by J. D. Robb
Roarke looked down. “Well, now, fuck us all.”
“You’re going to want to get that mess out of my house.” With this, Eve strode out again.
She passed Summerset in the foyer. She assumed the expression on his face was a grin, but couldn’t be absolutely sure. “You’re going to want to be careful—spreading your mouth like that could split your whole face in half.”
“I thought applauding would be a bit inappropriate.”
She snorted, and kept right on going upstairs.
Face throbbing, sensibilities insulted, Roarke stepped over Magdelana. In the foyer, he sent Summerset an icy look. “Take care of that.”
“With absolute pleasure.” Still, Summerset stood another moment, watching Roarke head upstairs after his wife.
He caught up with her in the bedroom. “Damn it all to hell and back again, you know very well that was a setup. You bloody well know I couldn’t put my hands on her.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.” Eve shrugged off her coat, tossed it aside. “I know a setup when I see it, and I know your face, ace. I didn’t see desire on it, I saw annoyance.”
“Is that so? Is that bloody well so? Well, if you knew it was just what it was, why did you sucker punch me?”
“Mostly?” She turned, cocked a hip. “Because you’re a man.”
Eyes narrowed on her face, he tried to stanch the blood with the back of his hand. “And do you have any sort of idea just how often I might expect your fist in my goddamn face because of my bleeding DNA?”
“No, really don’t.” He looked so furious, so incredibly insulted. She wanted to rip off his clothes and bite his ass. “In fact, I think you’ve earned a good whupping.”
“Bugger that. I’ve had about enough of women altogether.” The absurdity of the entire thing began to wind through his temper. “You’re fearsome and irrational creatures.”
She rolled up on the balls of her feet and back again, flexed her knees. “Afraid to take me on? Come on, hotshot, you got punched for being a man. Act like one.”
“It’s a man you want, is it?” He began to circle as she did. “I’m going to take you down.”
“Look how scared I am. I’m shaking.” She feinted with her left, spun, and back-kicked. “Oh, no, that’s suppressed laughter.”
He blocked the kick, then the next with his forearm, forced her to jump over the sweep of his foot. He worked her back toward the bed, and when he’d judged the distance, spun, then flipped her.
She landed on her back on the bed, but when he dived after, she’d rolled off the other side. Crouched into fighting stance.
“Not going to be that easy, ace.”
“Who said I wanted it easy?”
He rolled as well, and she had to give him credit for both speed and agility. She danced back, aimed a jab—blocked—then an elbow jab that connected. She pulled it. After all, she didn’t want him on the disabled list, not with what she had in mind.
But she didn’t mind if he limped a little. Serve him right. She started to bring her heel down on his instep, but he turned into her, knocked her off balance.
Together they rolled down the short steps of the platform and hit the floor with her on top.
“Ready to throw in the towel?” she asked, breathlessly.
“No.” He scissored his legs, trapping hers, and reversed their positions. “You?”
“My ass.” And she ripped his shirt open.
“You’ll have to pay for that.”
“Try to make me.”
He hooked a hand in the collar of her shirt, tore it down the front. On a chain under it, she wore the diamond and the saint’s medal he’d given her. The arms of the shirt hung on her weapon harness.
“Bloody cop,” he muttered, hitting the release.
“Bloody criminal.”
“Former, and no convictions.” He pressed his mouth to hers, swore at the burn in his wounded lip. “You pack a punch, Lieutenant.” He reared up enough to look down at her face—brown eyes full of challenge, wide mouth curved in a smug smile. “You’re my goddamn Valentine.”
She laughed, grabbed two fistfuls of his hair. “You’d better believe it, buster.”
She wanted to devour him, one greedy bite at a time, and let her nails dig a little into his back once she’d torn the tattered shirt away. She’d seen more than annoyance on his face when Magdelana had clung to him.
Eve had seen what she might have missed if she and Roarke had been stupid enough, crazy enough, blind enough to pass each other by.
“I love you.” She closed her teeth over his shoulder, gasped when his scraped down her throat. She hooked her legs around his waist, shoved so that he was under her again. With her mouth like a fever on his, on his flesh.
So it wouldn’t be romantic and dreamy, a snowfall outside the window and gypsy violins singing in the air. It would be desperate, and a little rough. And as real and urgent as their heartbeats.
He felt his survival depended on the taste and texture of her skin. He pulled and dragged at her clothes like a man possessed by demons.
“You’ll give me all of you. All.”
“Take it,” she told him, and was under him again. His mouth ravaged her breast, and his hands…his hands, his hands.
She cried out, rocketing up as the orgasm gathered and flashed through her like a ball of lightning. She heard him murmuring to her, the sound thick and Irish. Felt him quiver as he held himself back.
And that she wouldn’t allow. “You’ll give me all of you,” she said. “All.”
She shattered his will, undid his control, her hands and lips taking him as he’d taken her. Beyond what was reason. Near to delirium, he dragged her mouth back to his, and devoured.
Lips and teeth and tongues, fingers that demanded and took, bruises be damned. Her breath was burning even as she took from him, gave to him. His blood burned under his own skin.
“Now, now, now.” She chanted it, arching up.
When he drove into her, she cried out again, the sound close to a scream. And still her hips pumped fast and strong, whipping him into the glorious dark.
Her hands lost their grip on his hips, slid away to thump against the floor. Inside her body, everything had been pummeled, twisted, wrung out, then smoothed soft again. Her toes wanted to curl in pleasure, but there wasn’t enough energy left for the movement.
“Jesus,” she managed. “Holy dancing Jesus.”
“When I can actually stand up again, some time in the distant future, I’m going to let you punch me in the face again, so we can see if all that finishes up the same way as this.”
“Okay.”
“Or maybe we’ll try that romantic dinner. Then you can punch me.” He actually felt her wince. “Problem?” He lifted his head, saw by her face there was. “What?”
“I’m really sorry.”
“I think, considering our current positions, and state of being, apologies are unnecessary.” But he read the look. “Not sorry for the punch, I see. It’s work?”
“I didn’t contact you to tell you to hold dinner, because I wanted to tell you face-to-face. Which we now are, in addition to other body parts. It’s a lot to explain, but I will. I’ve got something I need to deal with, and I could use your help with it.”
“All right.”
“Maybe we could fit in the candlelight and so on before midnight, but—”
“It doesn’t matter, Eve. I promise you.”
Yeah, we got lucky, she thought. God, didn’t they just. “I got you a present.”
“Did you?”
“It’s a book of poetry—romancy stuff. I thought, ‘How schmaltzy is that,’ so it seemed like the thing. Then I screwed up and left it in my desk at work.”
He smiled, leaned down to kiss her softly. “Thank you.”
She touched his cheek. “I’ve got to grab a shower and get to this. I planned to dig straight in, so we could maybe have a really late dinner, but then I had to punch you and your blonde tart, a
nd one thing led to another.”
“Of course. Well, we’ll have a shower and you can fill me in.”
He listened, saying little as she ran it through for him. “So,” he said, as she pulled on loose flannel pants and a sweatshirt. “You were right about the girl.”
“That’s no girl, but yeah, I was right. The diary’s going to be one of the nails. I could have it cut open—the box, it’s in—”
“I can promise that’s not necessary.”
“Let’s take it in my office.” She hauled up a field bag. “I want it all on record. So maybe you could fumble just a little with the lock.”
“I certainly will not.”
“Okay, okay.”
“I’d like to explain what Magdelana was doing here.”
She slanted him a look. “Other than trying to lock lips with you?”
“More specifically,” he said carefully as they started out of the bedroom, “why I allowed her in our home.”
“I already got that. You needed to deal with it, with her. Needed to spell it out for her, give her the get lost, and put some of the fear of Roarke in her.”
“How fortunate I am, under the circumstances, to have a woman who understands me. Fear of Roarke?” he repeated.
“You can do the fear of God thing, but see, you can’t see Him, and most people feel He’s not going to really—what is it—smite them. You, however, are flesh and blood, and would do a lot worse than a smite. You’re a lot scarier than God.”
“I don’t know quite how to take that,” he said after a moment. “But meanwhile, do you want to know how this was handled?”
“Yeah, actually, I would.”
He told her while they made their way to her office, while she set down her bag, took out the diary. While she simply stood, staring at him.
“See? See? Holy crap. God wouldn’t have made her insides quiver like that, and you can bet your fine Irish ass they quivered like jelly. Can you really ban her from all your stuff? That’s like eighty percent of the known universe.”
“You exaggerate, it wouldn’t be more than fifty, and, oh, aye.” His grin was fast and fierce. “I bloody well can.”
“And you’ve got data on her that would interest the international authorities?”
“What do you take me for? Of course I do.” He waited a moment, reading her face perfectly. “I’m not giving it to you, Eve. Two reasons.”
“They’d better be good ones.”
“First, it’s not your concern, and don’t even think about raising that fist to me. This is my doing, her coming here, her causing trouble. Second, it’ll keep her up at night, for some time to come, wondering what I have, and what I might do with it. She’ll be looking over her shoulder a long time.”
“I think your first reason’s crap, but the second is really mean, really insidious. I like it a lot, so we’ll call it a wash.”
“Good. Well, I’ll open that for you, shall I, and we’ll have our Valentine’s dinner while we see what’s inside.”
“Um…”
“It’s pizza. It was to be pizza and champagne actually.”
“Seriously?”
“I know my wife as she knows me.” He tapped a finger on her nose. “So it’ll be pepperoni pizza and coffee—with the champagne for another time.”
“You know, you really are my Valentine.”
22
BEFORE BREAKING THE SEAL ON THE EVIDENCE bag containing Rayleen’s diary, Eve turned on her recorder, logged in the necessary data. She took the metal box—embossed with some sort of wide-petaled flowers—out of the evidence bag, set it on her desk.
“Peabody found it in the kitchen recycler.”
“Clever Peabody,” Roarke replied as he chose a tool.
“If things hadn’t moved as fast as they did—au pair coming back and so on—if Peabody hadn’t been basically on the scene with the direct purpose of finding this, it might’ve been garbage by morning. Takes more than one cycle for something of this size, material, and density to break down. All she managed was to bang the box up.”
“A pity, too. It’s a lovely box. Sturdy, well made, which is why it held up as well as it did. The girl should have taken the book out of it. That might have broken down before it was found.”
“Some, but she doesn’t know everything. There’s a lot we can put back together in the lab. And…Okay, nice work,” she added, as he had the crushed and passcoded lock open in under ten seconds.
“Well, it’s not a titanium vault, after all.”
Hands already sealed, Eve lifted out the bright pink book inside. It was leather-bound, and again had Rayleen’s name across it in glittery silver letters. It also had a lock, and this one appeared to use an old-fashioned key.
“Comp would be faster than handwritten pages,” she commented.
“And I’ll wager, however indulgent her parents, they wouldn’t allow her to passcode anything on a comp. This…” He tapped a finger on the book. “This seems harmless, very traditional, something a young girl might enjoy.”
She stepped back and let Roarke finesse the lock.
“I’m going to want copies of everything inside there,” she told him.
“Before you read it?”
“No. I want to put the last few pages on record first, then make the copies. But even more, I want to know.”
She flipped through the pink-tipped pages, found the last entry. With her recorder trained on the tidy handwriting on pale pink pages with shiny gold edges, she read out loud.
“This morning I wore my pink-and-black plaid skirt and pink knee boots, and my white sweater with flowers on the hem and cuffs. I looked very pretty. I had fruit and yogurt and seven-grain toast for breakfast, and asked Cora to make real orange juice. That’s what she gets paid for. I had Brain Teasers. It’s getting a little boring, so I might find a way to quit. But still, I like knowing I’m smarter than any of the other students. Just like I’m better than anyone in my dance class. I could, if I wanted, be a prima ballerina one day.
“After BT, Cora and I took a cab to the Met. I don’t see why we couldn’t use a car service. I’m going to ask Daddy about that. I like the art, but mostly everyone who painted anything is dead anyway. I could be a famous artist if I wanted, and have my paintings in the Met. People would pay a lot of money just to look at my paintings. But I think I’d sell mine to collectors. I don’t want people who don’t know anything and don’t deserve it to just stand there and stare at my work.”
“Interesting ego,” Roarke remarked.
Eve glanced up. “She had to have written this after her mother called them back home. And still, it’s full of I, I, I. Mira’s going to have a field day with this one.”
She looked back at the book, continued to read.
“I was supposed to meet my mother for lunch at Zoology. It’s my favorite place for lunch, and we had to book three weeks in advance for the reservation. One day, when I’m famous, I won’t need a stupid reservation to go anywhere. People will be grateful if I bother to eat in their restaurant.
“After, I was going to the salon for a hair styling and a pedicure. I’d already decided on the Carnival polish, with glitter. Then Cora’s ’link beeped and it was my mother calling us home. We had plans! We had reservations, but I had to come home, and the whole day was spoiled. My mother wasn’t even dressed when we got there. She’s so selfish.
“But it’s really all that nosy Lieutenant Dallas’s fault. I thought, at first, she was interesting, but she’s not. She’s just mean and pushy and stupid. Now I’ve had to fix everything. Again. It’s just as well, really. My mother’s so weak and silly, and my daddy’s been paying more attention to her lately than to me. So, I’ve taken care of it. It was easy. The easiest one so far.
“She hid pills in her lingerie drawer. As if I wouldn’t find them! All I had to do was make her some tea, and put the pills in it. Like I did with smelly old Mrs. Versy at the Kinley House last year. I had to use more with Mommy because Mrs
. Versy was old and half-dead anyway.”
“Well, Christ,” Roarke murmured.
“Yeah. I wondered if there were others along the way.” Eve read on.
“She got into bed just like a baby for me. I watched her drink the tea. That was the best part. She drank it just like I told her, then I waited until she fell asleep. I left the empty bottle right there, so when Daddy gets home in a few hours he’ll find her that way. I’ll cry and cry. I’ve been practicing in the mirror, and I’m so good at it! Everyone will feel so sorry for me, and give me whatever I want. Everyone will think my mother killed that idiot Mr. Foster and that nasty Mr. Williams. It’s such a tragedy! I have to laugh.
“I’m going to do some art now, and listen to some music. I’ll just be in my room when Daddy gets home. His best girl being quiet as a mouse so her mother can sleep. And sleep and sleep.
“I have to go put this book in the recycler now. That’s annoying, and that’s Lieutenant Dallas’s fault, too! But, it’s okay. Daddy will buy me another diary, a better one. He’ll buy me anything I want now, and take me anywhere I want to go.
“I think we should go somewhere warm and pretty, with a really nice beach.”
Roarke said nothing for a moment. “She wrote that while her mother was, as far as she knew, dead or dying in the other room.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“She shouldn’t waste her time with art and ballet. She should consider becoming a professional assassin. She has the constitution for it.”
“I’m going to make sure she has plenty of time to consider her options—inside maximum security.” She looked down at the book again, at the tidy yet still childish penmanship. “Let’s get this copied. I want Mira and Whitney to see it ASAP. Then I want to read the rest.”
It was all there, meticulously documented: motives, means, opportunities, plans, execution. Rayleen didn’t stint on details.
If it had been the journal of an adult killer, Eve would have wrapped the investigation and the perpetrator in a heavy chain and locked the door.
But the sticking point was how to handle a killer of such a young age, whose father was a top defense counsel.
