by J. D. Robb
“Oh.” Charles’s profession didn’t bother Peabody. He did what he did, just as she did what she did. Maybe if they’d been lovers, she’d have a different attitude, but they weren’t.
Damn it.
“Oh.” She said again, because his profession did a lot more than bother her lieutenant. “Shit.”
“Put simply, yeah. It was awkward, but Dallas and I came to terms.”
“What kind of terms?”
“We talked. Delia, I’ve tried not to say too much because it puts you in the middle. I never wanted that.”
“You never put me there,” she said immediately. “Dallas did.”
“Because you matter very much to her.”
“My personal life is—”
“A concern to her, as a friend, Delia.”
The quiet censure in his tone made her wince, then give up. “Okay, I know it. I don’t have to like it.”
“I think things should be smoother now. She had her say, I had mine, and we both felt better for it. And when I explained to her that we weren’t having sex, she—”
“What?” The word squeaked out as Peabody jumped to her feet. Sparkling silver, glittering crystal danced on the white linen cloth. “You told her that? That? Good God. Why don’t you just strip me naked and push me into the squad room?”
“I wanted her to know we had a friendship, not a professional agreement. I’m sorry.” Recognizing his misstep too late, Charles rose, lifted his hands. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“You tell my immediate superior that I’ve been seeing a professional for what, nearly three months, and haven’t done the mattress dance. No, no, jeez, what could be embarrassing about that?”
“I didn’t realize you’d wanted sex to be part of our relationship.” He spoke stiffly now. “If you had, you had only to ask.”
“Oh yeah, right. I say, how about it, Charles, and I’m a client.”
The muscles in his belly went taunt as wire. “Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think.” She dropped into her chair again, briefly held her head in her hand. “Why did you have to tell her that?”
“I suppose I was defending myself.” It was a tough admission to swallow. “I didn’t think beyond it. I’m very sorry.” He moved his chair over so that he could sit close and take her hand. “Delia, I didn’t want to spoil our friendship, and for the first stages of it, I was hung up on someone who couldn’t, who wouldn’t be with me because of what I am. You helped me through that. I care very much about you. If you want more…”
He lifted her hand, brushed his lips over the inside of her wrist.
Her pulse gave a little dance. It was only natural, she supposed. Just as it was natural for her blood to go warm, very warm, when he shifted that skilled mouth from her wrist to her lips.
But doubts churned inside of her, side by side with simple lust. It was infuriating to realize not all the doubts were directed at Charles.
“Sorry.” She broke the kiss, eased back, and wondered when she’d lost her mind. There was a gorgeous man she liked very much, and who knew all there was to know about sexual pleasures, ready to show her just what could be done to the human body, and she was playing coy.
“I’ve hurt your feelings.”
“No. Well, maybe a little.” She drummed up a smile. “Fact is, this is a first for me. I’ve completely lost my appetite. All across the board.”
*** CHAPTER ELEVEN ***
Working out of her home office could be an advantage. The equipment, even counting her new computer system at Central, was far superior. There were fewer distractions. And it was next to impossible to run out of coffee.
Eve chose to do so from time to time, even if only to have a fresh view to clear her mind.
Her plan today was to start the morning with something fulfilling. She stood in the center of her home office, smirking down at her old, despised, computer.
“Today,” she told it, “death comes to all your circuits. Will it be slow and systematic or fast and brutal?” Considering, she circled it. “Tough decision. I’ve waited so long for this moment. Dreamed of it.”
Showing her teeth, she began to roll up her sleeves.
“What,” Roarke asked from the doorway that connected their work areas, “is that?”
“The former bane of my existence. The Antichrist of technology. Do we have a hammer?”
Studying the pile on the floor, he walked in. “Several, I imagine, of various types.”
“I want all of them. Tiny little hammers, big, wall-bangers, and everything in between.”
“Might one ask why?”
“I’m going to beat this thing apart, byte by byte, until there’s nothing left but dust from the last trembling chip.”
“Hmmm.” Roarke crouched down, examined the pitifully out-of-date system. “When did you haul this mess in here?”
“Just now. I had it in the car. Maybe I should use acid, just stand here and watch it hiss and dissolve. That could be good.”
Saying nothing, Roarke took a small case out of his pocket, opened it, and chose a slim tool. With a few deft moves, he had the housing open.
“Hey! Hey! What’re you doing?”
“I haven’t seen anything like this in a decade. Fascinating. Look at this corrosion. Christ, this is a SOC chip system. And it’s cross-wired.”
When he began to fiddle, she rushed over and slapped at his hands. “Mine. I get to kill it.”
“Get a grip on yourself,” he said absently and delved deeper into the guts. “I’ll take this into research.”
“No. Uh-uh. I have to bust it apart. What if it breeds?”
He grinned and quickly replaced the housing. “This is an excellent learning tool. I’d like to give it to Jamie.”
“What’re you talking about? Jamie Lingstrom, the e-prodigy?”
“Mmm. He does a little work for me now and then.”
“He’s a kid.”
“A very bright one. Bright enough that I prefer having him on my team rather than competing with him. It’ll be interesting to see what he can do with an old, defective system like this.”
“But I want it dead.”
He had to smother a chuckle. It was as close to a whine as he’d ever heard from her. “There, there, darling. I’ll find you something else to beat up. Or better,” he said, wrapping his arms around her, “another outlet entirely for all that delightful natural aggression.”
“Sex wouldn’t give me the same rush.”
“Ah. A dare.” He accepted it by leaning down and biting her jaw. When she swore at him, he took her mouth in a hot, hungry, brain-sucking kiss.
“Okay, that was pretty good, but just what are you doing with your hands back there?”
“Hardly anything until I lock the door, and then—”
“Okay, okay, you can have the damn thing.” She shoved away from him, tried to catch her breath. Her system was vibrating. “Just get it out of my sight.”
“Thank you.” He caught her hand, lifted it, nibbled on her fingers as he watched her. One taste of her always made him crave another. And another. He tugged her forward, intending to nudge her into his office.
Peabody walked in.
“Sorry.” She averted her eyes, tilting her head to study the ceiling. “Summerset said I should come right up.”
“Good morning, Peabody.” Roarke gave his wife’s furrowed brow a quick brush of his lips. “Can we get you some coffee?”
“I’ll get it. Don’t mind me. Just a lowly aide.” She muttered it as she crossed the room, giving Eve a wide berth as she aimed for the kitchen.
“She’s upset about something.” Roarke frowned toward the kitchen area as he listened to Peabody muttering as she programmed the AutoChef.
“She just hasn’t had her morning fix yet. Take that heap of junk out of here if you want it so much. I have to get to work.”
He hefted the system, discovered he had to put his back into it. “They m
ade them a lot heavier back then. I’ll be working from home until noon,” he called over his shoulder, then his door closed behind him.
It was probably shallow, it was definitely girlie to have gotten such a rise out of watching that ripple of muscle. Eve told herself she wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t stirred her up in the first place.
“Peabody, bring me a cup of that.”
She went behind her desk, called up the Draco file, and separating it into suspects, witnesses, evidence gathered, and lab reports, ordered all data on the screens.
“I reviewed the disc of the play last night,” she began when she heard the sturdy clop of Peabody’s hard-soled cop shoes cross the room. “I have a theory.”
“Your coffee, Lieutenant. Shall I record, sir?”
“Huh?” Eve was studying the screens, trying to shift and rearrange data in her mind. But Peabody’s stiff tone distracted her. “No, I’m just running it by you.”
She turned back and saw that once again Roarke was right. Something was up with her aide. She ordered herself not to poke into the personal, and sat. “We’ve pretty well nailed down the time of the switch. The prop knife is clearly visible here. Computer, Visual Evidence 6-B, on screen five.”
“You’ve marked and recorded this VE?” Peabody asked, her voice cold as February.
“Last night, after my review.” Eve moved her shoulders. The snipe was like a hot itch between her shoulder blades. “So?”
“Just updating my own records, Lieutenant. It is my job.”
Fuck it. “Nobody’s telling you not to do your job. I’m briefing you, aren’t I?”
“Selectively, it appears.”
“Okay, what the hell does that mean?”
“I had occasion to return to Central last night.” That just added to her slow burn. “In the process of reviewing the file, assimilating evidence and the time line, certain pieces of that evidence, marked and sealed for Level Five, came to my attention. I was unaware, until that point, that there were areas of this investigation considered off limits to your aide and your team. Respectfully, sir, this policy can and will hamper the efficiency of said aide and said team.”
“Don’t use that snotty tone on me, pal. I marked Level Five what, in my judgment, required Level Five. You don’t need to know every goddamn thing.”
Little spots of heat bloomed on Peabody’s cheeks, but her voice was frosty. “So I am now aware, Lieutenant.”
“I said knock it off.”
“It’s always your way, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, damn right. I’m your superior, and I’m the primary on this investigation, so you bet your tight ass it’s my way.”
“Then you should have advised subject Monroe, Charles, to keep his mouth shut. Shouldn’t you? Sir.”
Eve set her teeth, ground them. Try to spare feelings, she thought, and you get kicked in the face. “Subject Monroe, Charles, has, in my opinion, no connection to this investigation. Therefore any communication I’ve had with him is none of your goddamn business.”
“It’s my goddamn business when you interrogate him over my goddamn personal relationship with him.”
“I didn’t interrogate him.” Her voice spiked with frustrated fury. “He spilled it all over me.”
They were both standing now, leaning over the desk nearly nose-to-nose. Eve’s face was pale with temper, Peabody’s flushed with it.
When McNab walked in, the scene had him letting out a low, nervous whistle. “Um, hey, guys.”
Neither of them bothered to so much as glance in his direction, and said, in unison, at a roar: “Out!”
“You bet. I’m gone.”
To insure it, Eve marched over and slammed the door in his fearful and fascinated face.
“Sit down,” she ordered Peabody.
“I prefer to stand.”
“And I prefer to give you a good boot in the ass, but I’m restraining myself.” Eve reached up, fisted her hands in her own hair and yanked until the pain cleared most of the rage.
“Okay, stand. You couldn’t sit with that stick up your butt, anyway. One you shove up it every time Subject Monroe, Charles, is mentioned. You want to be filled in, you want to be briefed? Fine. Here it is.”
She had to take another deep breath to insure her tone was professional. “On the evening of March twenty-six, at or about nineteen-thirty, I, accompanied by Roarke, had occasion to visit Areena Mansfield’s penthouse suite at The Palace Hotel, this city. Upon entering said premises, investigation officer found subject Mansfield in the company of one Charles Monroe, licensed companion. It was ascertained and confirmed that LC Monroe was there in a professional capacity and had no links to the deceased or the current investigation. His presence, and the salient details pertaining to it, were noted in the report of the interview and marked Level Five in a stupid, ill-conceived attempt by the investigating officer to spare her fat-headed aide any unnecessary embarrassment.”
Eve stomped back to her desk, snatched up her coffee, gulped some down. “Record that,” she snapped.
Peabody’s lip trembled. She sat. She sniffled.
“Oh, no.” In genuine panic, Eve stabbed out a finger. “No, you don’t. No crying. We’re on duty. There is no crying on duty.”
“I’m sorry.” Knowing she was close to blubbering, Peabody fumbled for her handkerchief and blew her nose lavishly. “I’m just so mad, so embarrassed. He told you we’ve never had sex.”
“Jesus, Peabody, do you think I put that in the report?”
“No. I don’t know. No.” She sniffled again. “But you know. I’ve been seeing him for weeks and weeks, and we’ve never…We never even got close to it.”
“Well, he explained that when—” At Peabody’s howl of horror, Eve winced. Wrong thing to say. Very wrong. But what the hell was the right thing? “Look, he’s a nice guy. I didn’t give him enough credit. He likes you.”
“Then why hasn’t he ever jumped me?” Peabody lifted drenched eyes.
“Um…sex isn’t everything?” Eve hazarded.
“Oh sure, easy for you to say. You’re married to the mongo sex god of the century.”
“Jesus, Peabody.”
“You are. He’s gorgeous, he’s built, he’s smart and sexy and…and dangerous. And he loves you. No, he adores you. He’d jump in front of a speeding maxibus for you.”
“They don’t go very fast,” Eve murmured and was relieved when Peabody gave a watery laugh.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” Eve glanced toward the connecting doors, felt a hard, almost painful tug. “Yeah, I know. It’s, ah, it’s not that Charles isn’t attracted to you. It’s that…” Where the hell was Mira when she needed her? “That he respects you. That’s it.”
Peabody crumpled her handkerchief and moped. “I’ve had too much respect, if you ask me. I know I’m not beautiful or anything.”
“You look good.”
“I’m not really sexy.”
“Sure you are.” At her wit’s end, Eve came around the desk, patted Peabody’s head.
“If you were a guy, or into same-sex relationships, would you want to have sex with me?”
“Absolutely. I’d jump you in a heartbeat.”
“Really?” Brightening at the idea, Peabody wiped her eyes. “Well, McNab can’t keep his hands off me.”
“Oh man. Peabody, please.”
“I don’t want him to know. I don’t want McNab to know that Charles and I haven’t been hitting the sheets.”
“He’ll never hear it from me. I can guarantee it.”
“Okay. Sorry, Dallas. After Charles told me, and I went back to work to take my mind off it, and found those sealed files…It kept me up most of the night. I mean, if he didn’t say anything relevant, I couldn’t figure out why you had two reports and a video disc sealed.”
Eve blew out a breath. Interpersonal relationships were tough, she thought. And tricky. “One of the reports and the disc don’t involve Charles.” Damn it, Peab
ody was right about one thing, covering them up hampered the investigation. “They involve Nadine.”
“Oh. I thought something was up there.”
“Look, she had a thing with Draco years ago. She came to me about it. He used her, dumped her, in his usual pattern. When Roarke and I went through his penthouse, we found those personal discs. The one I sealed—”
“Oh. He recorded sex with Nadine. Scum.” Peabody sighed. “She’s not a suspect, at least not one we’re looking at, so you wanted to spare her the embarrassment. Dallas, I’m sorry. All around sorry.”
“Okay, let’s forget it. Go wash your face or something so McNab doesn’t think I’ve been slapping you around.”
“Right. Boy, I feel like an idiot.”
“Good, that bucks me right up. Now, go pull yourself together so I can pry McNab out of whatever corner he’s hiding in, and we can get to work.”
“Yes, sir.”
• • •
By the time they were assembled in her office, Feeney had arrived. He’d reviewed the video of the play himself, had enlarged, re-focused, enhanced, and worked his e-magic so that the team was able to confirm the time frame of the switch.
The two courtroom scenes were side by side on a split screen, with Feeney in front, showing the minute difference in the shape of the knife, its angle of placement from one to the other.
“Whoever did the switch copped a knife that so closely resembled the dummy nobody would have noticed it without picking it up and giving it a good looking over.”
“The prop master?” McNab asked.
“He’d have no reason to do more than check to see that the knife was still on its mark. The courtroom set stayed—what do you call it—dressed throughout the performance. He’d have noticed if the knife was missing,” Feeney added. “According to his statement, he checked the set immediately after the scene change and immediately before it changed again. He had no reason to check otherwise.”
“That gives the perpetrator approximately five minutes.” Eve tapped her fingers on her mug. “However, we narrow that if we follow the line that Quim saw something or someone suspicious, as it appears he did during the scene break. Under three minutes to get the dummy knife hidden and be back wherever he needed to be. Onstage or in the wings.”
