Naked In Death

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

He was gone when she woke. It was better that way. Mornings after carried a casual intimacy that made her nervous. She was already more involved with him than she had ever been with anyone. That click between them had the potential, she knew, to reverberate through the rest of her life.

She took a quick shower, bundled into a robe, then headed into the kitchen. There was Roarke, in trousers and a shirt he'd yet to button, scanning the morning paper on her monitor.

Looking, she realized with a quick tug-of-war of delight and dismay, very much at home.

"What are you doing?"

"Hmmm?" He glanced up, reached behind him to open the AutoChef. "Making you coffee."

"Making me coffee?"

"I heard you moving around." He took the cups out, carried them to where she was still hovering in the doorway. "You don't do that often enough."

"Move around?"

"No." He chuckled and touched his lips to hers. "Smile at me. Just smile at me."

Was she smiling? She hadn't realized. "I thought you'd left." She walked around the small table, glanced at the monitor. The stock reports. Naturally. "You must have gotten up early."

"I had some calls to make." He watched her, enjoying the way she raked her fingers through her damp hair. A nervous habit he was certain she was unaware of. He picked up the portalink he'd left on the table, slipped it back into his pocket. "I had a conference call scheduled with the station – five A.M. our time."

"Oh." She sipped her coffee, wondering how she had ever lived without the zip of the real thing in the morning. "I know those meetings were important. I'm sorry."

"We'd managed to hammer down most of the details. I can handle the rest from here."

"You're not going back?"

"No."

She turned to the AutoChef, fiddled with her rather limited menu. "I'm out of most everything. Want a bagel or something?"

"Eve." Roarke set his coffee down, laid his hands on her shoulders. "Why don't you want me to know you're pleased I'm staying?"

"Your alibi holds. It's none of my business if you – " She broke off when he turned her to face him. He was angry. She could see it in his eyes and prepared for the argument to come. She hadn't prepared for the kiss, the way his mouth closed firmly over hers, the way her heart rolled over slow and dreamy in her chest.

So she let herself be held, let her head nestle in the curve of his shoulder. "I don't know how to handle this," she murmured. "I don't have any precedent here. I need rules, Roarke. Solid rules."

"I'm not a case you need to solve."

"I don't know what you are. But I know this is going too fast. It shouldn't have even started. I shouldn't have been able to get started with you."

He drew her back so that he could study her face. "Why?"

"It's complicated. I have to get dressed. I have to get to work."

"Give me something." His fingers tightened on her shoulders. "I don't know what you are, either."

"I'm a cop," she blurted out. "That's all I am. I'm thirty years old and I've only been close to two people in my entire life. And even with them, it's easy to hold back."

"Hold back what?"

"Letting it matter too much. If it matters too much, it can grind you down until you're nothing. I've been nothing. I can't be nothing ever again."

"Who hurt you?"

"I don't know." But she did. She did. "I don't remember, and I don't want to remember. I've been a victim, and once you have, you need to do whatever it takes not to be one again. That's all I was before I got into the academy. A victim, with other people pushing the buttons, making the decisions, pushing me one way, pulling me another."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?"

"That's what's happening."

There were questions he needed to ask. Questions, he could see by her face, that needed to wait. Perhaps it was time he took a risk. He dipped a hand into his pocket, drew out what he carried there.

Baffled, Eve stared down at the simple gray button in his palm. "That's off my suit."

"Yes. Not a particularly flattering suit – you need stronger colors. I found it in my limo. I meant to give it back to you."

"Oh." But when she reached out, he closed his fingers over the button.

"A very smooth lie." Amused, he laughed at himself. "I had no intention of giving it back to you."

"You got a button fetish, Roarke?"

"I've been carrying this around like a schoolboy carries a lock of his sweetheart's hair."

Her eyes came back to his, and something sweet moved through her. Sweeter yet as she could see he was embarrassed. "That's weird."

"I thought so, myself." But he slipped the button back in his pocket. "Do you know what else I think, Eve?"

"I don't have a clue."

"I think I'm in love with you."

She felt the color drain out of her cheeks, felt her muscles go lax, even as her heart shot like a missile to her throat. "That's… "

"Yes, difficult to come up with the proper word, isn't it?" He slid his hands down her back, up again, but brought her no closer. "I've been giving it a lot of thought and haven't hit on one myself. But I should circle back to my point."

She moistened her lips. "There's a point?"

"A very interesting and important point. I'm every bit as much in your hands as you are in mine. Every bit as uncomfortable, though perhaps not as resistant, to finding myself in that position. I'm not going to let you walk away until we've figured out what to do about it."

"It, ah, complicates things."

"Outrageously," he agreed.

"Roarke, we don't even know each other. Outside of the bedroom."

"Yes, we do. Two lost souls. We've both turned away from something and made ourselves something else. It's hardly a wonder that fate decided to throw a curve into what had been, for both of us, a straight path. We have to decide how far we want to follow the curve."

"I have to concentrate on the investigation. It has to be my priority."

"I understand. But you're entitled to a personal life."

"My personal life, this part of it, grew out of the investigation. And the killer's making it more personal. Planting that gun so that suspicion would swing toward you was a direct response to my involvement with you. He's focused on me."

Roarke's hand jerked up to the lapels of her robe. "What do you mean?"

Rules, she reminded herself. There were rules. And she was about to break them. "I'll tell you what I can while I'm getting dressed."

Eve went to the bedroom with the cat sliding and weaving in front of her. "Do you remember that night you were here when I got home? The package that you'd found on the floor?"

"Yes, it upset you."

With a half laugh she peeled out of her robe. "I've got a rep for having the best poker face in the station."

"I made my first million gambling."

"Really?" She tugged a sweater over her head, reminded herself not to be distracted. "It was a recording of Lola Starr's murder. He sent me Sharon DeBlass's as well."

A cold lance of fear stabbed. "He was in your apartment."

She was busy discovering she had no clean underwear and didn't notice the iced edge of his voice. "Maybe, maybe not. I think not. No signs of forced entry. He could have shoved it under the door. That's what he did the first time. He mailed Georgie's disc. We had the building under surveillance."

Resigned, she pulled slacks over bare skin. "He either knew it or smelled it. But he saw I got the discs, all three of them. He knew I was primary almost before I did."

She searched for socks, got lucky, and found a pair that matched. "He called me, transmitted the video of Georgie Castle 's murder scene minutes after he'd whacked her." She sat on the edge of the bed, pulled on the socks. "He planted a weapon, made sure it was traceable. To you. Not to knock how inconvenient a murder charge would have made your life, Roarke, if I hadn't had the commander behind me on this, I'd have been off the case, and out of the department in a blink. He knows what goes on inside Cop Central. He knows what's going on in my life."

"Fortunately, he didn't know that I wasn't even on the planet."

"That was a break for both of us." She located her boots, tugged them on. "But it's not going to stop him." She rose, picked up her holster. "He's still going to try to get to me, and you're his best bet."

Roarke watched her automatically check her laser before strapping it on. "Why you?"

"He doesn't have a high opinion of women. I'd have to say it burns his ass to have a female heading the investigation. It lowers his status." She shrugged, raked her fingers through her hair to whip it into place. "At least that's the shrink's opinion."

Philosophically, she pried the cat free when he started to climb up her leg, gave him a light toss to the bed where he turned his butt in her direction and began to wash.

"And is it the shrink's opinion that he could try to eliminate you by more direct means?"

"I don't fit the pattern."

Fighting back the slippery edge of fear, Roarke fisted his hands in his pockets. "And if he breaks the pattern?"

"I can handle myself."

"It's worth risking your life for three women who are already dead?"

"Yes." She heard the fury pulsing in his voice and faced it. "It's worth risking my life to find justice for three women who are already dead, and to try to prevent three more from dying. He's only half through. He's left a note under each body. He's wanted us to know, right from the start that he had a plan. And he's daring us to stop him. One of six, two of six, three of six. I'll do whatever it takes to keep him from having the fourth."

"Full-out guts. That's what I first admired about you. Now it terrifies me."

For the first time she moved to him, laid a hand on his cheek. Almost as soon as she had, she dropped her hand and stepped back again, embarrassed. "I've been a cop for ten years, Roarke, never had more than some bumps and bruises. Don't worry about it."

"I think you're going to have to get used to having someone worry about you, Eve."

That hadn't been the plan. She walked out of the bedroom to get her jacket and bag. "I'm telling you this so that you'll understand what I'm up against. Why I can't split my energies and start analyzing what's between us."

"There'll always be cases."

"I hope to God there won't always be cases like this one. This isn't murder for gain, or out of passion. It isn't desperate or frenzied. It's cold and calculated. It's… "

"Evil?"

"Yes." It relieved her that he'd said it first. It didn't sound so foolish. "Whatever we've done in genetic engineering, in vitro, with social programs, we still can't control basic human failings: violence, lust, envy."

"The seven deadly sins."

She thought of the old woman and her poisoned pie. "Yeah. I've got to go."

"Will you come to me when you're off duty tonight?"

"I don't know when I'll log out. It could be – "

"Will you come?"

"Yeah."

Then he smiled, and she knew he was waiting for her to make the move. She was sure he knew just how hard it was for her to cross to him, to bring her lips up, to press them, however casually, to his.

"See you."

"Eve. You should have gloves."

She decoded the door, tossed a quick smile over her shoulder. "I know – but I just keep losing them."

Her up mood lasted until she walked into her office and found DeBlass and his aide waiting for her.

Deliberately, DeBlass stared at his gold watch. "More banker's hours than police hours, Lieutenant Dallas."

She knew damn well it was only minutes past eight, but shrugged out of her jacket. "Yeah, it's a pretty lush life around here. Is there something I can do for you, senator?"

"I'm aware there's been yet another murder. I'm obviously dissatisfied with your progress. However, I'm here for damage control. I do not want my granddaughter's name linked with the two other victims."

"You want Simpson for that, or his press secretary."

"Don't smirk at me, young woman." DeBlass leaned forward. "My granddaughter is dead. Nothing can change that. But I will not have the DeBlass name sullied, muddied by the death of two common whores."

"You seem to have a low opinion of women, senator." She was careful not to smirk this time, but watched him, and considered.

"On the contrary; I revere them. Which is why those who sell themselves, those who disregard morality and common decency, revolt me."

"Including your granddaughter?"

He lurched out of his chair, his face purpling, eyes bulging. Eve was quite certain he would have struck her if Rockman hadn't stepped between them.

"Senator, the lieutenant is only baiting you. Don't give her the satisfaction."

"You will not besmirch my family." DeBlass was breathing fast, and Eve wondered if he had any history of heart trouble. "My granddaughter paid dearly for her sins, and I will not see the rest of my loved ones dragged down into public ridicule. And I will not tolerate your vile insinuations."

"Just trying to get my facts straight." It was fascinating watching him battle for composure. He was having a rough time of it, she noted, hands shaking, chest heaving. "I'm trying to find the man who killed Sharon, senator. I assume that's also high on your agenda."

"Finding him won't get her back." He sat again, obviously exhausted by the outburst. "What's important now is to protect what's left. To do that, Sharon must be segregated from the other women."

She didn't like his opinion, but neither did she care for his color. It was still alarmingly high. "Can I get you some water, Senator DeBlass?"

He nodded, waved at her. Eve slipped into the corridor and dispensed a cup of bottled water. When she came back, his breathing was more regular, his hands a bit steadier.

"The senator has been overtaxing himself," Rockman put in. "His Morals Bill goes before the House tomorrow. The pressure of this family tragedy is a great weight."

"I appreciate that. I'm doing everything I can to close the case." She tilted her head. "Political pressure is also a great weight on an investigation. I don't care to be monitored on my personal time."

Rockman gave her a mild smile. "I'm sorry. Could you qualify that?"

"I was monitored, and my personal relationship with a civilian reported to Chief Simpson. It's no secret that Simpson and the senator are tight."

"The senator and Chief Simpson have a personal and a political allegiance," Rockman agreed. "However, it would hardly be ethical, or in the senator's best interest, to monitor a member of the police force. I assure you, lieutenant, Senator DeBlass has been much too involved with his own grief and his responsibilities to the country to worry about your… personal relationships. It has come to our attention, however, through Chief Simpson, that you've had a number of liaisons with Roarke."

"An amoral opportunist." The senator set his cup aside with a snap. "A man who would stop at nothing to add to his own power."

"A man," Eve added, "who has been cleared of any connection with this investigation."

"Money buys immunity," DeBlass said in disgust.

"Not in this office. I'm sure you'll request the report from the commander. In the meantime, whether or not it assuages your grief, I intend to find the man who killed your granddaughter."

"I suppose I should commend your dedication." DeBlass rose. "See that your dedication doesn't jeopardize my family's reputation."

"What changed your mind, senator?" Eve wondered. "The first time we spoke, you threatened to have my job if I didn't bring Sharon 's murderer to justice, and quickly."

"She's buried," was all he said, and strode out.

"Lieutenant." Rockman kept his voice low. "I will repeat that the pressure on Senator DeBlass is enormous, enough to crush a lesser man." He let out a slow breath. "The fact is, it's destroyed his wife. She's had a breakdown."

"I'm sorry."

"The doctors don't know if she'll recover. This additional tragedy has his son crazed with grief; his daughter has closed herself off from her family and gone into retreat. The senator's only hope of restoring his family is to let Sharon 's death, the horror of it, pass."

"Then it might be wise for the senator to take a step back and leave due process to the department."

"Lieutenant – Eve," he said with that rare and quick flash of charm. "I wish I could convince him of that. But I believe that would be as fruitless an endeavor as convincing you to let Sharon rest in peace."

"You'd be right."

"Well then." He laid a hand on her arm briefly. "We must all do what we can to set things right. It was good to see you again."

Eve closed the door behind him and considered. DeBlass certainly had the kind of hair-trigger temper that could lead to violence. She was almost sorry he didn't also have the control, the calculation, to have meticulously planned three murders.

In any case, she'd have a hard time connecting a rabidly right-wing senator to a couple of New York prostitutes.

Maybe he was protecting his family, she mused. Or maybe he was protecting Simpson, a political ally.

That was crap, Eve decided. He might work on Simpson's behalf if the chief was involved in the Starr and Castle homicides. But a man didn't protect the killer of his grandchild.

Too bad she wasn't looking for two men, Eve mused. Regardless, she was going to do some pecking away at Simpson's underpinnings.

Objectively, she warned herself. And it wouldn't do to forget that there was a strong possibility that DeBlass didn't know one of his favorite political cronies had been blackmailed by his only granddaughter.

She'd have to find out.

But for now, she had another hunch to follow. She located Charles Monroe's number and put through a call.

His voice was smeared with sleep, his eyes heavy. "You spend all your time in bed, Charles?"

"All I can, Lieutenant Sugar." He rubbed a hand over his face and grinned at her. "That's how I think of you."

"Well, don't. Couple of questions."

"Ah, can't you come on over and ask in person? I'm warm and naked and all alone."

"Pal, don't you know there's a law against soliciting a police officer?"

"I'm talking freebie here. I told you – we'd keep it strictly personal."

"We're keeping it strictly impersonal. You had an associate. Georgie Castle. Did you know her?"

The seductive smile faded from his face. "Yeah, actually, I did. Not well, but I met her at a party about a year ago. She was new in the business. Fun, attractive. Game, you know. We hit it off."

"In what way?"

"In a friendly way. We had a drink now and again. Once when Sharon had an overbooking, I had her send a couple of clients Georgie's way."

"They knew each other." Eva pounced on it. "Sharon and Georgie?"

"I don't think so. As far as I remember, Sharon contacted Georgie, asked her if she was interested in a couple of fresh tricks. Georgie gave it the green light, and that was that. Oh, yeah, Sharon said something about Georgie sending her a dozen roses. Real ones, like a thank-you gift. Sharon got a real kick out of the old-fashioned etiquette."

"Just an old-fashioned girl," Eve said under her breath.

"When I heard Georgie was dead, it hit hard. I gotta tell you. With Sharon it was a jolt, but not that much of a surprise. She lived on the edge. But Georgie, she was centered, you know?"

"I may need to follow up on this, Charles. Stay available."

"For you – "

"Knock it off," she ordered, before he could get cute. "What do you know about Sharon 's diaries?"

"She never let me read one," he said easily. "I used to tease her about them. Seems to me she said she'd kept them since she was a kid. You got one? Hey, am I in it?"

"Where'd she keep them?"

"In her apartment, I guess. Where else?"

That was the question, Eve mused. "If you think of anything else about Georgie or about the diaries, contact me."

"Day or night, Lieutenant Sugar. Count on me."

"Right." But she was laughing when she broke transmission.

The sun was just setting when she arrived at Roarke's. She didn't consider herself off duty. The favor she was going to ask had been simmering in her mind all day. She'd decided on it, rejected it, and generally vacillated until she'd disgusted herself.

In the end, she'd left the station for the first time in months right on the dot of the end of her shift. With what limited progress she'd made, she'd hardly needed to be there at all.

Feeney had hit nothing but a dead end in his search for a second lock box. He had, with obvious reluctance, given her the list of cops she'd requested. Eve intended to run a make on each of them – on her own time and in her own way.

With some regret, she realized she was going to use Roarke.

Summerset opened the door with his usual disdain. "You're earlier than expected, lieutenant."

"If he isn't in, I can wait."

"He's in the library."

"Which is where, exactly?"

Summerset permitted himself the tiniest huff. If Roarke hadn't ordered him to show the woman in immediately he would have shuffled her off to some small, poorly lit room. "This way, please."

"What exactly is it about me that rubs you wrong, Summerset?"

With his back poker straight, he led her up a flight and down the wide corridor. "I have no idea what you mean, lieutenant. The library," he announced in reverent terms, and opened the door for her.

She'd never in her life seen so many books. She never would have believed so many existed outside of museums. The walls were lined with them so that the two-level room positively reeked with books.

On the lower level, on what was surely a leather sofa, Roarke lounged, a book in his hand, the cat on his lap.

"Eve. You're early." He set the book aside, picked up the cat as he rose.

"Jesus, Roarke, where did you get all these?"

"The books?" He let his gaze roam the room. Firelight danced and shifted over colorful spines. "Another of my interests. Don't you like to read?"

"Sure, now and again. But discs are so much more convenient."

"And so much less aesthetic." He stroked the cat's neck and sent him into ecstasy. "You're welcome to borrow any you like."

"I don't think so."

"How about a drink?"

"I could handle that."

His 'link beeped. "This is the call I've been waiting for. Why don't you get us both a glass of wine I've had breathing over on the table?"

"Sure." She took the cat from him and walked over to oblige. Because she wanted to eavesdrop, she forced herself to stay the length of the room away from where he sat murmuring.

It gave her a chance to browse the books, to puzzle over the titles. Some she had heard of. Even with a state education, she'd been required to read Steinbeck and Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens. The curriculum had taken her through King and Grisham, Morrison and Grafton.

But there were dozens, perhaps hundreds of names here she'd never heard of. She wondered if anyone could handle so many books, much less read them.

"I'm sorry," he said when the call was complete. "That couldn't wait."

"No problem."

He took the wine she'd poured him. "The cat's becoming quite attached to you."

"I don't think he has any particular loyalties." But Eve had to admit, she enjoyed the way he curled under her stroking hand. "I don't know what I'm going to do about him. I called Georgie's daughter and she said she just couldn't face taking him. Pressing the matter only made her cry."

"You could keep him."

"I don't know. You have to take care of pets."

"Cats are remarkably self-sufficient." He sat on the sofa and waited for her to join him. "Want to tell me about your day?"

"Not very productive. Yours?"

"Very productive."

"A lot of books," Eve said lamely, knowing she was stalling.

"I have an affection for them. I could barely read my name when I was six. Then I came across a battered copy of Yeats. An Irish writer of some note," he said when Eve looked blank. "I badly wanted to figure it out, so I taught myself."

"Didn't you go to school?"

"Not if I could help it. You've got trouble in your eyes, Eve," he murmured.

She blew out a breath. What was the use of stalling when he could see right through her? "I've got a problem. I want to do a run on Simpson. Obviously, I can't go through channels or use either my home or office units. The minute I tried to dig on the chief of police, I'd be flagged."

"And you're wondering if I have a secured, unregistered system. Of course I do."

"Of course," she muttered. "A nonregistered system is in violation of Code four fifty-three-B, section thirty-five."

"I can't tell you how aroused it makes me when you quote codes, lieutenant."

"It's not funny. And what I'm going to ask you to do is illegal. It's a serious offense to electronically breach the privacy of a state official."

"You could arrest both of us afterward."

"This is serious, Roarke. I go by the book, and now I'm asking you to help me break the law."

He rose, drew her to her feet. "Darling Eve, you have no idea how many I've already broken." He fetched the wine bottle, letting it dangle from two fingers of the hand he slipped around her waist. "I ran an underground dice game when I was ten," he began, leading her from the room. "A legacy from my dear old father who'd earned himself a knife through the gullet in a Dublin alley."

"I'm sorry."

"We weren't close. He was a bastard and no one loved him, least of all me. Summerset, we'll have dinner at seven-thirty," Roarke added as he turned toward the stairs. "But he taught me, by means of a fist to the face, to read the dice, the cards, the odds. He was a thief, not a good one, as his end proved. I was better. I stole, I cheated, I spent some time learning the smuggling trade. So you see, you're hardly corrupting me with such a nominal request."

She didn't look at him as he decoded a locked door on the second floor. "Do you… "

"Do I steal, cheat, and smuggle now?" He turned and touched a hand to her face. "Oh, you'd hate that, wouldn't you? I almost wish I could say yes, then give it all up for you. I learned a long time ago that there are gambles more exciting for their legitimacy. And winning is so much more satisfying when you've dealt from the top of the deck."

He pressed a kiss to her brow, then stepped into the room. "But, we have to keep our hand in."