Vengeance in Death

by J. D. Robb

  She rolled her shoulders again, blew her bangs out of her eyes. "Now we'll run the scan using file B, which is everything I know, everything I have. Computer—"

  "I thought its name was Bruno."

  "Just a joke," Eve muttered. "Computer, run probability scan, suspect Summerset, using file B."

  Working…With additional data probability index drops to forty-seven point three eight percent. Warrant is not advised with available data.

  "Cuts the probability by more than half. And I'd say with Mira's testing results logged in after tomorrow, it'll drop more. File A will drop some, too, maybe just enough to keep his ass from swinging."

  "I should have known." Roarke moved behind her, leaned down to press his lips to the top of her head.

  "He's not clear yet. The God guy's counting on me not being willing to trade you off for Summerset—and he's got that right."

  "But he's underestimated you."

  "Goddamn right. And he's overplayed, Roarke, I can use that with Whitney, too. A man smart enough to pull off these murders isn't stupid enough to leave such an obvious trail. It stinks from setup. And he's going to want to play again. Riddles. Games," she mused, leaning back in her chair. "He likes to fall back on God, but he likes his games. Games are for children."

  "Tell that to the linebacker for Big Apple Arena Ball and see where it gets you."

  She only shrugged. "So, men are children."

  He barely sighed. "Thank you so much."

  "Men are more into toys, games, gizmos as status symbols. You've got a house full of them."

  A bit nonplussed by her opinion, he slipped his hands into his pockets. "I beg your pardon?"

  "I don't just mean the toy toys like video and holo rooms." Her forehead was furrowed now, the line between her brows deepening. "Cars, planes, entertainment centers, spar droids, VR equipment, hell, your businesses are toys."

  Now Roarke rocked back on his heels. "Darling Eve, if you want to tell me I'm shallow, don't be concerned with bruising my feelings."

  "You're not shallow," she said with an absent, back of the hand gesture. "You just overindulge."

  He opened his mouth, struggling to be insulted, and ended up laughing. "Eve, I adore you." He slid his hands down over her breasts, his mouth to her neck. "Let's go overindulge each other."

  "Cut it out. I want to—" His fingers grazed over her nipples and caused her thigh muscles to thrum. "I really have to—Jesus, you're good at that." Her head fell back just enough to make her mouth vulnerable to his.

  Before it had been soft and easy, a kind of healing both of them had needed. This was fire, hot and fast and all for greed. She reached up, circling her arms around his neck, and left herself open for him.

  He made quick work of her robe, parting it so that his hands could roam flesh already damp, so he could race down and find her, already wet. She came with delightful ease, shuddering as she felt the climax roll through her and flood his hand.

  Then she was struggling free, turning in the chair and rising on her knees to clutch at him. "Now, now, now." She gasped it out, punctuating each demand with nips and bites as she jerked at the jeans riding his hips.

  He slid into the chair, gripping her hips as she straddled him. And he watched her throat, the lovely arch of it, the tiny pulse pushing in fast rhythm against the flesh as her head dipped back. She gripped the back of the chair, dizzy when he sucked her breast hard into his mouth, as the chair rocked, as she rocked, tormenting them both with the friction.

  The pace was hers, and he let her ride, let himself be taken. His fingers dug into her hips while she drove him, while the breath strangled in his throat. And when it seemed his blood would burst from his veins like flames, he emptied himself into her.

  Her hands slid limply down his damp shoulders. Her heart was still pumping viciously as she raced quick, delirious kisses over his neck and throat.

  "Sometimes I just want to gobble you whole, eat you alive. You're so gorgeous. You're so beautiful."

  "What?" His senses were slowly swimming back, the roar in his ears subsiding like the tide.

  She caught herself, appalled, mortified. Had she actually said that aloud? she wondered. Was she insane? "Nothing. I was…" She took several deep breaths to level her system. "I was just saying I only wanted to bite your ass."

  "You wanted to bite my ass." He shook his head clear. "Why?"

  "Because it's there." Relieved, spent, satisfied, she grinned at him. "And it's a pretty great ass all in all."

  "I'm glad you—" He blinked, narrowed his eyes. "Did you say I was beautiful?"

  "Give me a break." She snorted, then quickly wiggled off him. "You must be hallucinating. Now, fun's fun." She picked up her robe, pulled it on. "But I have to get back to work."

  "Mmm-hmm. I'll get us some coffee."

  "There's no use both of us going without sleep."

  He smiled, ran a finger over her wedding band. "Want some pie?"

  "I guess I could choke some down."

  • • •

  Within an hour Eve had moved the investigation into Roarke's private office. The lists she would run now couldn't be viewed by the all-seeing eye of CompuGuard.

  "Six men," she muttered. "The six who killed Marlena generate over fifty in family alone. What's with you Irish, haven't you ever heard of Zero Population?"

  "We prefer the go forth and multiply rule." Roarke pondered the list that took up two screens. "I recognize a dozen or so. I might do better with faces."

  "Well, we'll eliminate the females, for now. The barmaid at the Shamrock said Shawn was talking to a man, the kid on the West Side—"

  "His name's Kevin."

  "Yeah, the kid said a man. And the creep who's been calling me—even if he's using voice alteration to sound like a man—has a male rhythm to his speech. And typical male responses to insults and sarcasm."

  "It's illuminating for me," Roarke said dryly, "to discover your fascinating opinion on my gender."

  "When push comes, men are different, that's all. Computer, delete female names from screen." Eve paced in front of it, nodding. "That's a little more manageable. Best place to start is at the top. O'Malley's group, father, two brothers."

  "On screen three." Commanding manually now, Roarke shifted the three names onto the next screen. "Full data, with image. Ah, Shamus O'Malley, the patriarch, I do remember him. He and my father had some dealings together."

  "Looks like a violent tendency," Eve commented. "You can see it in the eyes. Major scar on the left cheek, a nose that's been broken more than once by the look of it. This makes him seventy-six, and he's currently a guest of the Irish government for first degree assault with a deadly."

  "A prince of a man."

  Eve hooked her thumbs in her robe pockets. "I'm going to eliminate anyone doing time. It's impossible to say if our guy's acting alone, but we'll concentrate on him."

  "All right." Roarke tapped a few keys and ten more names disappeared.

  "That wipes the smiling O'Malleys."

  "They were always a bad lot, and not bright with it."

  "Go to the next."

  "Calhouns. Father, one brother, one son. Liam Calhoun," Roarke mused. "He ran a little food shop. He was a decent sort. The brother and the boy I don't remember at all."

  "The brother, James, no criminal record. Guy's a doctor, attached to the National Health Services. Forty-seven, one marriage, three children. Reads like pillar of the community."

  "I don't recall him. Obviously he didn't run in my circles."

  "Obviously," Eve said so dryly Roarke laughed. "The son, also Liam, is in college, following his uncle's footsteps it appears. Young Liam Calhoun. Good-looking…nineteen, single, top ten percent of his class."

  "I remember a boy, vaguely. Scruffy, quiet." Roarke studied the image of a cheerful face and sober eyes. "Looks like he's making something of himself from the academic data."

  "The sins of the father don't always transfer. Still, medical knowledge would h
ave come in handy in these particular murders. We'll hold these two, but put them at the bottom of the list. Bring up the next group."

  "Rileys. Father, four brothers—"

  "Four? God Almighty."

  "And all of them a terror to decent citizens everywhere. Take a good look at Brian Riley. He once kicked my head in. Of course two of his brothers and a close personal friend were holding me down at the time. Black Riley, he liked to be called."

  Roarke reached for a cigarette as the old, well-buried bitterness punched its way free. "We're of an age, you see, and you could say Riley had a keen dislike for me."

  "And why was that?"

  "Because I was faster, my fingers lighter." He smiled a little. "And the girls preferred me."

  "Well, your Black Riley's been in and out of cages most of his young life." Eve angled her head. Another good-looking man, she mused, with fair hair and sulky green eyes. Ireland appeared to be filled with handsome men who looked for trouble. "But he hasn't served any time in the last few years. Employment record's spotty, mostly as head knocker at bars and skin clubs. But this is interesting. He worked security for an electronics firm for nearly two years. He could have picked up quite a bit in that amount of time if he has a brain."

  "There was nothing wrong with his brain, it was his attitude."

  "Right. Can you get into his passport?"

  "The official one, easily enough. Give me a minute."

  Eve studied the image while Roarke worked. Green eyes, she mused. The kid—Kevin—had said the man he'd seen had green eyes. Or he'd thought so. Of course eye color could be changed as easily as a spoiled child's mind.

  "Immigration records, screen four," Roarke told her.

  "Yeah, he's visited our fair city a time or two," Eve noted. "Let's log these dates, and we'll see if we can find out what he was up to while he was here. Were the brothers close?"

  "The Rileys were like wild dogs. They'd have torn out each other's throat for the same bone, but they'd form a pack against an outsider."

  "Well, let's take a good, close look at all four of them."

  • • •

  By three a.m. she was losing her edge. The data and images on screen began to blur and run together. Names and faces, motives and murder. When she felt herself drifting to sleep where she stood, Eve pressed her fingers hard against her burning eyes.

  "Coffee," she muttered, but found herself staring at the AutoChef without a clue how to operate it.

  "Sleep." Roarke pressed a mechanism that had a bed sliding out of the wall.

  "No, I just have to catch my second wind. We've got it down to ten possibles. And I want to look harder at that Francis Rowan who became a priest. We can—"

  "Take a break." He came up behind her, guided her toward the bed. "We're tired."

  "Okay, we'll take a nap. An hour." Head and body seemed to float apart as she slid onto the bed. "You lie down too."

  "I will." He lay beside her, gathered her close. He could feel her fall into sleep, a lazy tumble that had the arm she'd tossed around his waist going limp.

  He stared at the screens a moment longer, into the void of his past. He'd separated himself from that, from them. The boy from Dublin's sad alleys had made himself rich, successful, respected, but he'd never forgotten what it was to be poor, a failure and disdained.

  And he knew, as he lay in the soft bed on smooth linen sheets in a magnificent house in a city he'd made his home, that he would have to go back.

  What he might find there, and in himself, troubled him.

  "Lights out," he ordered, and willed himself to follow Eve into sleep.

  • • •

  It was the beep of an incoming transmission that woke them both three hours later. Roarke swore when Eve jerked up and the top of her head caught him smartly on the jaw.

  "Oh, sorry." She rubbed her head. "Is that yours or mine?''

  "Mine." Gingerly he rotated his jaw. "It's a warning alarm. I have a conference call set up for six-thirty."

  "I've got McNab and Peabody here at seven. Christ." She scrubbed her hands over her face and, when her fingers dipped below her eyes, studied him. "How come you never look ragged in the morning?"

  "Just one of those little gifts from God." He scooped back his hair, which managed to look sexily tousled. "I'll shower in here, save time. I should be finished up with this call by the time McNab gets here. I'd like to work with him this morning."

  "Roarke—"

  "The transmission didn't come from this house. So I have an electronic leak somewhere. I know the setup here, in and out. He doesn't." He added a bit of charm to his smile. "I've worked with Feeney."

  "That's different." But since she couldn't explain how it was different, she shrugged. "McNab has to clear it. I won't order him to work with a civilian."

  "Fair enough."

  • • •

  By eight, Eve had Peabody installed in a temporary office down the hall from her own. It was actually a small and elegant sitting room off a sweeping guest bedroom, but it was equipped with a tidy little communication and information center for the convenience of overnight associates who often visited.

  Peabody gawked at the original pen-and-ink drawings covering the walls, the hand-knotted area rug, the deep silver cushions spread over an S-shaped settee.

  "Pretty grand work space."

  "Don't get used to it," Eve warned. "I want to be back at Central by next week. I want this closed."

  "Sure, but I'll just enjoy this while it lasts." She'd already eyed the mini AutoChef and speculated on what it might offer. "How many rooms are in this place?"

  "I don't know. Sometimes I think they mate at night and make more little rooms that grow into big rooms, and mate at night—" Eve stopped herself, shook her head. "I didn't get much sleep. I'm punchy. I've got data here that needs a fresh eye and organizing."

  "I got eight straight. My eye's fresh."

  "Don't be smug." Eve pinched the bridge of her nose. "This data is unofficial, Peabody, but I think our man's in here, somewhere. There's a temporary block on this computer so that your work will bypass CompuGuard. I'm working on a way around that, but until I figure it out, there's no fancy way to put this. I'm asking you to break the law."

  Peabody considered for a moment. "Is that AutoChef fully stocked?"

  Eve had to smile. "Around here? They always are. I have to get something to Whitney by this afternoon. I'm putting what I can together. Since this guy doesn't wait long between hits, we're in a squeeze."

  "Then I better get to work."

  Eve left her to it, but when she walked into her office, she found McNab and Roarke huddled together. The snazzy black armor of her computer was on the floor. Its guts were exposed, its dignity in ruins. Her desk 'link was in several unidentifiable pieces.

  "What the hell are you two doing?"

  "Men's work," Roarke said and flashed her a grin. His hair was tied back, his sleeves rolled up, and he looked to be having the time of his life.

  She would have mentioned men and their toys, but decided it would be a waste of breath.

  "If you don't get this back together, I'm taking over your office."

  "Help yourself. You see here, Ian? If we interface this it should open the whole system long enough for us to see if there's a leak."

  "Don't you have a thing that does that?" she demanded. "A scanner?"

  "This is the best way to keep a scan from showing up." McNab spared her a look that clearly told her she was in the way. "We can search, and nobody—especially our mystery caller—will know we're looking."

  Intrigued now, Eve moved closer. "So he stays confident. That's good. What does this do?"

  "Don't touch anything." McNab nearly smacked her hand before he remembered she outranked him. "Sir."

  "I wasn't going to touch anything." Annoyed, Eve jammed her hands into her pockets. "Why'd you take my 'link apart?"

  "Because," McNab began with sighing patience, "that's where the transmissions come thr
ough, isn't it?"

  "Yeah, but—"

  "Eve. Darling." Roarke paused in his work long enough to pat her cheek. "Go away."

  "Fine. I'll just go do some real cop work." She maintained dignity until she slammed the office door.

  "Whoa, she's going to make you pay for that one."

  "You don't know the half of it," Roarke murmured. "Let's run this, Ian, first level. See what we find."

  • • •

  On her own, Eve struggled with the wording and tone of her official report. If she used the Marlena connection so that she could give Whitney the names of the men who'd killed her—justify the investigation of their families—she'd lock Roarke into it.

  All the men had been murdered, all their cases remained open. So far even the International Center for Criminal Activity hadn't connected those murders. Could she use them now, and sell Whitney and the chief of police, the media, on one of those murders being the motive for her current investigation?

  Maybe, if she was good enough, if she could lie with conviction and logic.

  Step one: Build the facts and evidence that Summerset was being used. She needed Mira's findings to polish that up.

  Step two: Build a logical theory that the setup was motivated by revenge—mistakenly targeted revenge. To do that she had to build a reasonable case that the six men who died had died by separate hands, for separate causes.

  They had all been part of the crime community, had all associated with undesirables. Their deaths had been spread out over three years and had all been caused by different means.

  Roarke was far from stupid, she mused. He'd taken his time, covered his tracks. All she had to do now was to see that they stayed covered.

  If she had one break first, one solid, tangible piece of evidence to indicate a conspiracy. Anything she could put in Whitney's hand to help convince him to buy the rest.

  She heard a shout from the next room and scowled, annoyed that she'd neglected to engage the sound control. But as she rose to do so, the excited voices on the other side of the door drew her through it.

  "Okay, what's the big fucking deal? Did you find a new way to play Space Marauders?"

  "I found an echo." McNab was nearly dancing as he continually slapped Roarke on the back. "I found a goddamn beautiful echo."