Kindred in Death
SHE'D DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN. OR BETTER, BECAUSE who knew if there was really good sex and lazy holiday mornings in heaven. She was alive and kicking.
Well, alive anyway. A little sleepy, a whole lot satisfied, and happy the end of the Urban Wars nearly forty years before had resulted in the international Peace Day holiday.
Maybe the Sunday in June had been selected arbitrarily, and certainly symbolically -- and maybe remnants of that ugly period still littered the global landscape even in 2060 -- but she supposed people were entitled to their parades, cookouts, windy speeches, and long, drunk weekends.
Personally, she was happy to have two days off in a row for any reason. Especially when a Sunday kicked off like this one.
Eve Dallas, murder cop and ass-kicker, sprawled naked across her husband, who'd just given her a nice glimpse of heaven. She figured she'd given him a good look at it, too, as he lay under her, one hand lazily stroking her butt and his heart pounding like a turbo hammer.
She felt the thump on the bed that was their pudgy cat, Galahad, joining them now that the show was over.
She thought: Our happy little family on a do-nothing Sunday morning. And wasn't that an amazing thing? She had a happy little family -- a home, an absurdly gorgeous and fascinating man who loved her, and -- it couldn't be overstated -- really good sex.
Not to mention the day off.
She purred, nearly as enthusiastically as the cat, and nuzzled into the curve of Roarke's neck.
"Good," she said.
"At the very least." His arms came around her, such good arms, in an easy embrace. "And what would you like to do next?"
She smiled, loving the moment, the lilt of Ireland in his voice, the brush of the cat's fur against her arm as he butted it with his head in a bid for attention.
Or most likely breakfast.
"Pretty much nothing."
"Nothing can be arranged."
She felt Roarke shift, and heard the cat's purring increase as the hands that had recently pleasured her gave him a scratch.
She propped herself up to look at his face. His eyes opened.
God, they just killed her, that bold, brilliant blue, those thick, dark lashes, the smile in them that was hers. Just hers.
Leaning down, she took his magic mouth with hers in a deep, dreamy kiss.
"Well now, that's far from nothing."
"I love you." She kissed his cheeks, a little rough from the night's growth of beard. "Maybe because you're so pretty."
He was, she thought as the cat interrupted by wiggling his bulk under her arm and bellying between them. The carved lips, the sorcerer's eyes, and sharp, defined bones all framed in the black silk of his hair. When you added the firm, lanky body, it made a damn perfect package.
He managed to get around the cat to draw her down for another kiss, then hissed.
"Why the hell doesn't he go down and pester Summerset for breakfast?" Roarke nudged away the cat, who kneaded paws and claws, painfully, over his chest.
"I'll get it. I want coffee anyway."
Eve rolled out of bed, walked -- long, lean, naked -- to the bedroom AutoChef.
"You cost me another shag," Roarke muttered.
Galahad's bicolored eyes glittered, perhaps in amusement, before he scrambled off the bed.
Eve programmed the kibble, and since it was a holiday, a side of tuna. When the cat pounced on it like the starving, she programmed two mugs of coffee, strong and black.
"I thought about going down for a workout, but sort of took care of that already." She took the first life-giving sip as she crossed back to the platform and the lake-sized bed. "I'm going to grab a shower."
"I'll do the same, then I can grab you." He smiled as she handed him his coffee. "A second workout, we'll say. Very healthy. Maybe a full Irish to follow."
"See, my guy's a gentleman, too." Peabody added a flutter of eyelashes.
"He scented food," Baxter said.
"Sandwiches, soy chips, Energy bars." Peabody snagged a sandwich herself. "Water, fizzies, Pepsi."
"Brain drain," Jamie said, "need fizzy."
"Current." Eve grabbed a tube of Pepsi, cracked it, then briefed the team on the morning's progress and avenues.
"Method as mirror." Feeney shoved the last of the mystery meat and processed cheese in his mouth. "That's a good one. He didn't take her out that way for the hell of it."
"On the other hand, using a blade, bat, pipe, something of that nature," McNab speculated. "It's messier."
"He had drugs. ODing her's not messy, but he didn't go with that. Even a blade," Baxter continued, "in a heart jab -- and he had plenty of time to aim, isn't going to give you spatter. Bare-handed strangulation. That takes time, effort, and yeah, that purpose again."
"Hurting her was the thing, right?" Jamie stared down at the fizzy in his hand. "That was the score."
"He didn't really mess her up." Trueheart cleared his throat when eyes turned to him. "Her face. If he was working off rage, he would have. I think. Maybe he didn't want to use his fists, mess up his hands. But there were plenty of weapons in the house. Objects he could have used as either blunt or sharp instruments. And he choked her more than once, so ... that's what he wanted. That's the way he wanted to kill her. I think."
Baxter beamed. "Boy gets an A."
"To pursue this angle, I'm running searches on like rape-murders within the penal system, with victims who connect to MacMasters and his investigations or the investigations by officers under his command."
"That's going to take a hell of a while," Feeney calculated. "But it's a good angle."
"Meanwhile, as Detective Yancy is not here, he's still working with one or both of our wits. We'll get that status after the briefing. Baxter and Trueheart have goose egg thus far on the canvass. They will recanvass when we have a sketch.
"We're also tugging lines with Columbia. We'll do searches on students and staff -- again -- " she said before anyone commented. "Widen it to include all Southern states, and go back another five years. We'll also cross-reference the articles brought from the vic's room pertaining to theater and lectures with any given at the university since April. If he took her or accompanied her, we'll have another location, and more potential wits. Peabody. Shoes."
"Shoes. Okay, the wit from the park made the suspect's shoes. Anders Cheetahs, navy on white. These are high-end, geared for running shoes. As the wit's opinion was they were new, or fairly new, I've been doing a search for vendors with sales of this model starting in January. Let me just say a hell of a lot of people fork out a hell of a lot of scratch for a shoe you're supposed to run in. I've split that into various categories. Online, Skymall, New Jersey, and New York sectors. As the locations where the suspect is known or believed to have been with the vic, I flipped to concentrate below Fortieth, online, and outside Manhattan."
She paused to slug down water. "And still, a lot of shoes. Given his reputed height, I've focused on average sizes for males of six feet, and slender build, according to the highest probability. And still -- "
"We get it, Peabody," Eve snapped.
"LUCK?" EVE TIPPED BACK IN HER CHAIR, meeting his smirk with one of her own. "Luck that EDD killed your virus? Or that we know what you were wearing on New Year's Eve when you lifted Darian Powders's ID? I know where you bought the shoes you're wearing, Darrin, and how much you paid for them. The backpack, too, and the Columbia sweatshirt you had on when you lured Deena into the first meet in Central Park."
Now she smirked, deliberately, leaning back in a way that transmitted casual derision. "I know what kind of airboard you ride, and exactly where you rode it, with Deena, on a rainy afternoon in May."
"That's bullshit."
He didn't look afraid, not yet, Eve thought. But he looked puzzled, and just a bit defiant.
"You keep thinking that, asshole." Peabody all but growled the words, and made Eve think she'd have to teach her new "bad" cop to tune it back.
"I knew what you looked like when I set you up at the media conference, the day after you raped and strangled Karlene Robins. Drew. I know your name, where you were born, oh, and the name you were using when your mother bought it in Chicago."
There, Eve thought, that hit the mark. Rage boiled out of his eyes. He turned it back, quickly, she'd give him that. But she'd seen it and the trigger she needed.
"We're just smarter than you, Darrin. You got lucky at the memorial, no question. But, gee, looks like your luck ran out. Like your mother's did in that prossy flop in Chicago."
"You're going to want to be careful."
"About what? You're nailed. You've got some skills with electronics, but they're average. You couldn't find a way to jam the cameras or the lock, you couldn't bypass the system without being inside. The virus?"
She rolled her shoulders, stretched lazily. "It was a good try, kept our e-team entertained for a while. But the fact is, an e-rookie has more chops than you. But then, you learned most of them from your father."
"Well, that depends." Peabody shrugged. "We're not sure if Vincent or Vance Pauley is his father. His mother let both of them have the bangs."
"Right, right." Eve waved agreement as Darrin's jaw clenched. "I wonder if your mother knew, since she fucked both of them. But, hey, it could've been someone else altogether. Since she was a whore."
"Shut your fucking mouth."
"Want to shut it for me, Darrin? The way you shut Deena's, Karlene's, when you held a pillow over their faces after you raped them? I wonder, when you were raping them, looking at their faces when you pounded and tore into them, did you see your mother? Is that how you got it up, Darrin? Thinking about Mom, and how you really wanted to fuck her?"
She didn't blink when he lurched up. His hands balled into fists as the lead of his restraints clanged against the bolt.