Loyalty in Death

CHAPTER FOUR

Because she wanted to speak to Feeney in person, Eve swung back to Cop Central. She took the glide up to EDD, hopping off long enough to hit up a vending machine for a nutra-bar.

The Electronic Detective Division was a hive of activity. Cops were working on computers, tearing them apart, rebuilding them. Others sat in privacy booths playing and copying discs from confiscated 'links and logs. Nevertheless, the beeps and buzzes and whines of electronics crowded the air and made her wonder how anyone could manage to squeeze in a stray thought.

Despite the noise level, the door of Captain Ryan Feeney's office was open. He sat at his desk, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, his wiry, rust-colored hair standing up on end, his droopy eyes enormous behind the lenses of microgoggles. While Eve watched from the doorway, he plucked a tiny translucent chip from the guts of the computer upended on his desk.

"Gotcha, you little bastard." And with the delicacy of a surgeon, he slid the chip into an evidence bag.

"What is it?"

"Hah?" Behind the goggles, his hound dog eyes blinked, then he shoved the goggles up to his forehead and focused on her. "Hey, Dallas. This little darling? It's basically a counter." He tapped the bag and smiled a little. "Bank teller with a talent for e-work installed it in her unit at work. Every twenty transfers, a deposit got zipped into an account she'd set up for herself in Stockholm. Pretty slick."

"You're slicker."

"Damn right. What are you doing over here?" He continued to work as he spoke, methodically tagging evidence. "Want to hang out with real cops?"

"Maybe I missed your pretty face." She eased a hip onto the corner of his desk, grinning when he snorted. "Or maybe I wondered if you had any spare time."

"For what?"

"You remember The Fixer?"

"Sure. Bad attitude, magic hands. The son of a bitch's nearly as good as I am. He can take a unit like this XK-6000 here, strip her down, harvest her, and spread her into six other units before she cools down. He's goddamn good."

"Now he's goddamn dead."

"Fixer?" Genuine regret showed in his eyes. "What happened?"

"He took a last swim." She filled him in quickly, moving from her meeting with Ratso through her quick tour of the shop.

"Had to be something big and something bad to scare an old warhorse like Fixer," Feeney mused. "You say they didn't take him from inside?"

"I'd say that would've been next to impossible. He had full security scan. Interior and exterior. A hive of locks. One exit – reinforced – and one window, one-way luminex, barred. Oh, and I checked his supplies. He had enough unperishables and bottled water to last a man used to rations a good month."

"Sounds like he could've held off an invasion."

"Yeah. So why run?"

"Got me. The Jersey primary cleared you to look into it from this end?"

"Well, he's got nothing. I haven't got much more," she admitted. "The story's from my weasel, and he tends to spook easy. But Fixer was into something, and they took him out. They didn't get into his place, so they didn't get to his equipment. He's got a fail-safe on his shop unit. I thought you could play with it, see if you can get past it."

Feeney scratched his ear, reached absently for a handful of the sugared nuts in a bowl on his desk. "Yeah, I can do that. Gotta figure he'd've taken his logs with him if he was going under. But he was smart. Might've left a copy behind. So I'll look."

"Appreciate it." She straightened. "I'm just juggling this in for now. I haven't run it by the commander."

"Let's see what I find; then we'll take it to him."

"Good." She snatched some of the nuts before she headed for the door. "So how much did she get? The bank teller?"

Feeney glanced down at the micro-timer. "Three million and change. If she'd settled for the three and skipped, she might've gotten away with it."

"They always want more," Eve said.

She munched on nuts as she headed to her own office. The detective's bullpen clattered with voices, curses, and whines from suspects, from victims giving statements, the incessant trill of 'links, and the quick screams and scratches as two women went at each other with teeth and nails over a dead man they both claimed to love.

Eve found the atmosphere oddly soothing after her trip to EDD.

As a professional courtesy, she stepped in and hauled one of the shrieking women up in a headlock while the detective in charge struggled with the other.

"Thanks, Dallas." Baxter grinned at her.

She only sneered. "You were enjoying that, weren't you?"

"Hey, nothing like a catfight." He cuffed his charge to a chair before she could slice at him. "If you'd have waited another minute, clothes might've gotten ripped off."

"You're so sick, Baxter." Eve bent close to the woman's ear. "You hear that?" she murmured, tightening her grip just a little as the woman continued to squirm like a fish. "You go after her again, the guys in the squad are going to get off on it. Is that what you want?"

"No." She bit the word off, then sniffled. "I just want my Barry back!" she wailed.

The sentiment set the other woman off, so that the room was filled with the wild sobbing of women. Seeing Baxter wince, Eve smiled thinly and pushed the woman to him. "There you go, pal."

"Thanks a lot, Dallas."

Satisfied with her part in the little drama, Eve went into her office, shut the door. In the relative peace, she sat down and contacted Suzanna Day, the late J. Clarence Branson's attorney.

After being passed from reception to assistant, Eve watched Suzanna's face swim on-screen. She was a sharp-looking woman of perhaps forty. Black hair was cut short and sleek around an attractive face. Her complexion was dark and deep as onyx, her eyes like jet. Her unsmiling mouth was painted a rich crimson that matched the tiny bead pierced through the trailing tip of her left eyebrow.

"Lieutenant Dallas. B. D. told me you'd be in touch."

"I appreciate you taking the time to speak to me, Ms. Day. You're aware I'm primary in the matter of J. Clarence Branson's death?"

"Yes." Her mouth thinned. "I'm also aware, through a contact at the PA's office, that Lisbeth Cooke is being charged with man two."

"You're not happy with that decision."

"J. C. was a friend, a good one. No, I'm not happy that the woman who killed him will do hardly more than turnaround time in a high-class cage."

PAs make the deals, Eve thought sourly. Cops take the heat. "It's not my job to make that determination, but it is to gather all possible evidence. Mr. Branson's will could shed a different light on matters."

"The will is to be read tonight, in the home of B. Donald Branson."

"You already have the information as to the beneficiaries."

"I do." Suzanna paused, seemed to struggle with herself. "And I can't reveal any of the terms before the official reading, as per my client's instructions when the document was drawn up. My hands are tied here, Lieutenant."

"Your client didn't expect to be murdered."

"Regardless. Believe me, Lieutenant, I'm already skimming corners by insisting the reading be held tonight."

Eve considered a moment. "What time tonight?"

"Eight o'clock."

"Any legal reason why I can't be there?"

Suzanna lifted her ornamented eyebrow. "No, not if Mr. and Mrs. Branson clear it. I'll speak to them about it, get back to you."

"Good. I'm going out in the field, but I'll get the message. Just one more thing. Did you know Lisbeth Cooke?"

"Very well. I often socialized with her and J. C."

"Opinion?"

"She's ambitious, determined, possessive. And hot-tempered."

Eve nodded. "You didn't like her."

"On the contrary, I liked her very much. I admire a woman who knows what she wants, gets it, and hangs on to it. She made him happy," she added and pressed her lips together as tears swam into her eyes. "I'll get back to you," she said and broke transmission.

"Everybody loved J. C.," Eve murmured, then, shaking her head, began to gather her things. Her communicator beeped before she got to the door. She tugged it out. "Dallas."

"Lieutenant."

"Peabody. I figured you'd have your brother out on the town."

"Try vice versa." On-screen, Peabody rolled her eyes. "I've already been to the top of the Empire State Building, taken the glide around the Silver Palace twice, gawked at skaters in Rockefeller Center – " Not under the tortures of hell would she admit she'd strapped on skates herself. "And I walked my feet off in two museums. He's dying to do the Fly Over Manhattan tour. It leaves in fifteen."

"Tons of fun," Eve commented as she made her way to the elevator that would take her down to her car.

"Zeke's never been to the city before. I've had to stop him from talking to every LC and beggar on the street. Jesus, Dallas, he wanted to play three-card monte."

Eve grinned. "Good thing his sister's a cop."

"You're telling me." Then she sighed. "Look, this probably doesn't mean anything, but it's weird, and I thought I should let you know."

Eve stepped out of the elevator into the garage. "What?"

"You know how Zeke said he came out because he had a commission? Building custom cabinets and stuff? Well, it turns out his commission is from B. Donald Branson."

"Branson?" Eve pulled up short. "Branson hired your brother?"

"Yeah." Peabody studied Eve out of unhappy eyes. "What are the odds?"

"Low," Eve murmured. "Pretty low. How'd Branson hear about Zeke?"

"Mrs. Branson, actually. She was out in Arizona at some spa and was shopping, saw his work in one of the artists' co-ops. Zeke does a lot of custom work, built-ins, furniture. He's really good. She asked about the craftsman, and they put her in touch with Zeke. One thing led to another, and here he is."

"It sounds normal, logical." She slipped into her car. "Has he been in touch with them since he got in?"

"He's calling now. Their name just came up, and I told him. He thought he should call Mrs. Branson and see if she wanted to put off the work."

"Okay. Don't worry about it, Peabody. But let me know how they handle it. And if he hasn't already spilled it about having a cop for a sister, tell him to keep that little bit of data to himself."

"Sure. But it's not like the Bransons are suspects. We've got the killer."

"Right. Let's just be cautious. Go play tour guide. I'll see you tomorrow."

Coincidence, Eve mused as she drove out of the garage. She really hated coincidence. But no matter how she played the information through her mind, she couldn't come up with anything off about the family of her murder victim hiring Peabody's brother to do carpentry work.

J. Clarence had been alive when Zeke had been hired. Neither of the Bransons were involved in his death. There was no way to stretch it into anything shaky.

Sometimes coincidence was just coincidence. But she pushed the information into a corner of her mind and let it stew there.

– =O=-***-=O=-

There was music playing softly when Eve walked in the house. Summerset entertaining himself, she decided as she stripped off her jacket, while he went about doing whatever the hell it was he did all day.

She tossed the jacket over the newel post as she started upstairs. He would know she was home, she thought. The man knew every damn thing. He also hated to have his routine, whatever it was, disturbed. It was unlikely he would bother her.

She turned, walked down the corridor to the tall double doors of Roarke's weapon room. Frowning a little, she hitched her bag on her shoulder more securely. She was aware that only Roarke, Summerset, and she could gain access to this room.

Roarke's collection was legal – at least it was legal now. She had no idea if every piece had been obtained by legal means. She doubted that sincerely.

Eve laid her hand flat on the palm plate, waited while the cool green light shimmered on to take her print, then stated her name, and finally used the key code.

The security computer verified her identification, and the locks snicked open.

She stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and let out a long breath.

Weapons of violence through the ages were displayed, somehow elegantly, in the great room. Encased in glass, showcased in beautiful cabinets, gleaming on the walls were guns, knives, lasers, swords, pikes, maces. All testaments, she thought, to man's continued ambition to destroy man.

And yet, she knew the weapon strapped to her side was as much a part of her as her arm.

She remembered the first time Roarke had showed her this room, when her instinct and her intellect had been waging a battle. One telling her he could be the killer she sought, the other insisting it wasn't possible.

The first time he'd kissed her had been here, in this private museum of war. And another element had been added to her personal battle: her emotions. She'd never quite gotten her emotions back on track when it came to Roarke.

Her gaze skimmed over a case of handguns, all illegal but for collections like this since the Gun Ban implemented decades before. Clumsy, she thought, with their bulk and their weight. Lethal with their propulsion of hot steel into flesh.

Taking such impulsive killing devices off the street saved lives, she was sure. But as Lisbeth Cook had proved, there were always new ways to kill. The human mind never tired of dreaming them up.

She took the rack out of her bag, then studied her choices to find one that would fit.

She'd narrowed it down to three side arm types when the door behind her opened. She turned, intending to scald Summerset for interrupting, and Roarke strolled in.

"I didn't know you were here."

"I'm working at home today," he told her and lifted a brow. She looked a little frazzled, he noted, a bit distracted. And alluring.

"Do I assume the same for you, or are you just playing with guns?"

"I've got a case, sort of." She set the rack down, gestured to it. "Since you're here, you'd be better at this. I need an army-issue blaster, Urban War style, that would fit into this rack."

"U.S. Army?"

"Yeah."

"European style's a bit different," he commented as he walked to a display cabinet. "The U.S. had two hand blasters during that period, the second – toward the end of the war – was lighter, more accurate."

He chose a piece with a long double over-and-under barrel and molded grip in a dull gray. "Infrared sight, heat-seeking directional. The blast can be toned down to stun – which would drop a two-hundred-pound man to his knees and have him drooling for twenty minutes – or tuned up to shoot a fist-sized hole in a charging rhino. It can be pinpointed or scattered to wide range."

He turned the weapon over, showing Eve the controls on either side. She held out her hand, testing the weight when Roarke passed the weapon to her.

"Can't weigh more than five pounds. How does it charge?"

"Battery card in the butt. Same principle as a clip on an old-fashioned automatic."

"Hmm." She turned and tried it in the rack. It slid in, settled snug, like a foot in a comfortable shoe. "Looks like a winner. Are there many of these around?"

"That depends on if you choose to believe the U.S. government, which claims that the vast majority were confiscated from its troops and destroyed. But if you believed that, you wouldn't be the cynic I know and love."

She grunted. "I want to test this out. You've got a battery card, right?"

"Of course." He picked up the gun and rack himself, walked to the wall, and opened the panel. Frowning a little, Eve got on the elevator with him.

"Don't you have to go back to work?"

"That's the beauty of being the boss." He smiled as she hooked her thumbs in her pockets. "What's this about?"

"I'm not sure. Probably a waste of time."

"We don't get to waste nearly enough time together."

The doors opened to the lower-level target range with its high ceilings and sand-colored walls. He hadn't indulged his appreciation for comfort here. This room was spartan and efficient.

Roarke ordered the lights, set the rack on a counter area on the long glossy black console. He took a slim battery card from a drawer. He slid it into a slot on the butt of the weapon, gave it a quick shove with the heel of his hand.

"Fully charged," he told her. "You've only to activate. A thumb flick on the side here," he showed her. "Set your preferences and let it rip."

She tried it out, nodded. "It's fast, efficient. If you were worried about an attack, you'd have it on, already set." Experimentally, she laid it against her own weapon harness. "With decent reflexes, you could have it out, aimed, and fired in seconds. I want to discharge it a couple of times."

He opened another drawer, took out earplugs and safety goggles. "Hologram or still target?" Roarke asked as she put them on, then laid his palm on the identiscreen so that console lights glowed on.

"Hologram. Give me a couple of guys, night scene."

Obligingly, Roarke programmed the target range, then settled back to enjoy the show.

He'd given her two bulky men who were nonetheless fast on their feet. Their images came at her from both sides. With a quick pivot, she blasted them both.

"Too easy," she complained. "You'd have to be a one-armed moron with a vision impairment to miss with this thing."

"Try it again." He reprogrammed while she balanced on the balls of her feet and tried to imagine herself a scared old man getting ready to run.

The first one came at her fast, out of the shadows, and head-on. She shifted, firing in a crouch, then swiveling around in anticipation. It was closer this time. The second man had a steel bat lifted, had started into his swing. She rolled clear, fired up, and took his face off.

"Christ, I love to watch you work," Roarke murmured.

"Maybe he wasn't as fast," she considered as she rose. "Maybe they knew about the blaster. But it would've given him the edge. And I had it on pinpoint. If he'd put it on wide range, he'd have taken out half the block in one swing."

To demonstrate, she switched it herself, then using a two-handed grip sprayed the street scene. The vehicle parked on the opposite curb went up in flames, window glass shattered, alarms screamed.

"See?"

"As I said." He stepped forward to take the weapon from her. Her hair was a tousled mess, and in the hard light every shade upon shade, every tone upon tone in the mix of brown showed. "I do love watching you work."

"They didn't just step up and knock him cold when he had one of those," she insisted. "They had to distract him, send in a decoy or someone he trusted. They needed enough time to blindside him and not get blown to hell while they were at it. He didn't have a vehicle, and he didn't call for transport. I checked. So he'd've been on foot. Armed, ready, street savvy. But they took him out as quick and easy as plucking a Nebraskan tourist's pocket in Times Square."

"You're sure it was quick and easy?"

"He had a blow to the head, no defensive wounds. If he'd fired that thing and the blast didn't go into someone, there'd be a sign of the discharge. It isn't neat."

She blew her hair out of her eyes, shrugged. "Maybe he was just old and slow after all."

"Not everyone reacts to fear clearheadedly, Lieutenant."

"No, but I'd have bet the bank he would." She moved her shoulders again. "I say they were armed. One of them drew his attention." She began to set a new program herself as she thought it through. To put herself more into the scene she was devising, she removed her safety gear. "When he's focused on that target…"

She took the weapon back from Roarke, engaged the program, slid herself into it. One man slipping out of the shadows, swing toward him, reach for your weapon. Even as she flicked it on, pivoted, she felt the slight shock of a computer hit on her upper shoulder.

She'd gotten off a shot, that was true, she mused as she absently rubbed her shoulder. But she was young and fit, and her mind was cool.

"He was old and scared, but he figured himself tough, too smart for them. But they flanked him, somewhere between his door and the subway stop. He goes for one, and the other stuns him. A stun's not going to show up on autopsy unless it was a severe shock to the nervous system. They don't need that. They just need to jolt him, then they can knock him out and haul him off."

She laid the weapon down. "Anyway, I've got some answers. I just have to figure out where they fit."

"Then I take it this little demonstration is concluded."

"Yeah. I'm just going to – Hey," she protested when he reached out and yanked her against him.

"I'm remembering the first time with you." He expected her to resist a little, at first. It would only make her surrender sweeter. "It started right here." He lowered his mouth to graze her cheek, sampling the taste he intended to devour. "Nearly a year ago. Even then, you were everything I wanted."

"You just wanted sex." Even as she twisted, she angled her head so that his clever mouth could skim down her throat. Under her skin dozens of pulse points awakened.

"I did." He chuckled as his hands roamed down to mold and squeeze. "I still do. Always with you, darling Eve."

"You're not going to seduce me in the middle of a workday." But he was circling her toward the elevator, and she wasn't putting up much of a fight.

"Did you take a lunch break?"

"No."

He leaned back long enough to grin. "Neither did I." Then his mouth was hot and demanding on hers, taking her in quick, greedy gulps that had her nerve ends going from alert to sizzle.

"Oh hell," she muttered and groped clumsily for her communicator with one hand while she hung onto him with the other. "Wait, stop. Hold it a minute. Block video." She let out a breath. God, the man could do the most amazing things with his tongue. "Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve."

He dragged her into the elevator, pressed her against the wall, and savaged her neck.

Dispatch, acknowledged.

"I'm taking an hour personal time." She bit back a moan when his hand closed roughly over her breast. And his other hand slipped between her legs, the heel pressed firmly against her where the heat built fever bright.

The first helpless orgasm had her fighting a scream.

Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, on personal time. Affirmative. Dispatch out.

She barely managed to end transmission before he was tugging her shirt open. She fumbled for the release on her weapon harness, then grabbed a handful of his hair. "This is crazy," she panted. "Why do we always want to do this?"

"I don't know." He swung her out of the elevator, then into his arms for the quick trip across the room to the big bed. "I just thank God for it."

"Put your hands on me. I want your hands on me." And they were, even as she fell beneath him onto the bed.

"A year ago." His lips traced over her face, along her jaw. "I didn't know your body, your moods, your needs. Now I do. It only makes me want you more."

It was insane, she thought dimly, as she met his mouth with the same urgent hunger that touching him, tasting him, always caused this deep ache to grind inside her.

Whether they loved fast and furious such as now, or with sweeping tenderness, that ache, that want never seemed to lessen.

He was right. He knew her body now, as she knew his. She knew where to touch to make his muscles tense, where to stroke to make them quiver. And that knowledge, that familiarity was unbearably seductive.

She knew what he would bring her, this time, every time, whether it was a slow, burning build or one breathless burst: pleasure, deep and dazzling, with the excitement that shimmered around it.

He found her breast, giving himself the thrill of taking her into his mouth. Soft, firm, his. Her back bowed, her breath caught, and beneath his busy tongue, her heart hammered.

His hand closed around the teardrop diamond she wore – a symbol that she had learned to take what he so needed to give her.

Then they rolled, tugging at clothes so flesh could slide and stroke torturously against flesh.

Her breathing quickened, firing his blood. She who was strong and steady could be made to tremble under him. He could feel her body straining toward release, see in her face those flickers of shock and delight as it built.

As he took her over, he closed his mouth over hers and swallowed her long, shuddering moan.

It wouldn't be enough. Even as her system started that lovely glide toward contentment, she knew he would drive her back up again. Drive her to where every pulse in her body pounded, every nerve sparked.

Braced and ready, she reached for him, struggling to give back even as her mind shattered and emptied, her system careened helplessly back into the heat.

She said his name, only his name, and arched up to take him inside her. The joining was smooth, and it was hot. Agile, eager, she pistoned her hips to meet each thrust. She could drive him as well as be driven. His fingers clamped down on hers, locked tight. Another layer of intimacy.

She could see in his eyes, so wildly blue, that he was as lost as she in this moment, this magic.

Only you. She knew he thought it, even as she did. Then those glorious eyes went opaque. With one breathless cry, she clung to his hands and threw herself over with him.

He lowered himself, sighing as he stretched out to rest his head between her breasts. Beneath him her body had gone lax as water. He knew she'd spring up soon enough, throw on her clothes, and go back to the work that consumed her.

But for now, for just a few moments more, she was content to drift.

"You should come home for lunch more often," he murmured.

She laughed.

"Fun time's over. I've got to get back."

"Mm-hmm." But neither of them made a move to rise. "We have dinner at eight at The Palace with some top-level staff and their spouses from one of my transportation arms."

She frowned a little. "Did I know that?"

"Yes."

"Oh. I've got this thing at seven."

"What thing?"

"Will reading. At B. D. Branson's."

"Ah. No problem, I'll shift dinner to eight-thirty and we'll go by Branson's first."

"There's no we here."

He lifted his head from her breast, smiled. "I think I just proved you wrong."

"It's a case, not sex."

"All right, I won't have sex with you at Branson's, but it might have been interesting."

"Look, Roarke – "

"It simply makes sense, logistically." He gave her cheek a pat and rolled aside. "We'll go from Branson's to the hotel where dinner is set."

"You can't just sit in on a will reading. It's not a public event."

"I'm sure B. D. has some comfortable place where I can wait for my wife without intruding, if that's necessary. As I recall, he has a very spacious home."

She didn't bother to grumble. "I guess you know him."

"Of course. We're competitors – not unfriendly ones."

She blew out a breath as she sat up and eyed him. "I'll see if the lawyer approves it, so pending that, fine. And maybe later, you'll give me your opinion of the Branson brothers."

"Darling, I'm always delighted to help."

"Yeah." This time she did grumble. "That's what worries me."