The In Death Collection, Books 11-15

by J. D. Robb

  “And,” Roarke put in, “is adventurous enough to audition a candidate over drinks.”

  “Exactly. Date number two, solid middle-class suburban background. Shy, quiet, intellectual. Hoards what money she has to buy books, pay the rent on an efficiency apartment. Rarely eats out, and spends fifteen or twenty minutes every morning with a female neighbor old enough to be her grandmother. She has no other close friends in the city. She’s very young and still a virgin. She’s looking for a soul mate. The one man she’s saved herself for.”

  “And is naive enough to believe she’s found him without ever having met him.”

  “One is introverted, the other extroverted. Physically they are nothing alike. In the first case, the murder appeared to have been unplanned, and the killer panicked. There were no signs of violence on the body that were inflicted premortem. Sexual activity was vaginal only.”

  She picked up a disc from her file, slid it into her computer. “In the second case, the murder appeared to have been premeditated, and the killer was deliberate in the execution. There were signs of violence, bruises, small bites. The victim was repeatedly and roughly raped, and sodomized. It could be theorized that he became . . . encouraged, aroused, intrigued by the first murder and decided to have the experience again, purposefully, more aggressively this time as the act excited him.”

  With a nod, Roarke walked over to stand with her. “It could be.”

  “Image on wall screen,” Eve ordered. “I’ve done a split screen with the security cam feed from the entrance of each victim’s building. That’s Bankhead on the right. We know the killer is wearing a wig, face putty, and makeup. With this look he goes by the name Dante. On the left is Lutz, and there he goes by Dorian. The face jobs are good. Body type, height, more or less the same. Each can be altered easily enough—lifts, padding in the shoulders.”

  She’d already studied the images, over and over. She knew what she was seeing now.

  “Note how Dante holds her hand, kisses her fingers, holds the door open for her. The perfect dream date. Dorian’s got his arm around her waist. She’s looking up at him, starry-eyed as they approach the door. He’s not looking at her, no eye contact. It doesn’t matter to him who she is. She’s already dead.”

  She switched images. “Here, Dante’s coming out. You can see the panic, the sweat. Christ, he’s thinking, how did this happen? How will I get out of it? But you see here, the exit from Grace’s place. The way he strolls out, almost a swagger, the way he looks back and smirks. He’s thinking: That was fun. When can I do it again?”

  “The first theory would hold,” Roarke commented. “He’s building confidence and need and pleasure. A second would be he has different personalities for different looks, for different women. But you’ve a third theory.” Roarke looked away from the screen, looked at Eve. “You think you’re after two men.”

  “Maybe it’s too simple. Maybe it’s what he wants me to think.” She sat, stared at the split screen again. “I can’t get inside him. I ran a probability on two killers. It came in just over forty-three percent.”

  “Computers don’t have instincts.” He came over to sit on the edge of the desk. “What do you see?”

  “Different body language, different styles, different types. But it could be role-playing. Maybe he’s an actor. Drinks at an expensive, romantic location, then the return to the victim’s apartment. He doesn’t dirty his own nest. Candles, wine, music, roses. So he uses the same staging. I haven’t got the results back on DNA, but the sweepers didn’t find any fingerprints but the victim’s and her neighbor’s in Grace Lutz’s apartment. Not on the wine bottle or the glasses, and not on her body. He sealed this time. Why is that, when he knew we’d have prints from the first murder?”

  “If there are two—in reality or by personality split—they know each other intimately. Brothers of a sort,” Roarke said when Eve looked over. “Partners. And this is a game.”

  “And they’d keep score. One each. They’d need a tiebreaker. I’m going to set up here to monitor some of the chat rooms where one of the screen names popped before.”

  “Do it from my office. My equipment’s faster, and there’s more of it. Plus,” he added, knowing she was trying to think of a reason to refuse, “I can give you the list of the wine purchases.”

  “Can you cross-reference that with purchases of Castillo di Vechio Cabernet, forty-three?”

  “I can,” he agreed, pulling her to her feet. “If somebody keeps me company and has a glass of wine with me.”

  “One glass,” she said and moved over into his office with him. “I may be at this for a while.”

  “Just plug in the locations you want to monitor on this unit.”

  She skirted the long black console, stood for a moment in front of one of his several sleek units. “I have to get them from the file.”

  “Computer. Access Unit Six, Eve.” He perused the wine bottles in the rack behind his office bar. “Just enter the file name you want,” he told Eve, “and request copy.”

  “Is there any point in saying that I keep official NYPSD data on my home unit, and you have no authorization to access that data?”

  “None whatsoever. Something light, I think. Ah, this.” He drew out a bottle, turned, chuckled at her scowling face. “Why don’t we have a bite to eat while we’re at it?”

  “Remind me to rag on you later.”

  He opened the bottle. “I’ll make a note of it.”

  Chapter 7

  She sipped wine, nibbled on caviar, and tried not to think how ridiculous it was. If anyone from Central caught wind of it, she’d never live it down.

  Roarke did the same, and prepared to enjoy it. “Key in the screen names you want to watch for.”

  “DanteNYC,” she said. “DorianNYC. Feeney’s running names ending with NYC, but—”

  “Yes, we can run another search. You’ll end up with millions, I imagine, but we might get lucky.”

  “What about the account name? He may cruise with other screen names, or ditch the old ones when he’s done.”

  “Here, nudge over.” He scooted her chair a few inches to the left, then sat beside her. “Computer, run continuous search for all activity under account name La Belle Dame.”

  BEGINNING SEARCH . . .

  “Feeney said you had to go through the privacy blocks and account protocol in order to . . .” She trailed off, lifted her glass when Roarke merely quirked his eyebrows in her direction. “Never mind.”

  “Computer, notify if and when activity under said account takes place, and locate source of activity.”

  SEARCH IN PROCESS. NOTIFICATION WILL BE GIVEN. WORKING . . .

  “It can’t be that simple.”

  “Not usually, no.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Aren’t you lucky to have me? A rhetorical question, darling,” he said and stuffed caviar into her mouth. “Just let me put that consumer list on-screen.”

  He did so manually, with a few deft taps on a keyboard. Eve watched them scroll on, blew out a breath.

  “It could be worse,” she decided. “It could have been cheap wine, then we’d have, oh, a hundred times as many names.”

  “More than that, I imagine. We can break these down into individual sales and restaurant orders. Now we’ll see what we can find on the Cabernet.”

  “Is that your label, too?”

  “No, a competitor’s. But there are ways. This will take a few minutes.”

  Because she thought it slightly tacky for a member of the NYPSD to sit and watch a civilian severely bend the law, she rose and wandered closer to the wall screen. “Computer, display single male consumers on screen four.”

  That whittled it down some more, she noted. She couldn’t and wouldn’t discount the restaurant, the female, and the joint accounts, but she’d start with the two hundred recorded sales to single men.

  “Computer. Display, screen five, multiple purchases of product by single men. Better,” she mumbled as the number went down by another
eighty-six.

  “You got that data yet?”

  “Patience, Lieutenant.” He glanced up, then just looked at her in a way that made her skin tingle and her thigh muscles go loose.

  “What?”

  “You’re such a study, standing there—all cop. Cooleyed and grim with your weapon strapped on. It makes my mouth water.” With a half laugh he went back to work. “Baffles me. Here you are, split on screen three.”

  “Do you say that sort of thing to get me stirred up?”

  “No, but it’s a pleasant side benefit. You’re also quite a study when you’re stirred up. My red edged out the competition’s red by a few hundred sales in the area over the past twelve months.”

  “Big surprise,” she said sourly, and turned around to repeat the same breakdown. “Computer, cross and match, all consumer purchases of both brands in given time period. Less than thirty.” She pursed her lips. “I figured more.”

  “Label loyalty.”

  “We’ll start with these. Standard run, eliminate males over fifty for a start. Our guy, or guys, are younger. Then I have to refactor. Could be daddy who buys the wine, or uncle, or big brother. Or,” she added, glancing back at the screen with joint accounts. “Mom and Dad. But I don’t think so.” She began to pace. “I need Mira’s profile, but I just don’t think so. Seems to me it’s not romantic, it’s not sexual if your parent or parents buy the wine. Then you’re a child again and you’re, by Christ, a man and you can prove it.

  “You can pluck a woman right out of the pack,” she continued. “Pick of the litter, and your choice. Women are merciless, from the poem. They’ll crush you if you give them the chance. So you won’t. You’re in charge this time.”

  She stared at the names, moved away from them, then back again. “Women. Bitches, whores, goddesses. You desire them, sexually, but more than that, you want power. Absolute power over them. So you plan, hunt, select. You’ve seen her, but she hasn’t seen you. You have to see her, have to make absolutely certain she is attractive enough, that she hasn’t created the fantasy of herself the same way you’ve created yourself. She has to be real. She has to be worthy. You wouldn’t waste your time on anyone or anything that’s less than you deserve.”

  Fascinated, Roarke sat back. “What does he do?”

  “He selects. He arranges. He seduces with words, with images. Then he prepares. The wine. One that suits his taste, his mood. No one else’s. Candles, scented to please his senses. The illegals, so that he has control. He won’t be refused. More, he’ll be desired. Desperately desired.”

  “Is it about sex?”

  She shook her head, still studying names. “Desire. That’s different. To be desired by his choice. That’s as vital as his control over her. She must want him. He goes to too much trouble to make himself an object of desire for it to be only about control and power. He has a need to be the focus, the center because it’s his moment. His game. His victory.”

  “His pleasure,” Roarke added.

  “Yes, his pleasure. But he needs her to think it’s hers as well. He stands at the mirror and makes himself into what he’d like to be, and what he believes a woman wants. Dashing, sexy, stunningly handsome, but elegant. The kind of man who quotes poetry and woos with roses. The kind who makes that woman believe she’s the only woman. Maybe he believes it. Or did, with the first one. Maybe he deluded himself into believing it was romance. But under it’s calculation. He’s a predator.”

  “Men are.”

  She glanced back. “That’s right. Humans are, but sexually men are more basic. Sex is more easily viewed as a function where women, in general, prefer an emotional rush along with it. These women did, and he was aware of it. He took the time to know them first, to discover their weaknesses and their fantasies so he could play on both. Then he controlled them. Like a droid, only they were flesh and blood. They were real, so the thrill was real. When it was over, they were spoiled. He’d made them whores again, so they stopped being worthy. He’ll need to find the next.”

  “You were wrong when you said you couldn’t get inside him. I wonder how you can be so much what you are and still look so clearly, so coldly, through the eyes of the mad and the vicious.”

  “Because I won’t lose. I can’t lose or they all win. Right back to my father.”

  “I know it.” He rose, walked to her. Wrapped his arms tight around her. “I’ve never been sure if you did.”

  NOTIFICATION OF ACTIVITY, ACCOUNT LA BELLE DAME . . .

  Eve jerked her body free, whirled. “Screen name of user and location of activity.”

  USER NAME OBERONNYC, LOCATION CYBER PERKS, FIFTH AVENUE AT FIFTY-EIGHTH . . .

  She was running for the door when Roarke pulled it open. “I’ll drive,” he told her.

  She didn’t bother to argue. Any one of his vehicles would be faster than hers. She grabbed her communicator on the race down the steps.

  “Dispatch, this is Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.”

  Detailing orders, she snagged her jacket and headed out the front door.

  It took them six minutes and twenty-eight seconds from the notification to Roarke’s swing to the curb in front of Cyber Perks. She timed it. And she was leaping out of the car before the brakes stopped squealing.

  At a run, she spotted the black-and-white and the uniforms she’d ordered.

  “No one leaves,” she snapped, flipping out her badge, then sliding it shield out into the waistband of her trousers.

  The noise blasted her the instant she walked through the doors. Cyber-punk rolled like a tidal wave, swamping the voices of patrons and beating violently against eardrums.

  It was a world she’d yet to explore, and it was jammed elbow to groin with a motley throng who sat at counters, tables, cubes or airskated between stations. But even in the stupendous confusion, she saw the order.

  Freaks with their painted hair and tongue rings were strewn across a section of color-coded table space. The geeks, earnest faces and sloppy shirts, were huddled in cubes. Giggly teenage girls skated in herds and pretended not to notice the packs of teenage boys they sought to allure.

  There were students, most of whom were gathered in the café area trying to look sophisticated and world weary. Pocketed with them were a smatter of the standard urban revolutionaries, uniformed in sleek black, which students worshiped.

  Scattered throughout were the tourists, the travelers, the casual clientele who sought the atmosphere, the experience, or were simply scoping out the place as a possible fresh hangout.

  Where would her man fit?

  Tracking the room, she strode to the glass kiosk marked Data Center. Three drones in red uniforms sat on swivel chairs in the center of the tower and worked consoles. They kept up what appeared to be a running conversation through headphones.

  Eve zoned in on one, tapped on the glass. The boy, with a smattering of fresh pimples on his chin, looked up. He shook his head, attempted to look stern and authoritative, and gestured to the headphones on Eve’s side of the glass.

  She shoved them on.

  “Don’t touch the tower,” he ordered in a voice that was just waiting to crack. “Stay behind the green line at all times. There are open units in the café. If you prefer, there is currently one cube available. If you wish to reserve a unit for—”

  “Kill the music.”

  “What?” His eyes darted like nervous birds. “Stay behind the green line or I’ll call security.”

  “Kill the music,” Eve repeated, then slapped her badge on the glass. “Now.”

  “But—but I can’t. I’m not allowed. Whatzamatter? Charlie?” He whipped around in his chair. And all hell broke loose.

  The roar that burst out of the crowd outdid even the computer-generated ferocity of the music. People leaped off stools, out of cubes, screaming, shouting, cursing. A wave of them charged the data kiosk like peasants storming the king’s palace. Full of fear and fury and blood lust.

  Even as she reached for her weapon, she took a waywa
rd elbow on the chin that rapped her head back against the kiosk and exploded a fountain of white, sizzling stars in front of her eyes.

  And that seriously pissed her off.

  She kneed a green-haired freak in the groin, stomped hard on the instep of a wailing geek, then fired three blasts at the ceiling.

  It served to stop most of the momentum, though several bodies tumbled or were simply flung in the general direction of the kiosk.

  “NYPSD!” She shouted it, holding up badge and weapon. “Kill that fucking music. Now! Everybody back off, go back to your seats or stations immediately or you’ll be charged with rioting, assault, and creating a public hazard.”

  Not all of it got through, and some of her orders were lost in the swarm of voices and threats. But the more civic minded, or cowardly, slunk back.

  One of the teenage girls lay sprawled at Eve’s feet, airskates tangled. She was bleeding from the nose and weeping in jerky hiccoughs.

  “You’re okay.” Eve nudged her as gently as she could with her foot. “Sit up now.”

  The shouts from various sections were gaining strength again. Civic duty and cowardice wouldn’t hold on for long against mob passion.

  “Nothing will be resolved until I have order, until I have quiet.”

  “This is a guaranteed virus-free zone,” someone shouted. “I want to know what happened. I want to know who’s responsible.”

  So, apparently, did a number of other people.

  Roarke cleaved his way through the crowd. Like, Eve thought as she watched him, a sleek blade slicing through a jumble of rock.

  “A virus was uploaded into the system,” he said softly. “Corrupted the units. All of them, and from all appearances, simultaneously. You’ve got a couple hundred very angry people on your hands.”

  “Yeah, I got that part. Get out of here. Call for backup.”