she should have been leading cheers at the high school. Instead, she’s running tricks and collecting pictures of fancy apartments and fancier clothes. You figure she knew what she was getting into?”

  “I don’t figure she thought she’d end up dead,” Feeney said evenly. “You want to debate the sex codes, Dallas?”

  “No.” Wearily, she looked down at her hard copy again. “No, but it bums me, Feeney. A kid like this.”

  “You know better than that, Dallas.”

  “Yeah, I know better.” She forced herself to snap back. “Autopsy should be in this morning, but my prelim puts her dead for twenty-four hours minimum at discovery. You’ve identified the weapon?”

  “SIG two-ten—a real Rolls-Royce of handguns, about 1980, Swiss import. Silenced. Those old timey silencers were only good for a couple, three shots. He’d have needed it because the victim’s place wasn’t soundproofed like DeBlass’s.”