“It’s not. And we both know that boy survived that bump in his childhood. He had parents, a house, friends, and enough character to offer a little girl a ride on an airboard. I imagine he survived very well. You’ve devoted your adult life to protecting the public, risking your life to do so. So you can bloody well stop blaming yourself for once being a frightened child and behaving as one.”
“Well, hell.”
“I mean it. And take off your coat. Christ Jesus, aren’t you roasting?”
It wasn’t often she felt— The only word she could think of was “abashed.” She tugged off her coat, left it pooled around her. “You’d think a person could wallow a little in her own bed.”
“It’s my bed, too, and there’s been quite enough wallowing. Want to try for something else?”
She picked up the cat, plopped him in her lap. “No.”
“Go ahead and sulk, then, it’s a step up from wallowing.” He rolled off the bed. “I want some wine.”
“He could’ve been scarred for life.”
“Please.”
She narrowed her eyes as he opened the liquor cabinet. “He could’ve become a career criminal, all because of that one frame job.”
“There’s a thought.” He selected a nice white out of the cooler section. “Maybe you’ve put him away. Wouldn’t that be some lovely irony?”
Her lips twitched, but she bore down on the laugh. “You could’ve done business with him in your nefarious past. He’s probably a kingpin somewhere in Texas right now.”
“And he owes it all to you.” He came back to the bed with two glasses of wine, gave her one. “Better?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’d forgotten about it, you know, the way you do even if it’s all normal. And when it came back, it just rushed in with all this guilt. He was only about fourteen, fifteen. He felt sorry for me. I could see it on his face. No good deed goes unpunished,” she said, toasting before she drank.
“I can find him if you want. You can see what he’s up to, other than being a Texan crime lord.”
“Maybe. I’ll think about it.”
“Meanwhile, I’d like to ask you for something.”
“What?”
“I don’t have any pictures of you from before we met.”
It took her mind a moment to catch up with the non sequitur. “Pictures?”
“Yes, from when you were a nubile young girl, or a green rookie in uniform, which I’m hoping you’ll put on again one day soon. I do love my woman in uniform. I could access older ID photos, but I’d like it more if you could find something for me.”
“I guess. Maybe. Probably. Why?”
“Our lives didn’t start when we met.” He touched her face, just a feathering of those wonderful fingers over her skin. “Though I like to think the best of them did. I’d like to have a piece or two of you, from before.”
“That’s pretty sappy.”
“Guilty. And if you come across any photos of yourself at, oh, around eighteen, scantily clad, so much the better.”
She couldn’t stop the laugh this time. “Perv.”
“Again, guilty.”
She took his glass, scooted over, and set both it and her own on the bedside table. She shoved the black butter of her coat carelessly onto the floor.
“I feel like doing something else.”
“Oh?” He cocked his head. “Such as?”
She was quick, and she was agile. In a flashing movement, she rolled, reared up, and had her legs clamped around his waist, her hands fisted in his hair, and her mouth fused hotly to his. “Something like this,” she said when she let him breathe again.
“I suppose I’ll have to make the time for you.”
“Damn right.” She flipped open buttons on his shirt, leaned down to take a sharp nip at his jaw. “You scolded me. Counting my session with Whitney, that’s the second knuckle rap I’ve had today.”
Her hands were very busy, and by the time they reached his zipper, he was hard as steel. “I hope you didn’t have the same reaction with your commander.”
“He’s pretty studly, if you go for the big-shouldered, careworn type. Me, I like ‘em pretty.” She took another nip at his ear as she overbalanced them and shoved him to his back.
The cat might have been fat, but he was also experienced, and dodged aside.
“You’re so pretty. Sometimes I just want to lap you up like ice cream.” She tugged his shirt open, spread her hands on his chest. “And look at this, all that flesh, all that muscle. All mine.” She scraped her teeth down the center of his torso, felt him quiver. “Now that’s something to make girl yummy noises over.”
His hands were on her, little thrills. But he let her lead, let her set the pace. He would let her, she knew, for the moment at least. And not knowing when he might take her over was another thrill.
She yanked open her own shirt, put her hands over his to slide them up her body, close them over her breasts. And cruised on the sensation of those long, strong fingers against her. Then bowed back, eyes closed, as his hands skimmed down to unhook her trousers.
She came down to him again, bracing on her elbows. Mouth-to-mouth—long, sumptuous kisses punctuated by quick bites as her heart beat, beat, beat against his. When she offered her breast, he took it, and her breath caught, then released on a shudder.
His now, as much as he was hers. Her body was fueled for him. He rolled her over, pinned her hands to either side of her head. Her eyes were heavy with passion, dark with challenge.
“I want you naked. Lie still while I undress you.”
He touched his lips to hers, then to the dent in her chin, lining little opened-mouth kisses down her throat, over her breasts, down to her belly.
He rolled her pants down her hips, exposing more flesh, then traced his tongue over the tender dip where legs met her center. She arched, shivered.
“Ssh.” A soothing murmur even as he used his mouth to drive her to the edge, finally to push her over it. When she went limp, he continued down her thighs.
He tugged off her boots, let her trousers fall in a heap on top of them. Then began to work his way up, slowly, tortuously.
“Roarke.”
“Look at this flesh and muscle,” he said, echoing her earlier words. “All mine.”
Again, her body began to churn, that outrageous and breathless pressure building and building until everything inside her burst open. She could only reach for him.
He was inside her, deep and strong. His mouth on hers, his fingers linked with hers. Tasting, feeling, holding, they flashed together.
She thought, blind with love, that, yes, she could go home.
* * *
They lay quiet for a moment, settling. He’d rolled again so her head could rest on his shoulder, her hand on his heart that was still drumming.
“I should scold you more often.”
“Wouldn’t make a habit of it. Might tick me off next time. I felt off all day. I was doing the job, like you said, but I felt off. Almost like I was watching myself do the job. Passive or something. That’s not my rhythm. I need to tune it up.”
He gave her belly a light rub. “You felt tuned to me.”
“Sex’ll do that. With you, anyway.” She pushed herself up. “I need to start at the beginning of this, in my head. Rub off this film that’s been clouding my brain, and start over.”
He stretched out to reach the wine. “Then that’s what you’ll do.”
She took a sip of the one he handed her. “What I’m going to do is take a shower and get dressed. Go over my own notes and reports from the scene, the statements. Take an hour and just line it up in my head.”
“All right. I’ll go back to the account, see what I can chisel out.”
“Can I bounce some things off you after I line them up?”
“I’d be disappointed otherwise. Why don’t we rendezvous in an hour, do that bouncing over dinner?”
“That’ll work.” She took his hand, squeezed. “This works.??
?
He kissed her knuckles. “It certainly does.”
* * *
Chapter 13
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SHE TOOK HER HOUR AND WENT BACK TO THE beginning. She walked back through it, step by step, using the crime scene record, her own notes, the reports from the sweepers, the ME, the lab.
She listened to statements, judging inflection, expression, as much as the words themselves.
She stood in front of her board and studied each photograph, every angle.
When Roarke came in from his office, she turned to him. He acknowledged the light in her eyes with a grin and cocked brow. “Lieutenant.”
“Goddamn right. I was acting like a cop, doing the cop walk, but I wasn’t feeling like a cop. I’m back now.”
“Welcome.”
“Let’s eat. What do you want?”
“Since you’re feeling like a cop, I suppose it best be pizza.”
“Hot damn. If I hadn’t already rolled you, I’d probably jump you just for that.”
“Put it on my account.”
They sat at her desk, one on either side, with pizza and wine between them. He’d even put a tree in here, she thought. A small one, by his standards, but, by God, she liked looking at it over by the window, sprinkling light out into the dark.
“See, here’s the thing,” she began, “it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Ah.” He gestured with his glass, sipped. “Glad that’s cleared up.”
“Seriously. Here’s what you’ve got on the surface, when you walk cold into the scene: Dead woman, killed by multiple blows of a blunt instrument, head shots from behind. Previous bodily injuries indicating she’d been attacked and/or beaten the day before. Door locked from the inside, window not.”
With a slice of pizza in one hand, she waved toward her board with the other. “Appearance, basic evidence points to intruder entering through the window, bashing her, exiting the same way. As there are no defensive wounds whatsoever, investigator would assume she probably knew her killer, or didn’t believe she was in jeopardy. Now, somebody pounds on you one day, you’re going to be a little concerned next time he pops around.”
“Not if those initial injuries were self-inflicted.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know that—why would you think that— when you find the body? The killer had to be aware of at least the facial injury. It’s right there. And the same weapon was used. So we go back over it, with that data, and we have the murder being set to look like she was killed by whoever tuned her up.”
She took a huge bite of pizza, savored the spice. “We got the killer using the previous injuries as smoke. That’s not bad. Not bad at all. It’s good thinking, just like taking her ‘link was good thinking.”
“Exploiting the victim’s greed and violent impulses.”
“Yeah. But there’s little things that blow that. Again, no defensive wounds. No indication she was bound when she was beaten, and no sign that she attempted, in any way, to fight back or shield herself. Doesn’t wash. Then you add the angles of the bruising. Comes up self-inflicted.”
“Which moves you to a different arena.”
“Exactly. Then there’s the crime scene itself, the position of the body, and TOD.”
“Time of death.”
“Yeah, somebody strange comes in the window middle of the night and you can get out of bed, you run and you scream. She didn’t do either. So the killer came through the door. She let the killer in.”
“The window’s still viable. If indeed she and her partner were having differences, he may have chosen to come in that way rather than risk her not letting him in.”
“The window was locked. That’s the thing about memory. It’s tricky.” She took another bite of pizza, washed it down. “It’s the thing about having a cop on an investigation who knew the victim—who, once that memory gets poked, clearly recalls how the victim always locked every door, every window. The world was full of thieves and rapists and bad business, according to the Bible of Trudy. Even during the day, when we were in the house, it was locked like a vault. I’d forgotten that. She’s not going to leave a window unlocked in big, bad New York. It’s out of character.”
“She lets the killer in,” he prompted. “Late-night visit.”
“Yeah. Late. And she doesn’t bother to put on a robe. She had one in the closet, but she doesn’t bother with it and entertains her killer while wearing her nightgown.”
“Indicating a certain level of intimacy. A lover?”
“Maybe. Can’t dismiss it. She kept herself in tune. Face and body work. I can’t remember any guys,” Eve murmured, trying to look back into the past again. “It was only about six months I was there, but I don’t remember any guys coming around, or her going out with any.”
“From then to now would indicate a very long dry spell.”
“Can’t rule out a booty call,” Eve continued, “but I went over the list of her possessions, everything she had in that room: no sex toys, no sexy underwear, no condoms or any shields against STDs. Still, could be a long-term relationship—I’m not finding indications, but could be. Not a partner, though. Not on equal terms.”
“No?”
“She had to be in charge. She had to give the orders. She liked telling people what to do and liked watching them do it. Look at her pathology—take her employment record. Scores of jobs over the years, none lasting long. She didn’t take orders, she gave them.”
“So, in her mind, fostering was perfect.” Roarke nodded. “She’s the boss, she’s in charge. Total authority.”
“She’d think,” Eve agreed. “She was cruising toward sixty, and no marriages on record. Only one official cohab. No, she wasn’t a team player. Partnership wouldn’t work for her. So maybe she tagged this individual on her ‘link. Get over here, we need to talk. She’s had some wine, some meds. Probably just enough to be floaty and full of herself.”
“Another reason she might not have taken as much care as she might have otherwise.”
Eve nodded. “She’s relaxed, medicated. And she’s figuring on squeezing you for the two million. She’s cracked her own face for it. Yeah, she’s full of herself. But how’s she going to squeeze you when she’s holed up in a hotel room?”
“I’ve considered that already. You were off your rhythm,” he reminded her when she frowned at him. “Documented the injuries, I imagine, with a shaky, perhaps teary, account of the attack. An attack which would implicate either or both of us as the assailant, or—if she were more clever—which had the unknown assailant warn her that either or both of us would see she got worse unless she did what she was told.”
He topped off the wine in Eve’s glass. “There would be a statement that this record was made to protect herself, in the event of her untimely death. Or further injury. In which case the record would be sent to the media, and the authorities. This documentation would be sent to me, as she’d trust me to decipher the subtext: Pay, or this goes public.”
“Yeah, well.” She took another slice of pizza. “Did all this considering tell you where that record might be?”
“With her killer, no doubt.”
“Yeah, no doubt. So why wasn’t it brought up along with the numbered account during Zana’s abduction? Why haven’t you received a copy of the documentation?”
“The killer may have assumed the record would do the talking. And may have been foolish enough to trust it to regular mail.”
“See.” She shook the slice at him, then bit in. “Smart, sloppy, smart, sloppy. And that doesn’t work for me. There’s no sloppy here. It’s all smart—smart enough to try to look sloppy. Crime of passion, covering it up, little mistakes. Bigger ones. But I think… I’m starting to wonder if some of those mistakes are purposeful.”
She looked back at the board. “Maybe I’m just circling.”
“No, keep going. I like it.”
“She was a difficult woman. Even her son said so. And yeah,” she added, reading Roar
ke’s expression, “I haven’t eliminated him as a suspect. I’ll come back to why he’s not higher on my list. So you’re doing grunt work for a difficult woman. You’re going to get a cut, but no way you’re getting half. Maybe she tells you she’s going for a million, and you can have ten percent for your trouble. That’s not bad for grunt work. Maybe that’s the play, and she gives you the record to deliver or send.”
“Sure of herself to do that,” he commented.
“Yeah, and sure of her grunt. But it also takes her a step back if anything goes wrong. It all fits her profile.”
“But her grunt isn’t as obedient as she assumed,” Roarke continued. “Instead of being a good doggy and delivering, you take a look at it first. And start thinking this is worth more.”
Here was her rhythm, Eve realized. Batting it back and forth with him, seeing the steps, the pieces, the possibilities.
“Yeah. Maybe you come back, tell her you want a bigger cut. Maybe you point out they could squeeze for more than a measly million.”
“That would piss her off.”
“Wouldn’t it.” Eve smiled at him. “And she’s loose. Been drinking, taking meds. Could be her tongue got away from her and it comes out she was going for two. Oops.”
“Or she just flat out refuses to widen the slice of the pie.”
“That’s a pisser either way. And any way it plays, you’re back in that room with her late Saturday night, early Sunday morning. She turns her back on you. You’ve got the record, you’ve got the weapon. You’ve got motive, you’ve got opportunity. You take her out. You bag up her ‘link, her copy of the documentation, her disc files, anything else that might implicate you or help you out. You unlock the window, and you’re gone.”
“Now you’ll get the whole pie.” Roarke glanced down at the pizza between them. They’d fairly well demolished it, he noted. Hungry work.
“Then it angles back.” Eve licked a little sauce from her thumb. “Bright and early Monday morning, you’re right there, right on the spot to snatch Zana when she comes out. Happy coincidence for you that she’s out hunting bagels on her own.”
“Maybe Trudy wasn’t the one with the lover.”