by J. D. Robb
“Go again,” he murmured, and yanking down her tank, took her breast in his mouth.
He drove her, hands and mouth, while the cool air washed over her face, while her cry of release echoed into the night.
Her hands flailed out for purchase as she heard the cotton rip. That cool night air flowed over her bare skin now, a thrilling counterpoint to the heat.
She let go, he could see it, feel it. Let go of the day, the work, the worry—and more, deliciously more—that odd and appealing line she carried inside her between the should and the shouldn’t.
Once she’d had no time for foolishness. Was it any wonder he was compelled to give that to her? And all the love that wound through it and made it real?
His wife, his lover, his sweetheart groping with him in the front seat of a car while the music played and the night shimmered.
His hand bumped her weapon, and he laughed. Wasn’t that part of it, too? His dangerous and dedicated cop, yielding to him, lost in her own needs. Demanding he give and he take.
Her mouth was like fury on his, burning away at his control until he was as desperate as she. Until there was only one need, one thought. To mate.
“I can’t—how do we . . .” Her breath tangled, her body ached as she struggled to shift, to angle, to somehow defeat the confines so that he could fill her.
“Just move . . . let me—bloody hell.” He rapped his knuckles on the wheel fighting to shift her hips, banged his knees on the dash and was fairly certain she cursed because her head struck the edge of the open skyroof.
Well, they’d get over it.
She was laughing like a mad thing when they finally managed to insert tab B into slot A.
“Oh, thank Christ,” he whispered, and held her, just held her as her body rocked with laughter. “Well, when you’ve finished your laughfest, get to work. I’m pinned here and can’t get things started without a bit of help.”
“Really?” She could barely get her breath between the laughter and the . . . why was this ridiculous situation so damn sexy? she wondered. “You’re stuck?”
“Shagging poor design on your police issue.”
“More like poor design for shagging.” Watching him, she rocked—just a little. Lifted her hips—a fraction. Lowered again. “How’s that?”
“You’re killing me.”
“You started it.” She rocked again, a little more, torturing him, torturing herself. Then more, and more still, letting her need set the pace, thrilling to the control until the control was an illusion.
She felt his body tense, coil, shudder on his release, saw those amazing eyes go dark, go blind as she took him. And she rode him, chasing that peak of pleasure until she streaked over it.
She collapsed on him, as much as she was able. Her breath chugged in and out of her laboring lungs; her body quivered, trembled, then stilled. “I better not have any cause to strip tomorrow,” she told him. “Because I’m going to have steering wheel bruises on my ass.”
“You seem obsessed recently with the possibility of stripping on the job. Is there something I should know?”
“You just can’t be too careful.”
“Speaking of, how’s your head?”
“Glancing blow.” She rubbed it absently. “How do we uncouple? Or are we stuck like this until somebody finds us in the morning?”
“Give us a minute.” He nudged her back. “That was worlds better, and entirely more challenging, than any previous experience in vehicle sex.”
Look at him, she thought, his hair all messed up from her hands, buttons popped off his shirt, and his eyes all sleepy and smug. “Did you really steal rides so you could have sex in them?”
“There were all manner of reasons to steal rides. For fun, for business, and for somewhere semiprivate to bag the girl.” He leaned up to give her a quick, friendly kiss. “If you like, I’ll steal something so you can have that experience as well.”
“Pass on that.” She glanced down at herself. “You ripped my underwear.”
“I did.” He grinned. “It was expedient. Here now, let’s see if we can pry ourselves out of this.” He slid her up until she could scoot over toward her seat, and bring her leg over him. Once they’d buttoned, fastened, and hooked, he coasted the few feet to the house, parked.
“You know, Summerset knew when we drove through the gate. And even with the narrowness of his mind, he knows what we just did out here.”
“Yes, I believe Summerset’s fully aware we have sex.”
Eve rolled her eyes as she got out. “Now he knows how long and what kind of sex.”
Shaking his head, Roarke walked with her to the door. “You’re the most fascinating prude.”
She only muttered to herself as they went inside. And if being hugely relieved Summerset wasn’t hovering in the foyer made her a prude, so be it.
Still, she made a beeline upstairs, and for the bedroom. “I’m going to go ahead and run that search, one looking for media-worthy crime or events here at the time Lino left New York.”
“Do you want help?”
“I can run a search.”
“Good. I want a shower, and an hour or two for some work of my own.”
She narrowed her eyes. She wanted a shower, too—but the man was sneaky. “Hands off in the jets,” she ordered.
He held his up, then started to undress. He was down to trousers when he frowned and crossed to her.
“Hands off out here, too,” she began.
“Quiet. You weren’t kidding about the bite on your shoulder.” She tipped her chin down, turned her head. Grimaced at the marks and bruising. “Bitch had a jaw like a rottweiler.”
“It needs to be cleaned and treated, and a cold patch would help.”
“It’s fine, Nurse Nancy,” she began, then yelped when he poked his finger on the mark.
“It will be, unless you insist on acting like a baby. Shower, disinfectant, medication, cold patch.”
She might have rolled her eyes again, but she didn’t trust him not to make his point a second time. And now the damn shoulder ached.
She let him deal with it, even to the point of adding a chaste kiss. And was forced to admit, at least to herself, that it felt better for the care.
In cotton pants and a T-shirt, she sat at her desk, coffee at her elbow, and ordered the search. While the computer worked, she leaned back to juggle the various players in her mind.
Steve Chávez. He and Lino left New York together—according to Teresa—and that was corroborated by Inez. Chávez does time here and there; Lino bobs and weaves. No convictions on record. But comparing McNab’s search with Chávez’s sheet, she noted that there were a number of times both men had been in the same area.
Old friends, hanging out?
And to the best of her knowledge, they dropped off the grid at about the same time in September of ’53. No way she’d buy coincidence.
Had Chávez come back to New York with Lino? Had he, too, assumed a new identity? Could he be somewhere else, waiting for whatever Lino had waited for? Had he eliminated Lino—and if so, why? Or was he—as she believed Flores was—dead and buried?
Penny Soto. No love lost between her and her former gang partner, Inez. She’d seen that on his face. She’d warrant an interview. She’d had more trouble with the law than Inez, but had no family to protect. And a little digging would probably turn up something Eve could use as a lever to pry information out of her.
She’d go see Soto before she headed downtown to meet Teresa at the morgue.
And maybe she’d missed a step with Teresa. She believed the woman had told her all she was capable of telling her at the time. But another round there might jiggle something else loose.
When her computer announced its task complete, Eve scanned the media reports for the weeks surrounding the time of Lino’s departure.
Murders, rapes, burglaries, robberies, assaults, one kidnapping, assorted muggings, illegals busts, suspicious deaths, and two explosions.
None of the names listed in the reports crossed her list, but she’d run them as a matter of course. Still, it was the explosions that caught her interest. They’d occurred exactly a week apart, each in rival gang territory and both had cost lives. The first, on Soldado turf, at a school auditorium during a dance, had killed one, injured twenty-three minors, two adults—names listed—and caused several thousand in damages.
The second, on Skull turf, at a sandwich joint known as a hangout, a homemade boomer—on timer as the first, but more powerful—had killed four minors, one adult, and injured six.
The police suspected retaliation for that explosion, blah blah, Eve read. Known members of Soldados were being sought for questioning.
She used her authorization to request the case files on both explosions. And hit a block. Files sealed.
“Screw that,” she muttered, and without thinking contacted her commander at home. The blocked video and rusty voice had her glancing at her wrist unit. And wincing.
“I apologize, sir. I didn’t check the time.”
“I did. What is it, Lieutenant?”
“I’m following a lead, and it involves a pair of explosions in East Harlem seventeen years ago. I believe the as-yet-unofficially identified victim may have been involved. Those files have been sealed. It would be helpful to know if any on my list were questioned or suspected of involvement.”
He let out a long sigh. “Is this a matter of urgency?”
“No, sir. But—”
“Send the request to my home and office units. I’ll have you cleared in the morning. It’s nearly midnight, Lieutenant. Go to bed.”
He clicked off.
She sulked for a few seconds. Stared thoughtfully at the doorway connecting her office and Roarke’s for a few seconds more. Roarke could get into the sealed files in minutes, she had no doubt. And if she’d thought of that before she’d tagged Whitney, she might’ve been able to justify asking Roarke to do just that.
Now she’d started the tape rolling, and had to wait for it to unwind.
She sent the formal request, added the evening’s interviews and notes to her own case file. She pinned more names and photos to her board. Teresa, Chávez, Joe Inez, Penny Soto.
Then she crossed to the doorway. “I’m done. I’m going to bed.”
Roarke glanced up. “I’ll be done shortly.”
“Okay. Ah, could you make a boomer, on timer? I don’t mean now, because, duh, I mean back when you were a kid?”
“Yes. And did. Why?”
“Could you because you’re handy with electronics or with explosives?”
“Both.”
She nodded, decided it would give her something to chew on until morning. “Okay. ’Night.”
“Who or what did Lino blow up?”
“I’m not sure. Yet. But I’ll let you know.”
15
A MORNING STORM RUMBLED OUTSIDE THE WINDOWS. The thunder, a bit dim and distant, sounded like the sky clearing its throat. Rain slid down the windows like an endless fall of gray tears.
As much for comfort as light, Roarke ordered the bedroom fire on low while he scanned the morning stock reports on-screen.
But he couldn’t concentrate. When he switched to the morning news, he found that didn’t hold his interest either. Restless, unsettled, he glanced over as Eve grabbed a shirt out of her closet. He noticed she’d removed the cold patch.
“How’s the shoulder?”
She rolled it. “It’s good. I sent a text to Peabody last night to have her meet me here this morning. I’m going to go down and head her off before she comes up and tries to cage breakfast. What?” she added when he rose and walked to the closet.
He took the jacket she’d pulled out, scanned the other choices briefly, and chose another. “This one.”
“I bet everyone I badge today is going to take special note of my jacket.”
“They would if you’d worn the other with those pants.” He kissed the top of her head. “And the faux pas would, very possibly, undermine your authority.”
She snorted, but went with his selection. When he didn’t move, but stood in her way, she frowned and said, “What?” again.
This time he cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her mouth, very gently. “I love you.”
Her heart went gooey, instantly. “I got that.”
He turned, crossed to the AutoChef, and got more coffee for both of them.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him.
“Nothing. Not really. Miserable morning out there.” But that wasn’t it, he thought as he stood, staring out through the dreary curtain of rain. That wasn’t it at all. “I had a dream.”
She changed her plans, and instead of going downstairs walked over to the sofa, sat. “Bad?”
“No. Well, disturbing and odd, I suppose. Very lucid, which is more your style than mine.”
He turned, saw that she’d sat down, that she waited. And that was more comforting than any fire in the hearth. He went to her, handed off her coffee. And sitting beside her, rubbed a hand gently on her leg in a gesture that was both gratitude and connection.
“It might be all the talk about the old days, childhood friends, and so on kicked my subconscious.”
“It bothered you. Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“When I woke it was over, wasn’t it, and I didn’t see the point. And then, just now . . . Well, in any case, I was back in Dublin, a boy again, running the streets, picking pockets. That part, at least, wasn’t disturbing. It was rather entertaining.”
“Good times.”
He laughed a little. “Some of them were. I could smell it—the crowds on Grafton Street. Good pickings there, if you were quick enough. And the buskers playing the old tunes to draw the tourists in. There were those among them, if you gave them a cut, they’d keep the crowd pulled in for you. We’d work a snatch, pass, drop on Grafton. I’d lift the wallet or purse, pass it on to Jenny, and she to Mick, and Brian would drop it at our hidey-hole in an alley.
“Couldn’t work there often, no more than a couple hits a month, lest the locals caught wind to it. But when we did, we’d pull in hundreds in the day. If I was careful enough with my share, even with what the old man kicked out of me, I’d eat well for a month—with some to spare for my investment fund.”
“Investment fund? Even then?”
“Oh aye, I didn’t intend to live a street rat the whole of my life.” His eyes kindled, but unlike the mellow fire in the hearth, dark and danger flashed there. “He suspected, of course, but he never found my cache. I’d sooner he beat me to death than give it over.”
“You dreamed about him? Your father?”
“No. It wasn’t him at all. A bright summer day, so clear I could hear the voices, the music, smell the fat frying for the chips we always treated ourselves to. A day on Grafton Street was prime, you see. Full pockets and full bellies. But in dreaming it, it went wrong.”
“How?”
“Jenny’d wear her best dress on Grafton day, and her hair would be shining with a ribbon in it. Who’d look at a pretty young girl like that and see a thief, was the thought behind it. I passed to her, clean and smooth, and moved on. You have to keep moving. I set my next mark, and the fiddler was playing ‘Finnegan’s Wake.’ I heard it clear, each note, lively, quick. I had the wallet—and the mark never flinched. But Jenny . . . she wasn’t there for the pass. Couldn’t take the pass because she was hanging by her hair ribbon. Hanging and dead, as she’d been the last I saw her. When I was too late to save her.
“I was too late.”
Roarke shook his head. “She died because she was mine, part of my past. And I ran to try to get her down, across Grafton, with the buskers playing, still lively and quick, while she hung there. But there was Mick. Blood spreading over his shirt. The kill blood. He was mine, too. He took the knife for me. The fiddler kept playing, all the while. I could see Brian, far off. Too far to reach, so I was there with dead friends. Still children in the dream, you kno
w? Still so young. Even in the dream I thought, wondered, if they were, in some way, dead even that long ago. And me and Bri, all that’s left of us.
“Then I walked away. I walked away from Grafton Street, and from the friends who were same as family to me. And I stood on the bridge over the River Liffey, a grown man now. I saw my mother’s face under the water. And that was all.”
“I could tell you that what happened to them wasn’t your fault. Part of you knows that. But another part will always feel responsible. Because you loved them.”
“I did. Aye, I did.” He picked up his neglected coffee, drank. “They’re part of me. Pieces that make me. But just now, standing with you, I realized I can stand all that, stand the loss of all those parts of me. Because I have you.”
She took his hand, pressed it to her cheek. “What can I do?”
“You just did it.” He leaned over, kissed her again.
“I can reschedule some stuff, if you want me to—”
He looked at her, just looked, and the heaviest of the grief that had woken with him eased. “Thanks for that, but I’m better just for having it out.” He skimmed a finger down her chin. “Go to work, Lieutenant.”
She wrapped her arms around him first, hugged hard. And holding her, he drew in her scent—hair and skin—knowing it would come with him through the day.
She drew back, stood. “See you tonight.”
“Eve? You asked me before if I thought your victim, your Lino, would tell someone who he really was. I think, if they stood as family for him, if he considered them part of him—any of the pieces that made him—he had to. He didn’t go to his mother, but there had to be someone. A man can’t stand on a bridge alone, not at home, not for five years. Even the hardest needs someone to know him.”
She managed to cut Peabody off, but barely. Eve jogged down the steps just as Summerset opened the door to her partner. Eve kept going. “Peabody, with me.”
“But I was just . . .”
“We’re moving,” Eve said and pointed toward their vehicle. “Get in. One minute.” Eve turned to Summerset while Peabody sulked her Danish-deprived way to the passenger side. “Roarke could use a call from his aunt.”
