The In Death Collection, Books 21-25

by J. D. Robb

  “You already turned down the bed?”

  He brushed her lips with his. “I favored my chances.”

  She yanked his shirt over his head. “So do I.”

  She pulled him down to her, steeped herself in the heat of it, the sizzle of blood, the fever of lips. So good to touch him, to feel the shape of him, to have his weight pressing on her. Lust and love were a glorious tangle in her system, and all of it was coated with simple happiness.

  He was with her again.

  He nipped his way down her throat, filling himself on the flavor of her skin. Of all of his appetites, his for her was the only one never quite sated. He could have her and still want her. And those days and nights without her, jammed with work and obligations, had still been empty.

  Drawing her up, he dragged off her harness, shoving it aside, opening her shirt while her teeth, her lips, her hands wrought havoc on him, in him. He cupped her breasts through the thin tank she wore, watched her face as his thumbs teased her nipples.

  He loved her eyes, the shape of them, the rich brandy color, and the way they stayed on his even when she began to tremble.

  She lifted her arms, and he tugged the tank up, off. Then took her—warm, soft, firm—into his mouth. She gathered him closer, purring in her throat, arching her back to offer more. He took, she took, peeling and pulling away clothes so flesh could find flesh. As he worked his way down her, exploring, it was his name that purred in her throat.

  Need gathered in her, a fist of excited pleasure that seemed to punch through her so that she moaned and shuddered on the release. Only to gather again, harder and tighter, until her fingers dug into him urging him up, drawing him back to her. Into her.

  Her hips lifted and fell, a silky rhythm that bound them together, that quickened even as hearts quickened.

  Deeper, he sank deeper into her, losing himself as he only could with her. And the sweetness of it followed him over.

  When his lips pressed to her shoulder, she stroked his hair. It was good to drift on this quiet, this contentment. She often thought of these as stolen moments, a kind of perfection that helped her—maybe helped them both—survive the ugliness the world shoved at them day after day.

  “Did you get everything done?” she asked him.

  Lifting his head, he grinned down at her. “You tell me.”

  “I meant with work.” Amused, she gave him a little poke.

  “Enough to keep us in fish and chips for a bit. Speaking of which, I’m starving. And by the heft of that data bag you hauled in, I’d say the chances of our eating in bed and having another round for dessert are slim.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No need.” He bent his head to kiss her, light and easy. “Why don’t we have a meal in your office, and you can tell me about what’s in that bag.”

  She could count on him for that, Eve thought as she pulled on loose pants and an ancient NYPSD sweatshirt. Not just to tolerate her work, the horrible hours, the mental distraction of it, but to get it. And to help whenever she asked.

  Well, whenever she didn’t ask, too.

  There’d been a time—most of the first year of their marriage, actually—when she’d struggled to keep him out of it a great deal of the time. Unsuccessfully. But it wasn’t simply the lack of success that had eased her toward using him on cases.

  The man thought like a cop. Must be the flip side of the criminal mind, she decided. The fact was, she often thought like the criminal. How else did you get into their heads and stop them?

  She’d married a man with a dark past, a clever mind, and more resources than the International Security Council. Why waste what was under your nose?

  So they set up in her home office, one Roarke had outfitted for her to resemble the apartment where she’d once lived. It was just that sort of thinking—of knowing what would make her most comfortable—that had made her a goner almost from the moment they’d met.

  “What’ll it be, Lieutenant? Does the case you’re working on call for red meat?”

  “I’m thinking fish and chips.” She shrugged when he laughed. “You put it in my head.”

  “Fish and chips it is, then.” He moved into her kitchen while she organized the data discs and files out of her bag. “Who’s dead?”

  “Wilfred B. Icove—doctor and saint.”

  “I heard that on the way home. I wondered if he’d be yours.” He came back with a couple of plates, steam rising from the fried cod and chipped potatoes, fresh from the AutoChef. “I knew him a bit.”

  “I thought you might. He lived in one of your buildings.”

  “Can’t say I knew that.” He’d walked back into the kitchen as they spoke. “I’d met him, and his son—son’s wife—at charity functions. Media report said he’d been killed in his office, at his landmark center here in New York.”

  “They got that right.”

  He brought back vinegar for the chips, salt—his woman used bloody blizzards of salt on damn near everything—and a couple of cold bottles of Harp.

  “Stabbed, was he?”

  “Once. Through the heart. No lucky jab.” She sat with him, ate with him, and filled him in, using nearly the same straight, efficient reporting style she had with her commander.

  “Can’t see the son for it,” Roarke said, forking up some fish—and memories of his own youth in Dublin with it. “If you want an outside opinion.”

  “I’ll take it. Why?”

  “Both devoted to their field of medicine—a lot of pride in that, and each other. Money wouldn’t be a factor. And power?” He gestured with his fork, then stabbed more fish. “From what I know the father’s been ceding that to the son, more as time went on. The woman looks professional to you?”

  “The hit looked pro. Clean, quick, simple, well planned. But . . .”

  He smiled a little, picked up his beer—as comfortable, Eve knew, with the brew and fried fish as he would have been with a two-thousand-dollar bottle of wine and rare filet.

  “But,” Roarke continued for her, “the symbolism—the heart wound, death in his office in the center he founded, the sheer cojones, to borrow the Spanish she purported to be—of the murder in a place so well secured. A point proven.”

  Yeah, Eve thought, she’d be wasting a valuable resource if she shut Roarke out of her work. “Maybe she’s a pro, maybe not. We’ve got no hits on her, not through IRCCA, not through Feeney’s imaging. But if she was hired, the motive was personal. Personal in a way, I think, that relates to his work. He could’ve been taken out quick and easy elsewhere.”

  “You’ve run his immediate staff by now.”

  “Whistle clean, every one. And nobody has a bad word to say about him. His apartment looks like a holo-room.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You know, one of those programs used to fabricate a home for realtors. Perfect urban living. It was clean and coordinated to fricking death. You’d hate it.”

  Intrigued, he angled his head. “Would I?”

  “You got the high life, same as he did. Got it different ways, but you’re both drowning in money.”

  “Oh,” he said easily, “I can tread water quite well, and for quite a while.”

  “While you’re doing the backstroke, he’s got a two-level apartment, where everything’s squared off, the bathroom towels match the bathroom walls, sort of thing. No creativity, I guess I’m saying. You’ve got this place, which may be big enough to hold a small city itself, but it’s got—well, it’s got style and life. It reflects you.”

  “I think that’s a compliment.” He raised his beer to her.

  “It’s an observation. You’re both perfectionists in your ways, but his ran toward obsession—everything just so. You like to mix it up. So maybe his need for perfection caused him to bruise somebody, or fire them, or refuse to take them as a patient. I can’t make this just so, so forget about it.”

  “I’d say it was a big bruise to warrant murder.”

  “People kill for a chipped fingernail,
but you’re right there. This was big enough to do something showy. Because under the efficiency, the tidiness, this was showing off.”

  Eve snagged another fry. “Take a look at her. Computer,” she ordered, “display ID image, Nocho-Alverez, Dolores, on wall screen one.”

  When it flashed on, Roarke lifted his eyebrows. “Beauty is often deadly.”

  “So why would somebody who looks like that consult with a face and body sculptor? Why would he take her?”

  “Beauty’s often irrational as well. She may have convinced him she wanted something more, something else. Being a man, and one who obviously appreciates beauty and perfection, he might have been curious enough to take the appointment. You said he was all but retired. Time enough to spend an hour with a woman who looks like that one.”

  “That’s one of the things. Too much time. A guy who’s spent all of his life working, dedicated, striving, making history—in his field—what does he do when he’s not working? I can’t find playtime for this guy. What would you do?”

  “Make love with my wife, steal her away for long, indulgent holidays. Show her the world.”

  “He doesn’t have a wife, or a specific lover. Not that I can find. Long blocks of time blank on his appointment calendar. He did something with it. Something on those discs. Somewhere.”

  “We’ll have a look then.” He polished off his beer. “How did you sleep while I was gone?”

  “Fine. Okay.” She rose, figuring since he got the meal, she had to clear it away.

  “Eve.” He laid a hand over hers to stop her, bring her eyes to his.

  “I bunked in here some nights, in the sleep chair. You can’t worry about that. You’ve got business out of town, you’ve got to go. I can handle it.”

  He brought her hand to his lips. “You had nightmares. I’m sorry.”

  She was plagued with them, but they were worse when he wasn’t with her. “I can deal.” She hesitated. She’d sworn she would go to her grave telling no one. But he’d be weighed down with guilt, she knew. “I slept in your shirt.” She tugged her hand free, gathered up dishes to keep the confession light. “It smelled like you, so I slept better.”

  He rose, took her face in his hands and said, softly, “Darling Eve.”

  “Don’t get sloppy. It’s just a shirt.” She stepped back, walked around him. Then stopped at the entrance to the kitchen. “But I’m glad you’re home.”

  He smiled at her back. “So am I.”

  5

  THEY SPLIT THE DISCS, ROARKE IN HIS ADJOINING office, Eve at her desk. Where Eve spent a frustrated ten minutes trying to cajole her unit into reading what turned out to be encoded data.

  “He’s got a block on the discs,” she called out. “Some sort of privacy protection thing. My unit won’t accept or override.”

  “Of course it will,” Roarke said and had her frowning up at him. He’d come back into her office without her hearing him move. He only smiled, and laying a hand on her shoulder, rubbing a bit, scanned the screen. “Here you are, then.” With a few keystrokes he bypassed the privacy mode and something resembling text popped onto her screen.

  “It’s still coded,” she pointed out.

  “Patience, Lieutenant. Computer, run deciphering and translation program. Display results.”

  Working . . .

  “I guess you already did yours,” Eve complained.

  “This unit’s equipped to handle code, my technologically challenged cop. You’ve only to tell it what to do. And . . .”

  Task complete. Text displayed.

  “Fine. I’ve got it now. Or would if I was a frigging doctor. It’s medical crap.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “Good luck,” he added, and strolled back to his own office.

  “Passcoded the unit,” she muttered. “Privacy protected the discs, and coded them. Reasons for that.” She sat back a moment, drummed her fingers. Could be just his perfectionist nature. Obsessive. Compulsive. Doctor-patient confidentiality. But it seemed like more.

  Even the text was secretive. No names, she noted. The patient was referred to throughout as Patient A-1.

  Eighteen-year-old female, she read. Height: five feet, seven inches. Weight: one hundred fifteen pounds.

  He listed her vitals, blood pressure, pulse rate, blood work, heart and brain patterns—all within normal range, as far as she could tell.

  The disc seemed to be a medical history, detailing tests, results, examinations. And grades, she realized. Patient A-1 had excellent physical stamina, intelligence quotient, cognitive abilities. Why would he care about those things? she wondered. Eyesight corrected to 20/20.

  She read quick details on hearing tests, stress tests, more exams. Respiration, bone density.

  Then was thrown again by notes on mathematic abilities, language skills, artistic and/or musical talents, and puzzle-solving ability.

  She spent an hour with A-1, spanning three years of similar tests, notes, results.

  The text ended with a final note.

  A-1 treatment complete. Placement successful.

  She rapidly scanned another five discs, finding the same sorts of tests, notes, with occasional additions of surgical corrections. Nose planing, dental corrections, breast enhancements.

  Then she sat back, propped her feet on the desk, and stared up at the ceiling to think.

  Anonymous patients, all referred to by numbers and letters. No names. All females—at least in her stash. Treatment was either complete or terminated.

  There had to be more. More notes, more complete case files. If so, there had to be another place. Office, lab, something. Most of the face or body sculpting, which was supposed to be his specialty, was minor on these cases.

  Tune-ups, she mused.

  The records were more an ongoing evaluation: physical, mental, creative, cognitive.

  Placement. Where were they placed after treatment was complete? Where did they go if and when it was terminated?

  And what the hell had the good doctor been up to with more than fifty female patients?

  “Experiments,” she said when Roarke came through the door. “These are like experiments, right? Is that how it reads to you?”

  “Lab rats,” he agreed. “Nameless. And these notes strike me as being his quick reference guide, not his official charts.”

  “Right. Just something he could flip through to check a detail or jog his memory. A lot of shields for something this vague, which is telling me it springs out of something more detailed. Still they fit my gauge of him. In each of the cases I reviewed, he’s aiming for perfection. Body type, facial structure—which would be his deal. Then he veers off to stuff like cognitive skills and whether they can play the tuba.”

  “You got a tuba?”

  “Just a for-instance,” she said with a wave of her hand. “What does he care? What does it matter if the patient can do calculus or speak Ukrainian or whatever? I’ve got nothing that indicates he worked on brain sectors. Oh, and they’re all right-handed. Every one, which goes against the law of averages. They’re all female—interesting—and all between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two when the notes end. With either ‘placement’ or ‘treatment terminated.’ ”

  “Placement’s an interesting word, isn’t it?” Roarke eased a hip onto the corner of her desk. “One might assume employment. If one weren’t of a cynical bent.”

  “Which you are, which makes you a good match for me. Some people would pay a lot of money for a perfect woman. Maybe running a slavery ring was Icove’s little hobby.”

  “Possibly. Where does he get the goods?”

  “I’m going to do a search. Coordinate the dates of the case notes with missing persons and kidnappings.”

  “There’s a start. Eve? It’d be a hell of an operation to keep this many people under control, and to keep such a thing concealed. Can you consider it might be voluntary?”

  “I’m going to volunteer to be sold to the highest bidder?”

  He shook his hea
d. “Consider. A young girl, for whatever reason unhappy with her appearance or her lot, or simply looking for more. He might pay them as well. Earn money while we make you beautiful. Then we’ll match you up with a partner. One with enough money to afford the service, one who selects you out of all the others. Heady stuff for the impressionable.”

  “So he’s creating, basically, licensed companions, with their consent?”

  “Or spouses, for all we know. Both, either. Or—a thought that hit my perhaps overactive brain—hybrids.”

  Her eyes rounded. “What, half-LC, half-spouse? A guy’s wet dream.”

  He laughed, shook his head. “You’re tired. I was thinking more along the lines of an old, classic plotline. Frankenstein.”

  “The monster guy?”

  “Frankenstein was the mad doctor guy who created the monster.”

  She swung her feet off the desk. “Hybrids. Part droid, part human? And way, way illegal? You thinking he might dabble in hybridizing humans? That’s out there, Roarke.”

  “Agreed, but there were experiments a few decades ago. Military, primarily. And we see it every day on another level. Artificial hearts, limbs, organs. He made his name with his reconstructive surgery techniques. Man-made is often used in that area.”

  “So maybe he’s making women?” She thought of Dolores, absolutely calm before and after a murder. “And one of them turns on him. One of them isn’t happy with her placement, and comes back to off the creator. He agrees to see her because she’s his work. It’s not bad,” she decided. “Out there, but not altogether bad.”

  She slept on it, and woke so early Roarke was just out of bed and pulling on sweats.

  “You’re awake. Well then, let’s have a workout and a swim.”

  “A what?” She blinked groggy eyes at him. “It’s not morning.”

  “It’s after five.” He stepped back up to the bed, hauled her out. “It’ll clear your mind.”

  “Why isn’t there coffee?”

  “There will be.” He bundled her into the elevator and had it heading for the home gym before her brain woke fully.