Rapture in Death

CHAPTER ONE

The alley was dark and stank of piss and vomit. It was home for quick-footed rats and the bony, hungry-eyed felines who hunted them. Red eyes glinted in the dark, some of them human, all of them feral.

Eve's heart tripped lightly as she slipped into the fetid, damp-edged shadows. He'd gone in, she was sure of it. It was her job to follow, to find him, to bring him in. Her weapon was in her hand, and her hand was steady.

"Hey, sweetcakes, wanna do it with me? Wanna do it?"

Voices out of the dark, harsh with chemicals or cheap brews. Moans of the damned, giggles of the mad. The rats and cats didn't live here alone. The company of the human garbage that lined the sweating brick walls was no comfort.

She swung her weapon, crouched as she sidestepped a battered recycling unit that, from the smell of it, hadn't worked in a decade. The stench of food gone over smeared the humid air and turned it into a greasy stew.

Someone whimpered. She saw a boy, about thirteen, all but naked. The sores on his face were festering; his eyes were slits of fear and hopelessness as he scrabbled like a crab back against the filthy wall.

Pity stirred in her heart. She had been a child once, hurt and terrified, hiding in an alley. "I won't hurt you." She kept her voice quiet, barely a murmur, kept her eyes on his, maintaining contact as she lowered her weapon.

And that's when he struck.

He came from behind, a roar of motion and sound. Primed to kill, he swung the pipe. The whistle of it stung her ears as she whirled, dodged. There was barely time to curse herself for losing her concentration, forgetting her primary target as two hundred fifty pounds of muscle and mean sent her flying to the bricks.

Her weapon flew out of her hand and clattered into the dark.

She saw his eyes, the glint of mayhem heightened by the chemical, Zeus. She watched the pipe raised high, timed it, and rolled seconds before it cracked against brick. With a pump of her legs, she dived headfirst into his belly. He grunted, staggered, and as he reached for her throat, she brought her fist up hard, smashing it under his jaw. The force of the blow radiated pain and power up her arm.

People were screaming, scrambling for safety in a narrow world where nothing and no one was safe. She spun, used the impetus of the turn to deliver a roundhouse kick that shattered her adversary's nose. Blood fountained, adding to the sick miasma of odors.

His eyes were wild, but he barely jerked at the blow. Pain was no match for the god of chemicals. Grinning as blood poured down his face, he smacked the thick pipe on his palm.

"Kill you. Kill you, cop bitch." He circled her, swinging the pipe like a whistling whip. Grinning, grinning as he bled. "Break your head open and eat your brains."

Knowing he meant it pumped her adrenaline to flash point. Live or die. Her breath came in pants, the sweat pouring like oil down her skin. She dodged the next blow, went down on her knees. Slapping a hand on her boot, she came up grinning." Eat this instead, you son of a bitch." Her backup weapon was in her hand. She didn't bother with stun. The stun setting would do little more than tickle a two hundred fifty-pound man flying on Zeus. It was set to terminate.

As he lunged toward her, she hit him with full power. His eyes died first. She'd seen it happen before. Eyes that turned to glass like a doll's, even as he charged her. She sidestepped, prepared to fire again, but the pipe slipped from his fingers. His body began that jerky dance as his nervous system overloaded.

He fell at her feet, a mass of ruined humanity who had played god.

"You won't be sacrificing any more virgins, asshole," she muttered, and as that wild energy drained, she rubbed a hand over her face. Her weapon arm dropped.

The faint scrape of leather on concrete alerted her. She started her spin, weapon rising, but arms clamped her, lifted her to her toes.

"Always watch your back, Lieutenant," the voice whispered just before teeth nipped lightly at her earlobe.

"Roarke, goddamn it. I nearly zapped you."

"You didn't even come close." With a laugh, he turned her in his arms, and his mouth was on hers, hot, hungry. "I love watching you work," he murmured and his hand, clever hand, slid up her body to cup her breast. "It's… stimulating."

"Cut it out." But her heart was thundering in reaction, and the order was halfhearted. "This is no place for a seduction."

"On the contrary. A honeymoon is a traditional place for a seduction." He drew her back, kept his hands on her shoulders. "I wondered where you'd gone off to. I should have known." He glanced down at the body at their feet. "What did he do?"

"He had a predilection for beating the brains out of young women, then eating them."

"Oh." Roarke winced, shook his head. "Really, Eve, couldn't you have come up with something a little less revolting?"

"There was a guy on the Terra Colony a couple of years back who fit the profile, and I wondered…" She trailed off, frowning. They were standing in a stinking alley, death at their feet. And Roarke, gorgeous, dark angel Roarke, was wearing a tuxedo and a diamond stud. "What are you all dressed up for?"

"We had plans," he reminded her. "Dinner?"

"I forgot." She tucked her weapon away. "I didn't think this would take so long." She blew out a breath. "I guess I should clean up."

"I like you the way you are." He moved into her again, took possession. "Forget dinner… for now." His smile was slow and irresistible. "But I do insist on slightly more aesthetic surroundings. End program," he ordered.

The alley, the smells, and the huddle of bodies winked away. They stood in a huge, empty room with equipment and blinking lights built into the walls. Both floor and ceiling were glass-mirrored black to better project the holographic scenes available on the program.

It was one of Roarke's newest, most sophisticated toys.

"Begin Tropical Setting 4-B. Maintain dual control status."

In response came the whoosh of waves, the sprinkle of starlight on water. Beneath her feet was white sugar sand, and palm trees waved like exotic dancers.

"That's more like it," Roarke decided, then began unbuttoning her shirt. "Or it will be when I get you naked."

"You've been getting me naked every time I blink for nearly three weeks."

He arched a brow. "Husband's privilege. Complaints?"

Husband. It was still a jolt. This man with the warrior's mane of black hair, the poet's face, the wild Irish blue eyes was her husband. She'd never get used to it.

"No. Just an – " Her breath hitched as one of his long-fingered hands skimmed over her breasts. "An observation."

"Cops." He smiled, unfastened her jeans. "Always observing. You're off duty, Lieutenant Dallas."

"I was just keeping my reflexes sharp. Three weeks away from the job, you get rusty."

He slid a hand between her naked thighs, cupped her, watched her head fall back on a moan. "Your reflexes are just fine," he murmured and pulled her down to the soft white sand.

His wife. Roarke liked to think about that as she rode him, as she moved under him, as she lay spent beside him. This fascinating woman, this dedicated cop, this troubled soul belonged to him.

He'd watched her work through the program, the alley, the chemical-mad killer. And he'd known she would face the reality of her work with the same tough, terrifyingly courageous determination that she'd possessed in the illusion.

He admired her for it, however many bad moments it gave him. In a few days, they would go back to New York and he would have to share her with her duties. For now, he wanted to share her with nothing. With no one.

He was no stranger to back alleys that reeked of garbage and hopeless humanity. He'd grown up in them, escaped into them, and eventually had escaped from them. He had made his life into what it was – and then she had come into it, sharp and lethal as an arrow from a bow, and had changed it again.

Cops had once been the enemy, then an amusement, and now he was bound to one.

Just over two weeks before, he had watched her walk toward him in a flowing gown of rich bronze, flowers in her hands. The bruises on her face a killer had put there only hours before had been softened under cosmetics. And in those eyes, those big brandy-colored eyes that showed so much, he'd seen nerves and amusement.

Here we go, Roarke. He'd nearly heard her say it as she put her hand in his. For better or worse I'll take you on. God help us.

Now she wore his ring, and he hers. He'd insisted on that, though such traditions weren't strictly fashionable in the middle of the twenty-first century. He'd wanted the tangible reminder of what they were to each other, the symbol of it.

Now he picked up her hand, kissed her finger above the ornately etched gold band he'd had made for her. Her eyes stayed closed. He studied the sharp angles of her face, the overwide mouth, the short cap of brown hair tousled into spikes.

"I love you, Eve."

Faint color bloomed on her cheeks. She was so easily moved, he thought. He wondered if she had any idea how huge was her own heart.

"I know." She opened her eyes. "I'm, ah, starting to get used to it."

"Good."

Listening to the song of water lapping on sand, of balmy breezes whispering through feathery palms, she lifted a hand, brushed the hair back from his face. A man like him, she thought, powerful, wealthy, impulsive, could call up such scenes at the snap of a finger. And he'd done it for her.

"You make me happy."

His grin flashed, making her stomach muscles curl in delight. "I know." With easy, effortless strength, he lifted her up and over until she straddled him. He skimmed his hands idly up her long, slim, muscled body. "Are you ready to admit you're glad I shanghaied you off planet for the last part of our honeymoon?"

She grimaced, remembering her panic, her dug-in-at-the-heels refusal to board the transport he'd had waiting, and how he had roared with laughter and had tossed her over his shoulder, climbing on board with her cursing him.

"I liked Paris," she said with a sniff. "And I loved the week we had on the island. I didn't see any reason for us to come to some half-finished resort in space when we were going to spend most of our time in bed anyway."

"You were scared." It had delighted him that she'd been unnerved by the prospect of her first off planet voyage, and it had pleasured him to keep her occupied and distracted for the bulk of the trip.

"I was not." Boneless, she thought. Scared boneless. "I was justifiably annoyed that you'd made the plans without discussing them with me."

"I seem to recall someone being involved with a case and telling me to plan whatever suited me. You were a beautiful bride."

It made her lips curve. "It was the dress."

"No, it was you." He lifted a hand to her face. "Eve Dallas. Mine."

Love swamped her. It always seemed to come in huge, unexpected waves that left her flailing helplessly. "I love you." She lowered herself to him, brought her mouth to his. "Looks like you're mine."

It was midnight before they had dinner. On the moon-washed terrace of the towering spear that was the nearly completed Olympus Grand Hotel, Eve dug into stuffed lobster and contemplated the view.

The Olympus Resort would be, with Roarke pulling the strings, completed and fully booked within a year. For now, they had it to themselves – if she ignored the construction crews, staff, architects, engineers, pilots, and other assorted inhabitants who shared the massive space station.

From the small glass table where they sat, she could see out over the hub of the resort. The lights brightly burned for the night crew, the quiet hum of machinery spoke of round-the-clock labor. The fountains, the lances of simulated torchlight and rainbows of color running fluidly through the spewing waters, were for her, she knew.

He'd wanted her to see what he was building and perhaps to begin to understand what she was a part of now. As his wife.

Wife. She blew out a breath that fluttered her bangs and sipped the icy champagne he'd poured. It was going to take some time to understand just how she'd gone from being Eve Dallas, homicide lieutenant, to become the wife of a man who some claimed had more money and power than God.

"Problem?"

She flicked her eyes over his face, smiled a little. "No." With intense concentration, she dipped a bit of lobster in melted butter – real butter, no simulation for Roarke's table – and sampled it. "How am I going to face the cardboard they pass off as food at the Eatery once I'm back on the job?"

"You eat candy bars on the job in any case." He topped off her wine, lifted a brow when she narrowed her eyes.

"You trying to get me drunk, pal?"

"Absolutely."

She laughed, something he noted she did more easily and more often these days, and with a shrug, picked up her glass. "What the hell, I'll oblige you. And when I'm drunk" – she gulped down the priceless wine like water – "I'll give you a ride you won't soon forget."

Lust he'd thought sated for the moment crawled edgily into his belly. "Well, in that case" – he poured wine into his own glass, teasing it to the rim – "let's both get drunk."

"I like it here," she announced. Pushing back from the table, she carried her glass to the thick railing of carved stone. It must have cost a fortune to have it quarried, then shipped – but he was Roarke, after all.

Leaning over, she watched the light and water show, scanned the buildings, all domes and spears, all glossy and elegant to house the sumptuous people and the sumptuous games they would come to play.

The casino was completed and glowed like a golden ball in the dark. One of the dozen pools was lighted for the night and the water glimmered cobalt blue. Skywalks zigzagged between buildings and resembled silver threads. They were empty now, but she imagined what they would be like in six months, a year: crammed with people who shimmered in silks, glowed with jewels. They would come to be pampered within the marble walls of the spa with its mud baths and body enhancement facilities, its soft-spoken consultants and solicitous droids. They'd come to lose fortunes in the casino, to drink exclusive liquor in the clubs, to make love to the hard and soft bodies of licensed companions.

Roarke would offer them a world, and they could come. But it wouldn't be her world when they filled it. She was more comfortable with the streets, the noisy half world of law and crime. Roarke understood that, she thought, as he'd come from the same place as she. So he had offered her this when it was only theirs.

"You're going to make something here," she said and turned to lean back against the rail.

"That's the plan."

"No." She shook her head, pleased that it was already starting to swim from the wine. "You'll make something that people will talk about for centuries, that they'll dream of. You've come a long way from the young thief who ran the back alleys of Dublin, Roarke."

His smile was slow and just a little sly. "Not so very far, Lieutenant. I'm still picking pockets – I just do it as legally as I can. Being married to a cop limits certain activities."

She frowned at him now. "I don't want to hear about them."

"Darling Eve." He rose, brought the bottle with him. "So by-the-book. Still so unsettled that she's fallen madly in love with a shady character." He filled her glass again, then set the bottle aside. "One that only months ago was on her short list of murder suspects."

"You enjoy that? Being suspicious?"

"I do." He skimmed a thumb over a cheekbone where a bruise had faded away – except in his mind. "And I worry about you a little." A lot, he admitted to himself.

"I'm a good cop."

"I know. The only one I've ever completely admired. What an odd twist of fate that I would have fallen for a woman so devoted to justice."

"It seems odder to me that I've linked up with someone who can buy and sell planets at a whim."

"Married." He laughed. Turning her around, he nuzzled the back of her neck. "Go on, say it. We're married. The word won't choke you."

"I know what we are." Ordering herself to relax, she leaned back against him. "Let me live with it for a while. I like being here, away with you."

"Then I take it you're glad you let me pressure you into the three weeks."

"You didn't pressure me."

"I had to nag." He nipped her ear. "Browbeat." His hands slid up to her breasts. "Beg."

She snorted. "You've never begged for anything. But maybe you did nag. I haven't had three weeks off the job in… never."

He decided against reminding her she hadn't had it now, precisely. She rarely went through a twenty-four-hour period without running some program that put her up against a crime. "Why don't we make it four?"

"Roarke – "

He chuckled. "Just testing. Drink your champagne. You're not nearly drunk enough for what I have in mind."

"Oh?" Her pulse leaped, making her feel foolish. "And what's that?"

"It'll lose in the telling," he decided. "Let's just say I intend to keep you occupied for the last forty-eight hours we have here."

"Forty-eight hours?" With a laugh, she drained her glass. "When do we get started?"

"There's no time like – " He broke off, scowling when the doorbell sounded. "I told the staff to leave the clearing up. Stay here." He snugged together her robe, which he'd just untied. "I'll send them away. Far away."

"Get another bottle while you're at it," she told him, grinning as she shook the last drops into her glass. "Someone drank all of this one."

Amused, he slipped back inside, crossed the wide living space with its clear glass ceiling and feather-soft carpets. He wanted her there, to start, he decided, on that yielding floor with the ice-edged stars wheeling overhead. He plucked a long white lily out of a porcelain dish, imagining how he would show her just what a clever man could do to a woman with the petals of a flower.

He was smiling as he turned into the foyer with its gilded walls and sweeping marble staircase. Flipping on the view screen, he prepared to send the room service waiter to perdition for the interruption.

With some surprise he saw the face of one of his assistant engineers. "Carter? Trouble?"

Carter rubbed a hand over a face that was dead pale and damp with sweat. "Sir. I'm afraid there is. I need to speak with you. Please."

"All right. Just a moment." Roarke let out a sigh as he flicked off the screen, disengaged the locks. Carter was young for his position, in his middle twenties, but he was a genius at design and execution. If there was a problem with the construction, it was best to deal with it now.

"Is it the sky glide at the salon?" Roarke asked as he opened the door. "I thought you'd worked out the kinks there."

"No – I mean, yes, sir, I have. It's working perfectly now."

The man was trembling, Roarke realized, and forgot his annoyance. "Has there been an accident?" He took Carter's arm, steered him into the living area, nudged him into a chair. "Has someone been hurt?"

"I don't know – I mean, an accident?" Carter blinked, stared glassily. " Miss. Ma'am. Lieutenant," he said as Eve came in. He started to rise, then fell weakly down again when she gave him a quick push.

"He's in shock," she said to Roarke, her voice brisk. "Try some of that fancy brandy you've got around here." She crouched down, kept her face level with his. His pupils were pinpricks. "Carter, isn't it? Take it slow."

"I…" His face went waxy now. "I think I'm going to be – "

Before he could finish, Eve whipped his head down between his knees. "Breathe. Just breathe. Let's have that brandy, Roarke." She held out a hand, and he was there with a snifter.

"Pull it together, Carter." Roarke eased him back onto the cushions. "Take a swallow of this."

"Yes, sir."

"For Christ's sake, stop sirring me to death."

Color came back into Carter's cheeks, either from the brandy or from embarrassment. He nodded, swallowed, let out a breath. "I'm sorry. I thought I was okay. I came right up. I didn't know if I should – I didn't know what else to do." He spread a hand over his face like a kid at a horror video. He hitched in a breath and said it quickly. "It's Drew, Drew Mathias, my roomie. He's dead."

Air exploded out of his lungs, then shuddered back in. He took another deep gulp of brandy and choked on it.

Roarke's eyes went flat. He pulled together a picture of Mathias: young, eager, red hair and freckles, an electronics expert with a specialty in autotronics. "Where, Carter? How did it happen?"

"I thought I should tell you right away." Now there were two high bruising red flags riding on Carter's pasty cheeks. "I came right up to tell you – and your wife. I thought since she's – she's the police, she could do something."

"You need a cop, Carter?" Eve took the snifter out of his unsteady hand. "Why do you need a cop?"

"I think – he must have – he killed himself, Lieutenant. He was hanging there, just hanging there from the ceiling light in the living room. And his face… Oh God. Oh Jesus."

Eve left Carter to bury his own face in his hands and turned to Roarke. "Who's got authority on site for something like this?"

"We've got standard security, most of it automated." Accepting, he inclined his head. "I'd say it's you, Lieutenant."

"Okay, see if you can put together a field kit for me. I need a recorder – audio and video – some Seal It, evidence bags, tweezers, a couple of small brushes."

She hissed out a breath as she dragged a hand through her hair. He wasn't going to have the equipment lying around that would pinpoint body temperature and time of death. There would be no scanner, no sweepers, none of the standard chemicals for forensics she carried habitually to crime scenes.

They'd have to wing it.

"There's a doctor, right? Call him. He'll have to stand in as the ME. I'll get dressed."

Most of the techs made use of the completed wings of the hotel for living quarters. Carter and Mathias had apparently hit it off well enough to share a spacious two-bedroom suite during their shift on the station. As they rode down to the tenth floor, Eve handed Roarke the palm recorder.

"You can run this, right?"

He lifted a brow. One of his companies had manufactured it. "I think I can manage."

"Fine." She offered a weak smile. "You're deputized. You hanging in, Carter?"

"Yeah." But he walked out of the elevator into the hallway on ten like a drunk trying to pass a competency test. He had to wipe his sweaty hand twice on his slacks to get a clear reading on the palm screen. When the door slid open, he stepped back. "I'd just as soon not go in again."

"Stay here," she told him. "I may need you."

She stepped inside. The lights were blinding bright, up to full power. Music blared out of the wall unit: hard, clashing rock with a screeching vocalist that reminded Eve of her friend Mavis. The floor was tiled in a Caribbean blue and offered the illusion of walking on water.

Along the north and south walls, banks of computers were set up. Workstations, she assumed, cluttered with all manner of electronic boards, microchips, and tools.

She saw clothes heaped on the sofa, VR goggles lying on the coffee table with three tubes of Asian beer – two of them flattened and already rolled for the recycler – and a bowl of spiced pretzels.

And she saw Drew Mathias's naked body swaying gently from a makeshift noose of sheets hitched to the glittering tier of a blue glass chandelier.

"Ah, hell." She sighed it out. "What is he, Roarke, twenty?"

"Not much more than." Roarke's mouth thinned as he studied Mathias's boyish face. It was purple now, the eyes bulging, the mouth frozen into a hideous, gaping grin. Some vicious whim of death had left him smiling.

"All right, let's do what we can. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, NYPSD, standing in until proper interspace authorities can be contacted and transported. Suspicious, unattended death. Mathias, Drew, Olympus Grand Hotel, Room ten thirty-six, August 1, 2058, one hundred hours."

"I want to take him down," Roarke said. It shouldn't have surprised him how quickly, how seamlessly she'd shifted from woman to cop.

"Not yet. It doesn't make any difference to him now, and I need the scene recorded before anything's moved." She turned in the doorway. "Did you touch anything, Carter?"

"No." He scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. "I opened the door, just like now, and walked in. I saw him right away. You… you see him right away. I guess I stood there a minute. Just stood there. I knew he was dead. I saw his face."

"Why don't you go through the other door into the bedroom." She gestured to the left. "You can lie down for a while. I'll need to talk to you."

"Okay."

"Don't call anyone," she ordered.

"No. No, I won't call anyone."

She turned away again, secured the door. Her gaze shifted to Roarke's, and their eyes held. She knew he was thinking, as she was, that there were some – like her – who had no escape from death.

"Let's get started," she told him.