The In Death Collection, Books 11-15

by J. D. Robb

  The palm of another hand pressed to her injured cheek, and she clenched her teeth. But the sting passed, and she was floating. Not like the ride on blockers that was like a giddy trip on a carousel, but like a weightless drift on a cloud.

  She could hear them speaking, but their voices were insubstantial.

  “She’s gone under,” Louise said quietly. “You’re very good.”

  “Her hip’s causing her a great deal of pain. Most people would be screaming.”

  “She’s not most people, is she? If you’ll work on that, I’ll deal with the head injury. I think we can get the swelling down a bit more.”

  “Will I be in the way?”

  Roarke. At the sound of his voice, Eve struggled to surface.

  “No, shh. Lie still,” he told her. “I’m right here.”

  Because he was, she let go again.

  When next she woke, it was dark. There was a terrible moment when she thought she’d gone blind. Even as she tried to sit up, she saw a shadow move and knew it was him. “What time is it?”

  “Late.” He sat on the side of the bed. “You’re to rest. Lights on, ten percent.”

  The faint glow brought her a flood of relief. Enough that she didn’t snap at him when he moved closer to examine her pupils. “What’s the date?”

  “Depends. Is it before or after midnight?”

  “Clever girl.”

  “I know where I am and when I am. And that we’ve got an anniversary coming up in a couple days. And, Carlo, I’ve never loved you more.”

  “I feel exactly the same way, Miranda.” He touched his lips to her forehead, a sneaky way of checking for fever. “If you’re feeling better perhaps I can let the children come in. Carlo Junior, Robbie, Anna, and little Alice are anxious to see their mum.”

  “Trying to scare an invalid. You vicious bastard.”

  “Go back to sleep.” He brought her hand to his face, rubbed it against his cheek.

  “I will if you will. I’m not going to sleep with you prowling around and lurking over me.”

  “I’ll have you know I was valiantly standing watch over my concussed beloved.” He slipped in beside her, settled her head gently on his shoulder. “Pain?”

  “A little achy maybe, nothing major. Hey, remember? I got hit in the face right before our wedding, too. Now it’s like a tradition.”

  “And so uniquely us. Quiet down now, and go to sleep.”

  She closed her eyes. “Roarke?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I almost had her.”

  The next time she awoke, the room was dim. She spent the first twenty seconds worrying that this time she was going blind, then realized he’d lowered the sun screens on all the windows, including the skylight above the bed.

  Okay, so her mind wasn’t real sharp yet. She lay still and took mental inventory of the aches and pains. Not so bad, considering, she decided, and when she cautiously sat up was pleased there was no violent throbbing or disorienting dizziness.

  She inched over to the side of the bed, planted her feet on the floor. After a bracing breath, she rose. The room bobbled a bit, but steadied quickly. Her head felt like it was caught in a vice, but at least nobody was tightening the screws.

  As she was naked still she frowned down at the Arena Ball–sized bruise on her ribs, the raw, scraped area on her hip. The bruising in both areas was a miserably faded gray and yellow, and that was a good sign. Well into the healing stage, she decided, then tested her shoulder.

  Stiff, but not painful. She turned her head to examine the impressive bruise on that area as well.

  Roarke stepped off the elevator. “You’re not to get up without clearance.”

  “Who says?”

  “Common sense, but when have you listened to that particular individual?”

  “I want a shower.”

  “As soon as Louise looks you over. She’ll be up in a minute. She’s just having breakfast.”

  “I have a conference at eight hundred.”

  “Rescheduled for nine.” He got a robe out of her closet. “Tentatively.”

  She snatched the robe and would have shot her arms through if her shoulder had cooperated. Instead she eased into it. But when she started to stalk past him, he shifted to block.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To pee,” she snapped. “Is that allowed?”

  “Even recommended.” Amused, he wandered to the AutoChef while she marched into the adjoining bath. He counted off the seconds, and thought it might take her eight.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Seven,” he murmured. She was moving faster than he’d expected. “You should have seen it a few hours ago.” He walked in behind her and stood while she stared at her face in the mirror.

  The same sickly combination of gray and yellow—with a tinge of green—which she’d found on her hip and ribs, flowered over the entire right side of her face. It was a mottled pattern, a bit heavier along the ridge of cheekbone and around the eye where her skin puffed out and sagged like a deflating balloon. Her hair sprung out in untidy spikes, matted from sweat and blood, she imagined.

  Her bottom lip looked tender and when she poked a finger at it, she found it felt the same way.

  “Man, he really slammed me.”

  “Must’ve had a hand like a jet train.”

  “He was a big guy,” she remembered, turning her head a little to study her profile. It wasn’t any better than the full-on view. “I hate getting punched in the face. People are always staring at you and making moronic comments: Oh, run into a wall? Wow, gee, does it hurt?”

  He had to laugh. “Only you would be more pissed off about that than the blow.”

  “He was goony. Didn’t know what he was doing. Bitch set me up, then didn’t have the balls to come at me herself.”

  “As you’d hoped.”

  Her eyes met his in the mirror. “When I take her down, she’s going to pay for this.” Eve tapped fingers lightly over her jaw. “And she won’t look so fucking pretty when I toss her in a cage.”

  “Girl fight? Can I watch?”

  “Pervert.” She stepped away, into the shower, and ordered the jets on full at a blistering temperature.

  Because he was concerned she might get dizzy and fall, and because he enjoyed it, Roarke eased a hip on the sink and watched her wavery silhouette behind the patterned glass.

  He turned his head when Louise came in. “Your patient’s up and about.”

  “So I see.” Setting her bag on the counter, Louise walked around the enclosure. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  Eve let out a yip, spun with her wet hair dripping. In defense, she crossed one arm over her breasts. “Jesus, come on.”

  “Let me point out that I’m a doctor, have already seen you naked, and am also a member of the species that has the same equipment as you. Are you in any pain?”

  “No. I’m trying to take a shower here.”

  “Carry on then. Light-headedness?”

  Eve hissed, then dunked her head under the pumping spray. “No.”

  “If you’re dizzy at all, sit down. Just sit down wherever you are. It’s better than falling. Range of motion in the shoulder?”

  Eve demonstrated it by raising her arms and scrubbing shampoo into her hair.

  “Hip?”

  Eve wiggled her butt and made Louise laugh. “Glad to see you’re feeling frisky.”

  “That wasn’t frisky. I was mooning you, which is supposed to be insulting.”

  “But you have such a cute little butt.”

  “So I’ve always said,” Roarke added.

  “Jesus, are you still in here? Go away, everybody go away.” She flipped back her hair, turned, and let out a thin scream when Peabody walked in.

  “Hey! How’re you feeling?”

  “Naked. I’m feeling naked and very crowded.”

  “The face doesn’t look half-bad.” Peabody looked around. “She’s in here, McNab, doing a lot better.”

&nbs
p; “He comes in here,” Eve said ominously, “and somebody’s going to die.”

  “Bathrooms—veritable death traps,” Roarke added. “Why don’t I just take Peabody and McNab, and Feeney,” he added when he heard the EDD captain’s voice join McNab’s, “up to your office. Louise will stay until she’s satisfied you’re fit to return to duty.”

  “I’m fit to kick righteous ass if one more person sees my tits this morning.”

  She turned away again and tried to bury herself in water and steam.

  “You’re very lucky,” Louise told her a bit later as she closed her medical bag. “You could easily have fractured your skull instead of bruising it. Even so, it’s a small miracle you’re back on your feet this morning. Sam’s very gifted, and was a great deal of help.”

  “I owe him.” Eve buttoned up a shirt. “Owe both of you.”

  “And here’s my bill. There’s a fund-raiser on Saturday night to drum up money for three new med-vans. You’ve already been sent an invitation, which you, or I imagine Roarke, has accepted. But I know you often find a way to wiggle out of these things. This time, be there.”

  Eve said nothing. She’d have to pay Louise back another time, another way. Roarke wasn’t going to any public functions until Julianna Dunne was locked in a cage.

  Louise glanced at her wrist unit. “Gotta go. I told Charles I’d pick him up at the airport. He’s coming back from Chicago this morning.”

  “Okay.” Hesitating, Eve reached for her weapon harness. “Louise, it really doesn’t bother you? What he does?”

  “No, it doesn’t bother me. I think I’m falling in love with him, and it’s just lovely.” Her face seemed to radiate happiness. “You know what it’s like when there’s just the two of you, and that rush inside you?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “The rest? It’s just details. Don’t overdo it, Dallas. When you get tired, sit. When you feel shaky, lie down, and don’t be a hero. Take something for the discomfort.” She angled her head as she paused at the doorway. “A little makeup would cover most of that bruising.”

  “What’s the point?”

  Laughing, Louise headed out the door, and Eve for the elevator.

  Chapter 16

  Eve smelled coffee and baked goods the minute the elevator doors opened into her office. Both were being consumed with apparent enthusiasm by her team. Roarke seemed to be content with coffee.

  “You’ve got a nine o’clock conference via ’link,” she reminded him.

  “My admin’s handling it.” He handed her his cup of coffee. “Updated schedule’s on your desk. Have a muffin.” He chose one, bursting with blueberries, from a tray.

  “Whatever your schedule, you should get to it. I have my own.”

  “In which I have a vested interest. Push at me on this,” he added, lowering his voice, “and I’ll push back. I doubt you’re sufficiently recovered to be much of a challenge.”

  “Don’t make book on it. But if you want to waste your time sitting in on this briefing, I’ve got no problem with it.”

  “That’s lucky for both of us.” He strolled away to get himself another cup of coffee.

  To stop herself from saying something nasty she might not be able to back up, she stuffed her mouth with the muffin, then sat on the edge of her desk. “I need to be brought up to speed on the guy who clocked me yesterday, and the airboard vid-kid.”

  “I took those.” Feeney polished off a Danish then took out his memo book for reference. “Sidewalk sleeper’s Emmett Farmer, licensed beggar. Trolls the sector around Central, hangs around intersections and does the windshield gag to pick up loose change. A lot of the uniforms know him, and reports are he’s excitable but basically harmless.”

  He glanced up at Eve, pursed his lips as he eyeballed her face. “Don’t guess you’d agree with the harmless part under the circumstances. His statement is the blonde gave him five dollars and told him he was supposed to wait for your vehicle, do the windshield, and you’d give him another five. She told him he had to keep you by the vehicle or he wouldn’t get paid. Farmer tends to be really insistent about being paid.”

  “So she’d picked him specifically—smear the windshield so my vehicle’s blinded and I can’t pursue that way. Pit me against Gibraltar so she buys enough time to get a good lead on me.”

  Feeney nodded. “And if you get kicked around in the process, so much the better. Statement the airboard kid, Michael Yardley, gave you on-scene’s what he’s sticking to. Given his age, the fact he’s never been in trouble, it holds. She claimed to be a vid producer, set the scene for him. Kid lapped it up. He’s scared brainless he’s going to go to jail for taking you down.”

  “A lot of flaws in the plan.” Eve frowned as she drank her coffee. “Timing’s off, just a little, either one of her stooges doesn’t follow through, or doesn’t follow through hard enough to immobilize me, she’s the one eating pavement.”

  And oh, she thought as she rolled her achy shoulder, what a glorious day that would have been.

  “But she took the risk,” Eve continued. “That tells me the interview with Nadine got under her skin.”

  “She wanted to hurt you.” Peabody could still see Farmer’s slab of a hand flying out, striking, lifting Eve clear off her feet.

  “Yeah, but more, she wanted to psych me out. Shake my confidence. It’s personal.”

  Idly she picked up the alabaster statue Phoebe had given her, turned it in her hand. “Everything’s personal with Julianna. She set me up, and she did it fast. So, how did she know when I was leaving Central? She couldn’t afford to keep the sleeper and the kid hanging around long. They get bored, she loses them. Couldn’t afford to stand around Cop Central herself, or some uniform might make her.”

  “Not that hard to find out your shift,” McNab put in.

  “No, but how often do any of us come and go on shift schedule? I didn’t yesterday. So, she was watching me. She’s been watching me, so she can get a pattern. Getting patterns is one of her best things.”

  She set the statue down again. “McNab, get me the buildings that face my office at Central. Get me a visual.”

  “Do you think she’s been staking you out?” Peabody asked as McNab hopped up to comply.

  “She stakes out her victims, learns all she can about them. Their routines, their habits. Where they go, what they do. Who they are.” Eve glanced at Roarke. How much, she wondered, could Julianna Dunne find out about Roarke?

  Only as much, she decided, as he allowed any of the public to know. And half of that was fiction.

  “She’d see it as an advantage to keep my office under surveillance.” Eve turned to the screen as the grid of streets began to come up.

  “Like a game?” Peabody asked.

  “No, this isn’t a game, not to her. First time around it was business. Now, it’s war. And so far, she’s taken all the important battles.” She picked up a laser pointer from her desk, ran its needle-point light over the screen. “These three buildings would give her the best access to my office window. We need a tenant list.”

  She caught the look that passed between Feeney and Roarke, then shot Feeney one of her own as Roarke slipped into his own office.

  “He’ll get it faster.” Feeney lifted his coffee cup, but not quite in time to hide the grin.

  She let it pass. “We’d be looking for a leased space, short-term. Month-by-month is probable. She wouldn’t spend a lot of time there. She’d have surveillance equipment set up, feed it into another location where she could comfortably study and assess. But she was there yesterday, personally, because she’d decided to move on me.”

  Eve saw herself, standing at her office window, looking out. She put herself back there, behind that narrow glass, and studied the buildings and windows across the street.

  “This one gets my vote.” She ringed one of the buildings in light. “Or if there wasn’t space available on one of these levels . . .” She ran a line through five stories. “This bui
lding. Those are her best angles. Hold on a minute.”

  She walked into Roarke’s office where he sat at his desk while his equipment hummed with efficiency. “I’ve got a priority location,” she told him. “I want you to list that one so I can run a probability.”

  “I’m running probabilities, on all three. Though I think that’s your location.”

  She glanced at his screen where he had the same visual up, and the building she’d earmarked highlighted.

  “Showoff.”

  “Come sit on my lap and say that. You’d be looking for short-term leases, I imagine, and would want the run to move from the latest rentals back. How am I doing?”

  “You bucking to make that expert consultant, civilian gig permanent?”

  “Wouldn’t that be fun?” He patted his knee, but she ignored him. “Ah, well, so much for fringe benefits. Your probabilities are coming up. I did these by line of sight. Easy enough to punch her data from your files into the mix and whittle this down considerably.”

  “Just wait.” She scanned the list of names that he ordered on-screen. “Bam! Daily Enterprises. Justine Daily, proprietor. That’s our girl.”

  She wanted to move, fast and hard, but reined herself in. “We’ll be sure first. Dump this data onto my unit, would you? Let’s try to keep this investigation reasonably official.”

  “Of course. Lieutenant? I’ll be going with you on this bust. Wait,” he said as she opened her mouth. “However slim the chance you’ll find her there, I’m going to be a part of it. She owes me.”

  “You can’t get whacked out every time I get banged up on the job.”

  “Can’t I?” The easy lilt had gone out of his voice, chilling it. “She’s got a mind to come after us both, so I’m in this. I’ll be there when you take her down. Whenever, wherever that might be.”

  “Just remember who’s taking her down.” She turned back into her office. “Feeney, we’ve got a Justine Daily in the primary building. Data’s in my unit. Run a background on her, and her Daily Enterprises.”