Brazen Virtue

by Nora Roberts

  She would be waiting for him, waiting for him to hurt her, to make her sweat and scream. She would be waiting for him to take her to the ultimate climax.

  She didn’t hear him. She had already taken Lawrence over the top and was on the edge of an orgasm herself.

  He saw her, sprawled on satin pillows, skin damp and glistening in candlelight. Closing his eyes, he listened to the voice. When he opened them again, she wasn’t a barrellike woman with flabs of fat, but a long, leggy redhead. Smiling, he walked to the side of the bed.

  “It’s time, Roxanne.”

  Her eyes flew open. Caught in the mists of her own fantasy, she stared at him. Her ample breasts were heaving. “Who are you?”

  “You know me.” He was still smiling as he straddled her.

  “What do you want? What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to give you everything you’ve been asking for. And more.” Lifting both hands, he tore the thin material from her breasts.

  She squealed and shoved at him. The receiver fell on the mattress as she scrambled for the edge of the bed. “Lawrence, Lawrence, there’s a man in my room. Call the police. Call someone.”

  “You’re going to like it, Roxanne.”

  She was three times his size, but awkward. She struck out again, bruising his chest, but he didn’t even feel the blow. She was screaming at him now, in real terror. Her heart, too weak to support the burden of her body, began to hammer and skip. Her face turned beet red when he hit her.

  “You’re going to like it,” he told her again when she fell back against the pillows. In reflex, she threw up her hands to protect her face from another blow. “You’re never going to experience anything like this ever again.”

  “Don’t hurt me.” Tears squeezed out of her eyes and ran lines through her makeup. Her breath began to rattle as he jerked her hands toward the bedspread and bound them with rope.

  “This is the way you like it. I remember. I heard you say.” He plunged into her, grinning like a maniac. “I want you to like it, Roxanne. I want it to be the best.”

  She was crying loudly, big, shuddering sobs that shook her body and brought him a dizzying kind of pleasure as he rocked on her. He felt it build, climb, soar. And knew it was time.

  Smiling down at her, his eyes half-closed, he wrapped the phone cord around her neck and pulled.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  ED GROPED FOR THE phone on the first ring and came fully awake by the second. Across the room, David Letterman was entertaining his late-night audience. Ed flexed the arm that had fallen asleep, focused on the television screen, and cleared his throat.

  “Yeah. Jackson.”

  “Put your pants on, partner. We’ve got a body.”

  “Where?”

  “On Wisconsin Avenue. I’ll pick you up.” Ben listened a minute. “If you had a woman, you wouldn’t fall asleep watching Letterman.”

  Ed hung up on him and went into the bathroom to soak his head in cold water.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was sitting in the passenger seat of Ben’s car. “I knew it was too good to be true.” Ben bit off the end of a Hershey bar. “It’s been a week since we got a call in the middle of the night.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “Couple of uniforms. They got a call that there was trouble, first-floor apartment, woman living alone. Checked it out and found some glass broken and a window open. When they went in, they found her. She won’t be living alone anymore.”

  “Robbery?”

  “Don’t know. They didn’t give me any more. Cop that called it in was a rookie. Desk said he was busy trying to hold down his coffee break. Look, before I forget, Tess says you’ve been ignoring her. Why don’t you come by for a drink or something? Bring the writer.”

  Ed cast Ben a mild look. “Does Tess want to see me or the writer?”

  “Both.” Ben grinned and swallowed the last of the chocolate. “You know she’s crazy about you. If I hadn’t been so much better-looking than you, you might have had a shot. This is it. Looks like these guys want to make sure everybody in the neighborhood knows there’s a body around.”

  He pulled over to the curb behind two black and whites. The lights turned and blinked on the roofs while the car radios sent out bursts of noise. Ben nodded to the first uniform as he stepped onto the sidewalk.

  “Apartment 101, sir. Apparently the perpetrator broke in through a living room window. Victim was in bed. First officers on the scene are inside.”

  “Forensics?”

  “On their way, sir.”

  Ben judged the uniform to be twenty-two at the most. They were getting younger every year. With Ed right behind him he walked into the building and into 101. Two cops stood in the living room, one of them popping a piece of gum, the other sweating.

  “Detectives Jackson and Paris,” Ed said mildly. “Get some air.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You remember your first one?” Ben asked Ed as they moved toward the bedroom.

  “Yeah. As soon as I was off duty I got drunk.” Ed didn’t pose the question to Ben. He was already aware that the first body his partner had faced had been that of his own brother.

  They stepped into the bedroom, looked at Mary, then at each other. “Shit,” was all Ben said.

  “Looks like we’ve got another serial killer on our hands. Captain’s going to be pissed.”

  ED WAS RIGHT.

  At eight o’clock the following morning, both detectives were in Captain Harris’s office. Their superior sat at his desk studying their reports from behind new and detested reading glasses. The diet he was on had taken off five pounds and soured his disposition. He drummed the fingers of one hand monotonously against the desk.

  Ben leaned against the wall, wishing he’d had the time and the energy to make love to his wife that morning. Ed sat, legs stretched out, as he dipped a tea bag into a cup of hot water.

  “The forensic report’s not in,” Harris said at length. “But I don’t think we’re going to find any surprises.”

  “The guy nicked himself coming through the window.” Ed sipped at his tea. “I think the blood’s going to match what was found at the Breezewood homicide.”

  “We kept the rape and the murder weapon out of the press,” Ben continued. “So a copycat’s a long shot. There wasn’t as much of a struggle this time. Either he was smarter, or she was too scared to resist. She wasn’t a small woman, but he managed to bind her hands without so much as upsetting the glass on the nightstand.”

  “From the papers we found, she was a stockbroker. We’re going to check that out this morning and see if we can find a link.” As he downed his tea, Ed noted that Ben was lighting his third cigarette of the morning. “A woman called the disturbance in to the desk. Didn’t leave her name.”

  “Lowenstein and Renockie can check out the neighbors.” Harris took out two grapefruit pills, scowled at them, then downed them with the tepid water on his desk. “Until information proves differently, we’re looking for one man. Let’s get this wrapped up before it gets out of hand. Paris, your wife was a lot of help last year. She have any thoughts on this?”

  “No.” Ben blew out smoke and left it at that.

  Harris drank the rest of his water as his stomach growled. The press was already salivating and he hadn’t had a decent meal in a month. “I want updated reports by four.”

  “Easy for him to say,” Ben muttered as he closed Harris’s door behind him. “You know, he was enough of a pain before he went on this diet.”

  “Despite popular belief, being fat does not make you jolly. Excess weight is a strain on the body, making a person uncomfortable and usually marking his disposition. Fad dieting accents the discomfort. Proper nutrition, exercise, and sleep make you happy.”

  “Shit.”

  “That helps too.”

  “Drinks are on me.” Lowenstein stepped between them and swung her arms around their waists.

  “You had to wait until I got married to be frien
dly.”

  “My husband got a raise. Three thousand a year, and baby, we’re going to Mexico the minute the kids are out of school.”

  “How about a loan until payday?” Ed asked her.

  “Not a chance. Forensic report came in. Phil and I are going to do the door-to-door. Maybe I can squeeze in some shopping on my lunch hour. I haven’t had a bikini in three years.”

  “Please, you’ll get me excited.” Ben let her go to pick up the file on his desk.

  “Eat your heart out, Paris. In six weeks, I’m going south of the border to drink margaritas and eat fajitas.”

  “Don’t forget the tetracycline.” Ed sat on the corner of Ben’s desk.

  “I’ve got a cast-iron stomach. Come on, Renockie, let’s get moving.”

  Ben flipped open the file. “How do you think Lowenstein’ll look in a bikini?”

  “Excellent. What have we got?”

  “Blood on the broken glass was A positive. And look at this. Fingerprints on the window sash.” He pulled out the Breezewood file. “What would you say?”

  “I’d say we’ve got a match.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got a match.” Ben set the files side by side. “Now all we have to do is find him.”

  GRACE TOSSED HER PURSE onto the sofa, then dropped down beside it. She couldn’t remember ever being so tired before, not after a fourteen-hour writing marathon, not after an all-night party, not after a twelve-city tour.

  From the moment she’d called her parents in Phoenix until she’d put them on the plane home, she’d used every scrap of her energy to keep them going. Thank God they had each other, because she simply had nothing left.

  She wanted to go home, back to New York, back to the noise and the frantic pace. She wanted to pack her trunk, close up the house, and catch a flight. But that would be like closing the door on Kathleen. There were still a hundred details to handle. The insurance, the landlord, the bank, all the personal items Kathleen had left behind.

  She could pack most of them up and give them to the church, but there were bound to be things she should send to Kevin or her parents. Kathleen’s things. No, she didn’t think she was quite ready to go through her sister’s clothes and jewelry.

  So she’d start with the paperwork, beginning with the funeral and working her way back. There were all those cards. Her mother would probably like to have them, to put them away in some little box. Perhaps that would be the easiest place to start. Most of the names would be unfamiliar. Once she’d broken the ice, she could face the more personal of her sister’s affairs.

  First she was going to wire her system with coffee.

  Grace took a pot up to her room. She glanced almost wistfully at her computer. It had been days since she’d turned it on. If she fell behind deadline, which was becoming more and more likely, her editor would be sympathetic. She’d already received half a dozen calls from New York offering help and condolences. It almost made up for the picture in the paper that morning of her at Kathleen’s funeral.

  AWARD-WINNING WRITER’S SISTER BURIED

  G. B. MCCABE ATTENDS FUNERAL OF BRUTALLY MURDERED SISTER

  She hadn’t bothered with the text.

  The headlines didn’t matter, she reminded herself. She’d expected them. Sensationalism was part of the game. And it had been a game to her, up until a few nights ago.

  Grace finished off one cup of coffee and poured another before she reached for the manila envelope. It was crammed with cards. She was tempted just to ship them off to her mother. Instead, she sat on the bed and began to go through them. Some of them might require a personal note in response. Better that she do it now than have her mother face it later.

  There was one from all the students at Kathleen’s school. As she studied it, Grace considered donating money for a scholarship in Kathleen’s name. She set the card aside until she could discuss the idea with her lawyer.

  She recognized a few names from California, the rich and powerful families that Kathleen had known. Let Jonathan handle any response there, she decided, and dumped them into a pile.

  One from an old neighbor made her eyes tear again. They’d lived next door to Mrs. Bracklemen for fifteen years. She’d been old then, or had seemed so to Grace. There had always been cookies baking in the oven or snatches of material that could be made into a puppet. Grace set this card aside as well.

  She picked up the next card. She stared at it, rubbed her fingers over her eyes, then stared again. This wasn’t right. It was a florist’s card with the words IN MEMORIAM printed opposite a spray of red roses. Handwritten in the center was the sentiment:

  Desiree, I’ll never forget.

  Even as she stared, the card slipped out of her fingers and fell faceup on the floor at her feet.

  Desiree. The word seem to grow until it spread over the entire card.

  “I’m Desiree,” Kathleen had said so casually that first night. I’m Desiree.

  “Oh, God.” Grace began to shake as she stared down at the card. “Oh, dear God.”

  JERALD SAT THROUGH HIS English Literature class as his teacher droned on and on about the subtleties and symbolism of Macbeth. Jerald had always liked the play. He’d read it several times and didn’t need Mr. Brenner to explain it to him. It was about murder and madness. And, of course, power.

  He’d grown up with power. His father was the most powerful man in the world. And Jerald knew all about murder and madness.

  Mr. Brenner would have a heart attack if he stood up and explained to him just how it felt to cut off a life. If he explained the sounds it made, or the look on someone’s face as the life drained out of it. The eyes. The eyes were the most incredible.

  He’d decided he liked killing, in much the same way George Lowell, who sat beside him, liked baseball. It was, in a way, the ultimate sport. So far, he was batting a thousand.

  True, Roxanne hadn’t meant as much to him as Desiree. He’d enjoyed that one-second flash where orgasm and death had mixed, but Desiree … Desiree had meant a great deal more.

  If only it could be like that again. If only he could have her back. It wouldn’t be fair if he didn’t experience again that great rush of love and release.

  It had been the anticipation, Jerald decided. Like Macbeth with Duncan, he’d had the buildup, the terror, and the destiny. Roxanne had been more of an experiment. The way in chemistry you tried to reconstruct to prove a theory.

  He needed to do it again. Another experiment. Another chance at perfection. His father would understand that. His father never settled for less than perfection. And he was, after all, his father’s son.

  Addiction came easily to Jerald, and murdering was just one more vice. But the next time, he’d get to know the woman a bit better. He wanted to feel that bond with her.

  Mr. Brenner lectured about Lady Macbeth’s madness. Jerald rubbed a hand over his chest and wondered how he’d bruised it.

  Chapter 8

  GRACE HAD BEEN TO police stations before. She’d always found them fascinating. Small town, big city, north or south, they had a certain feel, a certain controlled chaos.

  This one was no different. The floor was a dull linoleum with more than a few ripples and bubbles. The walls were either beige or a white that had turned. Posters were tacked up here and there. Crime stoppers, with a number and a plug for good citizenship. Hot lines for drugs, suicide, wife and child abuse. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD? The venetian blinds needed dusting and there was an OUT OF ORDER sign on a candy machine.

  In the Homicide Division, plainclothes cops were huddled over phones or hunched over typewriters. Someone was burrowing into a dented refrigerator. She could smell coffee, and what she thought might have been tuna fish.

  “Can I help you?”

  When she jerked at the sound of the voice, she realized how close her nerves were to snapping. The cop was young, midtwenties, with dark hair and a dimple in the middle of his chin. Grace forced her fingers to relax on the clasp of her purse.

  “I need to
see Detective Jackson.”

  “He’s not in.” It had taken him a minute to recognize her. He wasn’t much of a reader, but he’d seen her picture in the morning paper. “Miss McCabe?”

  “Yes?”

  “You can wait if you like, or I can check and see if the captain’s available.”

  Captain? She didn’t know the captain, or this young cop with the dimple in his chin. She wanted Ed. “I’d rather wait.”

  Since he was already balancing two soft drinks and a fat file, he nodded to a chair in the corner. Grace sat, closed her hands over her purse, and waited.

  She saw a woman walk in. Blond and beautifully dressed in a rose silk suit, she didn’t look like a person who had business with Homicide. A professional woman, or a politician’s young wife, Grace decided, although she hadn’t the energy to go further, as she usually did, and attach an imaginary history to the unknown face. She looked away again toward the hall.

  “Hey, Tess,” the young cop called from his desk. “It’s about time we got some class in here.”

  She smiled and walked over to stand beside him. “Ben’s not here?”

  “Out playing detective.”

  “I had an hour and thought he might be able to swing an early lunch.”

  “Will I do?”

  “Sorry. My husband’s a jealous cop who carries a gun. Just tell him I stopped by.”

  “You coming in on this? Going to give us a psychiatric on our killer?”

  She hesitated. It was something she’d considered, something she’d even mentioned casually to Ben. His grim negative and her own caseload had made it easy to back down. “I don’t think so. Tell Ben I’ll pick up some Chinese and be home by six. Six-thirty,” she amended.

  “Some guys get all the breaks.”

  “Tell him that, too.” She started out, then spotted Grace. Tess recognized her from book jackets and newspaper photos. She recognized, too, the look of strain and grief on her face. As a doctor she found it almost impossible to walk away. Crossing the room, she waited until Grace glanced up. “Miss McCabe?”