Innocent in Death

by J. D. Robb

  Roarke’s adjoined hers. The door was open, the lights on. No reason not to step over and see what was going on.

  He was at his desk, the suit jacket and shirt replaced by a black sweater. The furry pudge that was their cat was curled on the corner of the workstation. Galahad blinked his dual-colored eyes, then lowered them to lazy slits.

  “Working?” Eve said, and felt stupid, awkward.

  “A bit. You?”

  “Yeah.” She couldn’t quite figure out what to do with her hands, so she hooked her thumbs in her front pockets. “I figured I’d put some time in.”

  He gave her his attention. He had a way of doing that even when he had a zillion things going on. “Want some help?”

  “No. No, I got it. It’s just routine stuff.”

  And his attention shifted away from her, back to his comp screen. “All right, then. Let me know if you change your mind.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Lieutenant,” he said as she turned away. “Try not to drink more than a gallon of coffee.”

  For some reason it made her feel better that he’d poked at her. She moved into the kitchen of her work space, and programmed her AutoChef for a half pot instead of the full one she’d have ordered up otherwise.

  It was good he had some work to do, she thought. They’d both just do what they did for a few hours. She carried her coffee to her desk, and started to call up Peabody’s report on Craig Foster.

  Cursed.

  “Might as well just do it,” she muttered. “Get it off my brain.” She started the run on Percell, Magdelana, manually, ordering text only on her comp screen. It took some time to find her particular quarry, but she narrowed the search by approximate age, physical description—and unless she’d been way off on the accent—nationality. And scored.

  Percell, Magdelana. DOB: March 12, 2029. Born: St. Paul, Minnesota. Parents: Percell, James and Karen. Hair: blond. Eyes: green. Weight: 115 pounds. Height: five feet, five inches.

  Eve skimmed over her education, but noted that Magdelana had graduated from high school early—at fifteen. Had attended Princeton and graduated in just under three years on an accelerated program. Cum laude.

  “So she’s smart.”

  Married: Dupont, Andre, June 22, 2048. No offspring. Divorced: March 2051. Married: Fayette, Georges, April 5, 2055. No offspring. Divorced: October 2059.

  Approximate net worth: thirteen point five million U.S. dollars.

  Residences: Paris, France; Cannes, France.

  No criminal.

  Eve sat back.

  The official data was slim, and the no criminal doubtful as Roarke had said they’d worked together. Even if she hadn’t been convicted, even if she hadn’t been arrested, there should have been some note in her file about being questioned at some point or other.

  He’d cleared it for her, Eve thought, and felt something tighten in her belly. He’d hacked in and tidied up her data, the same way he’d taken care of his own once upon a time.

  He’d protected her.

  Because it was harder to accept than she’d imagined, Eve ended the search. She already knew more than she wanted to know.

  She dove into work, reading Peabody’s report, the case notes. She started runs on staff members as she set up a murder board. And was foolishly pleased when Galahad padded in to leap up and stretch out on her sleep chair.

  “What we have here,” she told him, and picked up her coffee, “is your Average Joe. No big highs, no deep lows. Cruising along with his average life without, apparently, getting in anyone’s way. Then one day he gulps down his homemade hot chocolate during his working lunch and dies a very nasty death.

  “So who was that pissed off at Average Joe? What was there to gain by his death? Look at his financials. Living within his means, such as they were. Death insurance, sure, but not major. No holdings, no real estate, no fancy artwork. Financial gain is way down on our list here.”

  She eased a hip on the edge of her desk, studied the data on her wall screen as she drank her coffee. “And here’s Mirri Hallywell. You could call her an Average Jane. Worked with the vic, hung out with him, had little study sessions with him, and so on. Just friends, though. Now, in your opinion: can two attractive people of the opposite sex, in the same age group, with the same interests who enjoy each other’s company, spend time together and remain only friends? Or will sex, as sex is prone to do, rear its ugly head?”

  She glanced toward the adjoining office, annoyed that her line of thinking had circled back around to Roarke and his former playmate.

  “It’s possible, sure it’s possible. No sexual spark, maybe. Or the platonic thing is just the level the relationship reaches. Hallywell, however, did have opportunity. As did, naturally, the vic’s wife. Could be the ugly end of an ugly triangle. Just that simple.”

  But it didn’t feel like that.

  “Want the guy, kill the wife. That’s what I’d do. There’s the old ‘If I can’t have you no one will’ gambit, but why now?”

  She went back to her notes, to the interviews. No one she’d spoken with had mentioned any sort of upset, argument, controversy, or scandal involving the victim.

  “Average Joe,” she repeated, looking back at the now snoring cat. “Mr. Clean Machine.”

  “If you’re talking to Galahad, you’re wasting your time,” Roarke pointed out.

  “He’s taking it into his subconscious.”

  “The only thing in his subconscious is a yearning for salmon. How’s it going for you?”

  “Circles and dies on me. No motive, no suspects. He’s just not the type to buy it this way. In a mugging, sure. Some random act, absolutely. Everybody’s the type for that. But someone he knew planned this out, set this up, executed it. And no one who knew him has a reason, that I can find, to want him dead.”

  Roarke wandered in to take a look at the ID picture of the victim she had on her wall screen. “He wouldn’t be the first to have some secret life tucked under the average.”

  “No, and I’m going to keep digging at the surface. Could’ve been banging that one.” Eve lifted her chin toward the wall screen as she brought Mirri Hallywell up.

  “Pretty.”

  “Yeah, the wife’s prettier. And according to the retired cop who lives below their apartment, the newlyweds were nailing each other every five minutes, so affair seems superfluous. Still, guys never get tired of sex.”

  Roarke patted her ass. “Indeed we don’t.”

  She split-screened Mirri and Lissette. Opposite types, physically, she thought. “For some, sex is ice cream, and they want a nice variety.”

  Roarke only smiled. “I’ve settled on my single flavor.”

  “Yeah, but you worked your way through the menu a few times first. Foster was young,” she continued when Roarke laughed. “Hadn’t had a lot of time to experiment. It doesn’t play all the notes for me,” she murmured. “But it’s the only tune I’ve got at the moment.”

  He turned now to study her murder board. “Money is, I assume, not in the equation.”

  “Not enough of it.”

  “Rage?”

  “Have to be cold, dead cold. This wasn’t a crime of passion. Poison’s…aloof. Especially if you’re not around to see it do its work. Not discounting rage,” she added. “I just can’t find any. Everybody liked him.”

  “That’s what they said about the Icoves,” he reminded her.

  She shook her head. “This guy’s nothing like them. The Icoves were lofty, smug, crazy, sure, but rich and privileged and in the spotlight. This guy was happy in the wings. Going to take a look at his apartment tomorrow,” she said. “Go through his files at school. Maybe he wasn’t the one with a secret. If he knew something, suspected something worth being poisoned for…” She shrugged. “I’ll find it.”

  “No doubt.” Roarke stepped over, touched his lips to her brow. “And you can start the hunt in the morning. You’ve had a long day of cop work and wifely duties.”

  “Guess
I have.” She let him take her hand to lead her out. “The Derricks were okay. But I still don’t want to go to Montana.”

  “That’s your cow fear talking. We could go out for a couple of days and stay at the resort. Maybe do a little horseback riding.”

  “Oh, there’s a lifelong dream. Getting up on some animal that weighs ten times what I do and saying, ‘Giddyup.’”

  “It’s surprisingly exhilarating.”

  “I’ll stick with chasing down psychopaths for my thrills, thanks.”

  She wondered if he’d gone horseback riding with Magdelana. She wondered how many times he’d ridden Magdelana.

  Goddamn it.

  She turned in the bedroom doorway, pushed him back against the jamb and pressed her lips to his in an avid, energetic kiss. “Or that’s good,” she said, and took a quick bite of his lower lip, “as second place on the thrill-o-meter.”

  “Second place, is it?”

  “Well, psychos are pretty damn thrilling.”

  “I’ll just have to try harder, won’t I?” He reversed their positions quickly, had his mouth on hers, his hands under her sweatshirt. “Wouldn’t want my wife seeking out homicidal maniacs just for a bit of a rush, would I?”

  “All in a day’s work. But…” She boosted herself up, wrapped her legs around his waist. “I’ve clocked out.”

  Their mouths met again, hot and seeking. Then she took hers on a crazed journey of his face, his throat. The taste, his taste—it was everything she craved. He was everything.

  She kept her legs locked around him when he lowered her to the bed, wound her arms around his neck. “Tell me you want me.”

  “Always. Endlessly.”

  “Show me.”

  Desire. She could feel it in him. In his hands, in the way they moved over her, in what they took, in what they gave. She could taste it on his lips, that heat.

  And still it wasn’t enough. She knew only that she needed more.

  For the first time since they’d come together, she wasn’t sure what that more was. She only knew there was a small, cold place inside her that hadn’t been there before. She needed it warmed, she needed it filled.

  Desperate, she rolled with him, dragging at his sweater, digging her fingers into flesh and muscle. “Touch me,” she demanded. “Touch me. Touch me.”

  Her urgency surprised him. Aroused him. So he feasted on her skin, used his hands to take her over. She moaned his name, a sound of both pleasure and plea. And still she quaked, quivered with needs not yet met.

  “Eve.” He lay a hand on her cheek, wanting to see her eyes, to see into them. “Look at me.”

  She did what he asked, struggling to let herself fall away. Just fall away. “Inside me. I want you inside me.”

  She rose up, not in offer but demand, and guided him to her.

  Linked, as only they could be, she told herself. Their rhythm, their heat, their scent. She watched him watch her until her vision blurred. Until there was only speed and movement, the building—frantic and wild—toward that final, sharp-edged release.

  When she lay curled against him, her skin dewed from passion, there was still that small, cold place inside her where the heat hadn’t quite reached.

  In the morning, he was up and out of bed before she was. But he wasn’t in the sitting area, drinking coffee while he watched the financial reports on screen.

  She readied for the day, keenly missing the routine—the conversation, sharing breakfast. Why wasn’t he there, telling her she was wearing the wrong jacket with the wrong pants?

  And the night before? Why hadn’t he pushed himself into her work? Why wasn’t he here, right now, nagging her to eat something?

  She strapped on her weapon harness with an irritated jerk. It was just fine. He was busy, so was she. She didn’t need or want the man in her pocket every hour of the day.

  She strode to her office to retrieve files, though she’d already copied them to her unit at Central. She turned casually toward his office door, had taken only one step when she heard his voice.

  “No, I was up. Yes, old habits die hard.”

  On the ’link, Eve realized, and since there was only his voice, he had it on privacy mode.

  “It was, yes, quite a surprise. I would, of course. I’m sure we do. Why don’t we say one o’clock then, at Sisters Three. I think you’ll like it. Shall I send a car for you? No, Maggie, it’s no trouble. I’ll see you then.”

  Maggie, Eve thought as her stomach sank. Not Magdelana, who was glamorous and just a little distant. But Maggie, who was warm and affectionate.

  She stepped into the doorway and saw she’d done the nearly impossible and caught him off guard. Still, she couldn’t read him in that instant when he stared off into some thought or memory that wasn’t hers to share. Then his attention, along with a distracted smile, was on her.

  “There you are.”

  “Yeah, here I am. At your desk early.”

  “I had a ’link conference with London at six our time.” Behind him the laser fax signaled an incoming he ignored. “I was about to head back and talk you into breakfast.”

  “Full of meal plans today. Lunch?”

  “Sorry? Oh, yes. Apparently Magdelana remembered I’m an early riser.” He slipped the date book he had on his desk into his pocket as he got to his feet. “We’ll have lunch.”

  “So I heard. You’re going to want to be careful there, pal.”

  “Of what?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first old friend you’ve had come around hoping you’d dip back into the game for old times’ sake. You might want to remind her you’re sleeping with a cop these days.”

  Irritation, faint as a whisper, passed over his face. “I’ve no intention of dabbling in old habits.”

  “Old habits die hard, didn’t you say?”

  Now a hint of ice came into his eyes, into his voice. “Eavesdropping now, Lieutenant?”

  “I was standing in my office. Your door was open. I have ears.”

  “Then use them to hear this. I’m having lunch, nothing more or less.” His head angled slightly while those wild blue eyes narrowed speculatively on her face. “Or don’t you trust me?”

  “I’d trust you a hell of a lot more if you didn’t refer to her as an old friend when we both know she was a hell of a lot more.”

  “What she was is nearly a dozen years in the past. Years before I ever set eyes on you.” Now simple bafflement joined the irritation and the ice. “Christ Jesus, are you jealous of a woman I haven’t spoken to, seen, or thought of in years?”

  Eve only looked at him for one long moment. “You’re thinking of her now,” she said, and walked away.

  She jogged down the steps, and there was Summerset, Roarke’s majordomo, his guardian, his man of all work. And the chronic pain in her ass. He stood, tall and thin in unrelieved black, his pewter hair swept back into wings, and cool disdain in his dark eyes.

  She only grabbed the coat, which was draped over the newel post. “If you say a word to me, just one fucking word, I’ll yank that stick out of your ass and beat you bloody with it.”

  She strode toward the door, then spun around. “And tell your keeper if I were the jealous type I’d have beaten him bloody two years ago. Goddamn it.”

  Summerset arched his brows, speculated, then glanced up as Roarke came to the top of the stairs.

  “The lieutenant seems more abrasive than usual this morning,” Summerset commented.

  “She’s having a mood.” Hands in his pockets, Roarke frowned at the front door. A damned uncharacteristic mood, he thought. “Magdelana’s in town. We’re having lunch today. Apparently, Eve doesn’t like it.”

  He met Summerset’s eyes and the expression in them had the temper he’d barely gotten back under control straining again. “Don’t start on me. I’ve had enough drama for one day, and it’s not even eight in the bloody morning.”

  “Why would you complicate your life?”

  “I’m not. I’m having fucking lu
nch. Leave it be,” Roarke warned before walking away.

  The snow at the curbs had gone to dirty gray, and slick patches of ice were booby traps on the sidewalks and people glides. Half-frozen commuters stood bundled to the eyes waiting at maxibus stations. On the corners, glide-cart vendors had their grills smoking as much for personal warmth as business.

  Her vehicle gauge listed the ambient temperature as a hideous four degrees.

  She hoped Roarke froze his Irish ass off.

  Sitting in snarled traffic, she let her head drop down to the wheel. She’d handled it the wrong way. She didn’t know how the hell she should’ve handled it, but she knew she’d bungled it. Now he was going to be pissed at her when he met that…slut. That couldn’t be good strategy.

  And why the hell should she need any strategy anyway?

  “Forget it, forget it,” she told herself. “Barely a bump in the road.”

  Still she steamed about it all the way downtown, brooded over it as she crammed herself in the crowded elevator up to Homicide.

  She went straight to her office with barely a snarl for the bull pen. Closed the door, programmed coffee.

  Work space, she reminded herself. No personal business allowed. That was it, that was all. She decided to drink her coffee and stare out her tiny window until her mind was clear enough to work.

  She was still drinking, still staring, when, after a quick knock, Peabody walked in.

  “Morning. How was the dinner thing?”

  “I ate. Get your coat. We’re going to the vic’s apartment.”

  “Now? Should I contact Lissette Foster to make sure she’s—”

  “I said get your coat.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Peabody didn’t speak again until they were in the car. “Did I miss something? Are we looking at Lissette as prime suspect?”

  “When did you think we’d cleared her?”

  “I didn’t, but I thought we felt she was an unlikely for this.”

  “She had the opportunity. As for motive, spouses can always find one. Sometimes it’s just because you married an asshole. This is where we start.” She drove for a time in silence. “I want to see where he lived,” she said more calmly. “How he lived. How they lived. His body tells us he was a healthy man in his middle twenties who died from ingesting a lethal dose of ricin. That’s about all it tells us. That doesn’t mean that’s all the vic has to say.”