Seduction In Death

CHAPTER EIGHT

It took him nearly an hour to stop shaking. An hour, two whiskeys, and the calmer Lucias added to the second drink.

"It shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have been possible."

"Pull yourself together, Kevin." Lucias took out a cigarette he'd laced with just a whiff of Zoner. He lighted it, crossed his ankles. "And think. How did it happen?"

"They managed to dig under to the account name. The shielded account name."

Irritably, Lucias pulled in smoke. "You told me that would take them weeks."

"I underestimated them, obviously." Annoyance shimmered over nerves. "It can't be traced back to us in any case. But even having the account name, how could they trace me to that location, and so quickly? The police don't have the facilities, the manpower, the equipment to surveil every cyber-club in the city, and every unit in them. Then there are the matters of the privacy blocks, the standard one and the ones I implemented."

Lucias drew in smoke, then expelled it in a lazy stream. "What are the odds they just got lucky?"

"Nil," Kevin said between his teeth. "They used both superior equipment and a superior tech." He shook his head. "Why in God's name would anybody with those skills settle for a cop's salary? In the private sector, he or she could name any price."

"It takes all kinds, doesn't it? Well, this is exciting."

"Exciting? I might have been caught. Arrested. Charged with murder."

The Zoner, as always, was doing the job. "But you weren't." Willing to placate, Lucias leaned over, patted Kevin's knee. "However smart and skilled they are, we're more so. You'd anticipated this sort of possibility, and prepared for it. You infected an entire club. Very sweet. You'll be headlined in the media again." He sighed. "More points for you."

"They'll have me on security cam." Kevin inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly. In many ways, Lucias was his drug of choice, and his approval smoothed over the worst of the nerves. "I might not have altered my look if I hadn't been using a club so close by."

"Fate." Lucias began to laugh, and drew an answering grin from his friend. "It's really just fate, isn't it? And all on our side. Really, Kev, it just gets better and better. You'll take care of the account? Generate another?"

"Yes. Yes, that's no problem." Kevin shrugged that off. There was nothing he couldn't do with electronics. "They've made a great many details public, Lucias. The chat rooms, the setup. We may want to stop for a time."

"Just when it's getting interesting? I don't think so. The higher the risk, the greater the thrill. Now, at least, we know we've pitted ourselves against an adversary or adversaries that are worthy of our efforts. It adds such a flavor. Savory."

"I could keep the account open," Kevin mused. "Send out some decoys."

"Ah!" Lucias slapped a hand on the arm of his chair. "Now you're in the game. Just think of it. Think of when you have your rendezvous tomorrow night. Why, you and the lovely lady can discuss this recent horror over drinks. She shivers, delicately, over the fate of her doomed sisters. Never knowing she's fated to join them. God, it's delicious."

"Yes." The whiskey and the drug cruised inside him, turned the air he breathed into soft liquid. "It does add to the thrill."

"One thing for certain, we're not bored."

Amused now, Kevin reached over to take a hit from the laced cigarette. "And unlikely to be for some time. I know just what I'll wear tomorrow. Just how I'll look. She's so sexy. Moniqua. Even her name reeks of sex." He hesitated, hating to disappoint. "I don't know if I can go through to the end of it, Lucias. I don't know if I can kill her."

"You can. You will. One doesn't drop back a level of achievement." He smiled when he spoke. "Think of it, Kevin. You'll know, the whole time you're touching her naked body, while you bury yourself in her, that you'll be the last one to do so. That your dick pumping inside her is the last thing she'll ever know."

Kevin went hard thinking of it. "I suppose there's something to be said for the fact she'll die happy."

Lucias's laughter bounced cold around the room.

Since she was always trying to lose weight, Peabody got off the subway six blocks down from the stop nearest Eve's home. She was feeling pretty peppy about meeting at the home office site again, where the AutoChef was a treasure trove of wonders.

Another reason, she admitted, for the hike. Sort of penance before the sin. It was a solution that appealed to her Free-Ager's sensibilities. Of course in the tenants of Free-Agism there was no sin and penance, but imbalance and balance.

But that was really just semantics.

She'd grown up in a big, unwieldy family who'd believed in self-expression, had a reverence for the earth and the arts and a responsibility to be true to oneself.

She had known, it seemed she'd almost always known, that to be true to herself she needed to be an urban cop who tried to maintain… well, balance, she supposed.

She was sort of missing her family right now though. The bursts of love and surprise. And hell, the simplicity of it all. Maybe she needed to take a few days and go sit in her mother's kitchen, eat sugar cookies, and soak up some uncomplicated affection.

Because she didn't know what in God's name waswrong with her. Why she felt so sad and unsettled and dissatisfied. She had the one thing she'd wanted most in life. She was a cop, a damn good cop, under the direct command of a woman she considered the ultimate in examples.

She'd learned so much in the past year. Not just about technique, not just about procedure, but about what made the difference between that good cop and a brilliant one.

About what separated the ones who wanted to close a case from the ones who took it a level deeper, and cared about the victim. Who remembered them.

She knew she was getting better at the job every day, and she could take pride in that. She loved living in New York, seeing its face change and shift as you moved from block to block.

The city wasso full, she thought. Of people, of energy, of action. While she could go back and sit in that homey kitchen, she'd never be content living there again. She needed New York.

She was happy in her little apartment, where the space was all her own. She had steady comrades, good friends, a worthy and satisfying career.

She was dating, well, sort of dating, one of the most incredibly handsome, considerate, sophisticated men she'd ever known. He took her to galleries, to the opera, to amazing restaurants. Through Charles, she'd been exposed to not just another side of the city, but of life.

And she lay in bed at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering why she felt so lonely.

She needed to pull out of it. Depression didnot run in her family, and she wasn't going to be the first to spiral down into it.

Maybe she needed a hobby. Like glass painting or container gardening. Holographic photography. Macrame.

Fuck it.

It was just that thought in her head when McNab popped out of the subway glide and all but collided with her.

"Hey." He took a jerky step back even as she did. Stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Hey." Could her timing have been worse? she wondered. She couldn't have walked a little faster, a little slower? Left home five minutes earlier, two minutes later?

They frowned at each other for a moment, then had to move or be mowed down by the commuters flooding off the glide and onto the sidewalk.

"So." He pulled his hands out of his pockets to adjust the fit of the tiny, round sunshades with aqua blue lenses. "Dallas called for the home office deal."

"I got the update."

"Sounds like she got some action last night," he continued, struggling to keep it all mild and easy. "Too bad that creep didn't drop into Cyber Perk the other night when we were there. We might've made him."

"Unlikely."

"Try a little optimism, She-Body."

"Try a little reality, jerk-face."

"Wake up on the wrong side of slick-boy's bed?"

She heard her own teeth grind. "There is no wrong side of Charles's bed," she said sweetly. "It's a big, soft, round playpen."

"Oh yeah?" Half the circuits in his brains fried at the image of Peabody romping naked in some plush, sexy bed. With someone else.

"That's just the sort of quick repartee I've come to expect from you. You must be sharpening your wits on all those bimbos you're bouncing on these days."

"The last bimbo had a doctorate from MIT, the body of a goddess, and the face of an angel. We didn't spend much time on wit-sharpening."

"Pig."

"Bitch." He grabbed her arm as she swung toward Roarke's gate. "I'm getting fed up with the way you slap at me every time I get within striking distance, Peabody. You're the one who put the brakes on."

"Not soon enough." She tugged, but his grip stayed firm. She always underestimated those skinny arms of his. It was mortifying to realize the strength in them had her stomach doing cartwheels. "And as usual you're wrong and you're stupid. You're the one who ended things because you couldn't have everything your way."

"Right. Excuse me for objecting to the fact you'd roll out of my bed and roll into the whore's."

She rammed a fist into his chest. "Don't call him that. You don't know anything about it, and if you had one tenth of Charles's class, his charm, his consideration, you'd crawl up to subhuman. But since you don't I should thank you for putting the skids on what was a ridiculous, embarrassing, and revolting mistake on my part by ever letting you lay a hand on me. So thanks!"

"You're welcome."

They were panting, wild-eyed and nose to nose. Then they were moaning and mouth to mouth. They jerked apart, still wild-eyed.

"That didn't mean anything," she managed between gasps.

"Right. It didn't mean anything. So let's do it again."

He yanked her back, sank his teeth greedily into her bottom lip. It was, she thought, dizzying, like being shot out of a cannon. Her ears were ringing, her breath and balance gone. And all she wanted was to run her hands all over his long, bony body.

She settled for his butt, digging her fingers in as if she could twist off a nice little chunk to keep in her pocket.

He spun her around, struggling to get his hands under the stiff, starched jacket of her uniform. Under it, he knew her body was a wonder of curves and soft, yielding flesh. Desperate for it, he shoved her back, through the gate sensors and rapped her smartly against the iron bars.

"Ow."

"Sorry. Let me – God." He buried his mouth against her neck and wondered if he could just slurp her up like ice cream.

"I beg your pardon." The voice came from nowhere, from everywhere, and had them both goggling at each other.

"Did you say something?" she asked.

"No? Did you?"

"Officer. Detective."

Still in mid-grope, they both slid their eyes to the right and stared at the security panel on the stone pillar. Summerset, his face expressionless, stared back out from the view screen.

"I believe the lieutenant is expecting you," he said, coolly polite. "If you take a step back from the gate, you're less likely to fall through them when they're opened."

Peabody felt her own face flame like a scorched tomato. "Oh man. Oh shit." She shoved McNab, stepped clear, then began to tug her uniform back into place. "That was just stupid."

"Felt good though." Somehow his kneecaps had become detached so that the first steps he took through the open gate were wobbly and disjointed. "What the hell, Peabody."

"Just because we've got this… chemical reaction, doesn't mean we have to act on it. It just screws things up."

He danced in front of her, walking backward. His long, sleek ponytail bobbed from side to side. His thin jacket billowed to his knees and was the color of field poppies. Despite all her good intentions, her lips twitched into a smile.

"You're so damn goofy."

"Why don't we get a pizza tonight? See where it goes."

"We know where it went," she reminded him. "We don't have time to do this now, McNab. We don't have time to think about it."

"I think about you all the time."

That stopped her, dead in her tracks. It was tough to walk when your heart had bounced to your shoes. "You're messing me up."

"That's the plan. Apizza, She-Body? I know how you are for pizza."

"I'm on a diet."

"What for?"

The fact that he could ask, sincerely, had always charmed and baffled her. "Because my ass is approaching the same mass as Pluto."

He circled around her as they hiked up the long curve of the drive. "Come on. You've got a great ass. It'sthere. A guy doesn't have to spend half his time looking for it."

He gave it an affectionate squeeze, earned a narrowed, warning look, and grinned. He knew when he was making headway. "We'll just eat and talk. No sex."

"Maybe. I'll think about it."

He remembered what Roarke had advised him about romance. In a quick dash, he loped around the lawn, snapped a blossom from an ornamental pear. He caught up with Peabody at the steps, and slid the flower through the top buttonhole of her jacket.

"Jeez," she muttered, but she strode into the house without taking the flower out.

She was very careful to avoid direct eye contact with Summerset. And very aware of the heat creeping up her neck as he invited them to go straight up to Eve's office.

Eve stood in the center of the room, rocking lightly on her heels as she watched the security tape again. The man was smug, she thought. And aloof. He enjoyed casting that amused glance over the crowd in the cyber-cafe, thinking everyone in there was less than he. Knowing he had a secret.

But he also dressed to draw attention. Admiration and envy. So those who saw him understood he was more.

He thought ahead. Was so cocksure nothing and no one could touch him. But when things had gone wrong, there was fear and panic.

She watched the sweat dew on his face as he stared at the monitor in his cube. And she could see him, easily see him, heaving the lifeless body of Bryna Bankhead off the balcony.Get rid of the problem, she mused.The inconvenience, the threat. Then run away.

She couldn't see him following through the very next night with another woman. With deliberate intent and cold blood.

She turned as Peabody and McNab came in. "Run this guy's image front, back, and sideways," she ordered. "Concentrate on the facial structure, the eyes – shape, not color – and body type. Forget the hair, odds are it's not his."

"You have a bruise on your jaw, sir."

"Yeah, and you have a flower in your buttonhole. So we both look stupid. Dickhead came through on the wigs and enhancements. I've got the brand names. You chase down outlets on them, Peabody, get me a consumer list. Cross-reference it with the one I've got on the wine. Roarke's getting me a list of the top shops for men in the city."

"Roarke has got it for you." He stepped into the office, held out a disc. "Good morning, class."

"Thanks." She passed it off to Peabody. "Our guy likes the good stuff. Designer shoes, tailored wardrobe. What do you call it?"

"Bespoke," Roarke supplied. "While he may purchase directly from London or Milan, the first suit was definitely British cut," he added. "The second certainly Italian, he'd be likely to patronize some of the high-end shops here in New York."

"Taking our fashion advisor at his word," Eve said dryly, "we run it through, see if anything pops. Unless he's got his own greenhouse, he's buying those pink roses from somewhere. Probability's high it's in his own neighborhood, and I'm betting that neighborhood is either Upper West Side or Upper East Side, so we look there first."

She glanced over, momentarily surprised when Roarke gave her a mug of fresh, hot coffee. "I've got a consult with Mira here in an hour. Feeney's at Central, directing the exam of the unit we impounded from Cyber Perks. I want answers, I want a trail, and I want it today. Because he's going to move again tonight. He has to."

She turned back to the screen where the killer's face sneered out at the crowd. "He's already got his next target."

She walked over to a board where she'd pinned photographs of both victims, the computer images of the killer as he'd looked before and after each murder.

"She'll be young," Eve said. "Early- to mid-twenties. She'll live alone. She'll be attractive and intelligent with an affection for poetry. She'll be romantic, and not currently in any serious relationship. She lives in the city. Works in the city. He's already seen her, studied her on the street or at her job. She may have spoken to him and not known he was the man who's been seducing her. She's probably thinking about tonight, about this date she has with a man who's exactly what she's waited for. In a few hours, she thinks, I'll meet him. And maybe, just maybe…"

She turned away from the board. "Let's keep her alive. I don't want to see another face on this board."

"A moment of your time, Lieutenant?" Roarke gestured to his office, stepped out himself before she could put him off.

"Look, I'm on the clock here."

"Then why waste time." He shut the door behind her. "I can get you those consumer lists, have them cross-referenced and complete in a fraction of the time it would take Peabody."

"Haven't you got work?"

"Considerable, yes. It would still take me less time." He skimmed a fingertip over the bruise on her jaw, then lightly along the shallow dent in her chin. "I find I prefer having my mind fully occupied just now. And," he added. "I'd rather not see another face on your murder board either. I intend to do it anyway, but I thought you might feel less annoyed if I made the pretense of asking."

She scowled at him, folded her arms. "Pretense?"

"Yes, darling." He kissed the bruise. "And this way, as you know what I'm up to, it frees you to have Peabody along with you in the field, wherever that might be." His in-house communication panel beeped. "Yes?"

"A Dr. Dimatto is here to see Lieutenant Dallas."

"Send her up," Eve ordered. "Do what you're going to do," she told Roarke. "But for right now I'm going with the pretense that I don't know about it."

"Whatever works for you. I'm just going to take a minute to set some things up. Then I'd like to say hello to Louise."

"Suit yourself." She opened the door, glanced back. "You generally do."

"That's what makes me such a contented man."

She gave a rude snort and crossed into her office to greet Louise.

She came in fast, but Eve had rarely seen her move another way. She took one look at the coffee in Eve's hand and smiled. "Yes, I'd love some, thanks."

"Peabody, coffee for Dr. Dimatto. Anything else we can get you?"

Louise stared at the danish McNab was currently trying to swallow whole. "Is that an apple danish?"

With his mouth stuffed, he made some sound, a mixture of affirmation, pleasure, and guilt.

"Love one, too, thanks again."

Eve swept a glance over Louise's snappy red suit. "You don't look dressed for seeing patients, Doc."

"I have a meeting. Fundraiser." Diamonds twinkled at her ears when she tilted her head. "You tend to squeeze out more money when you look like you don't need it. Go figure. In any case… thank you, Peabody. Mind if I sit?" She did, crossing her legs, balancing the plate with the danish expertly on her knee as she took her first sip of coffee.

She heaved a long sigh before she sipped again. "Where do you get this stuff? It has to be illegal."

"Roarke."

"Naturally." She broke off a tidy corner of the danish.

"Have you got a reason for dropping by, Louise, other than a little coffee break? We're a little busy here."

"I'm sure you are." She nodded toward the board. "I asked about Bryna Bankhead in my building. She knew everyone on her floor, and several others. She was very well liked. She'd lived there three years. She dated fairly regularly, but no one serious."

"I know all that. Thinking of giving up medicine for police work?"

"She lived there for three years," Louise repeated, and the humor had died from her voice. "I've lived there for two. She fell on the sidewalk at my feet. I'd never had a conversation with her."

"Feeling guilty over that won't change what happened to her."

"No." Louise broke off another bite. "But it made me think. And it made me more inclined to work harder to get any information for you that might help your investigation. There was a research project at J. Forrester. That's a private, fairly exclusive clinic that specializes in sexual dysfunctions, relations, fertility issues. Nearly twenty-five years ago, J. Forrester formed a partnership with Allegany Pharmaceuticals to research, study, and develop various chemical products that could alleviate dysfunction and enhance performance, sexually speaking. Many top chemists and R and D people were involved or associated with the project."

"Testing with elements found in the controlled substances known as Whore and Wild Rabbit."

"Those, others, combinations. They did, in fact, develop the drug trademarked as Matigol, which has helped extend sexual performance ability in men well past the century mark, and the fertility drug Compax, which allows women to safely conceive and give birth into their fifties should they desire it."

She nibbled on the danish. "Both these drugs have a very high success rate, but are extremely expensive and therefore largely inaccessible to your average consumer. But for those who can afford it, they're a miracle."

"Do you have the names of the players?"

"I'm not finished." She turned her head, shot out a sunny smile as Roarke walked in. "Good morning."

"Louise." He went to her, lifted her hand to his lips. "You look lovely, as always."

"Yeah, yeah, blah blah. What?" Eve demanded. "What else?"

"Your wife is rude and impatient."

"That's why I love her. By the way, Lieutenant, Charles Monroe is on his way upstairs."

"What is this? A convention?" But as she spoke she aimed one hard, warning look at McNab. His eyes glittered back at her, and he managed to hold the look for a good five seconds before he dropped his gaze, sulkily. "You, get me some data on J. Forrester and Allegany Pharmaceuticals."

She clenched her jaw, which sent it throbbing as she caught the interest flicker over Roarke's face. "Damn it."

"I bought out Allegany, eight, no, I believe it was ten months ago. What's the connection?"

"I don't know precisely, because the doc here's being coy."

"I'm never coy," Louise corrected, then her eyes blurred almost as they had when she'd taken her first sip of coffee. "Oh, well," she said as Charles walked in. "My, my."

"I guess you want coffee, too," Eve said.

He nodded. "I wouldn't say no."

"I'll get it." Flustered, flushing, floundering, Peabody escaped into the kitchen.

"Roarke. McNab." With the second greeting, Charles's practiced smile dimmed slightly. Then it polished right up again when he aimed it at Louise. "I don't believe we've met."

"Louise. Louise Dimatto." She offered a hand.

"Don't tell me you're a cop."

"Doctor. You?"

If he heard McNab's muttered opinion, Charles ignored it. "Professional companion."

"How interesting."

"Can we save the social hour for later? We'll have a damn party. Everybody's invited," Eve snapped. "I'll get to you," she said to Charles. "Finish it out, Louise."

"Where was I? Oh yes. Despite the success in development, the project and the partnership were dissolved some twenty years ago. Lack of funds, lack of interest, and a number of unfortunate side effects from other experimental drugs during that period. It was decided that further research using forms of those particular chemicals was both cost-prohibitive and potentially financially risky due to threats of legal action. The decision was largely influenced by Dr. Theodore McNamara, who, in essence, headed the project and is credited for the discovery of both Compax and Matigol. There were unsubstantiated rumors of abuse and pilfering during the project. Talk of experimentation not only in the lab, but out of it. Gossip is that some of the suits filed were internal, female staff who claimed to have been given drugs without their knowledge or consent and were sexually molested, perhaps impregnated, while under the influence. If it's true," Louise concluded, "nobody in the know is naming names."

"Good work. I'll follow it up. If you've got a meeting – "

"I've got a little time. I'll just finish my coffee, if it's all the same to you. In fact, I'll just help myself to another half cup."

She breezed into the kitchen.

"Okay, Charles. You're up."

He nodded at Eve, grinned intimately at Peabody when she brought him his coffee. "My client believes I wanted this information for another client. I'd like to keep it that way."

"I protect my sources, Charles."

"And I believe in protecting my clients," he returned. "I need your word that no action will be taken against her if what I tell you ends up exposing her."

"She doesn't interest me. And if all she's doing is making herself horny, I'll make sure she doesn't interest Illegals. Fair enough?"

"Sex isn't easy for everyone, Dallas."

"If people didn't want to get off," McNab shot out, "you'd be out of work."

Charles smirked at McNab. "True enough. If people didn't want to steal, cheat, maim, and kill, so would you be, Detective. Aren't we all lucky human nature keeps us in business?"

Eve stepped between the chair where Charles sat and the desk where McNab worked, effectively blocking their view of each other. "Give me the dealer, Charles. Nobody wants to bust your client."

"Carlo. They don't use last names. She met him in a chat room, one on sexual experimentation."

Eve eased onto the corner of the desk. "Is that so?"

"About a year ago. She said he's changed her life."

"How do the buys work?"

"Initially, she'd e-mail him, place an order. She'd pay with an electronic transfer of funds into his account, then pick up the delivery at a mail drop at Grand Central."

"No personal contact?"

"None. Now she's on what she calls a subscription service and receives a regular monthly supply. The payment, with the subscription discount, is automatically transferred from her account to his. Five thousand a month for a quarter ounce."

"I need to talk to her."

"Dallas – "

"And here's why. I need his account data, and anything else she can tell me. She does regular business with him, so she'd have a feel. More than that, she needs to be put on guard. She could be a target."

"She's not." He rose as Eve came off the desk. "Those are your victims?" He gestured to the board. "What are they, twenty, twenty-five? This woman is over fifty. She's attractive, she takes care of herself, but she doesn't have that bloom. Media reports said they were single, lived alone. She's married. Her association with me is a perk. Like a day at the salon. She lives with her husband and her teenage son. And being questioned by you on this will embarrass and humiliate her, and her family."

"It may also damage her sexual ego," Louise put in. She stood across the room, sipping her second cup of coffee. "The use of the drug and a professional companion have most likely shown some dysfunction in this area. Exposing her need for them to an authority who could deny and punish her for the first, and smirk at her for the second, isn't advisable from a medical or psychological standpoint."

"Protecting her from that exposure runs the risk of slapping another dead woman on that board."

"Let me talk to her again," Charles asked. "I'll get the information you need. Better, I'll open an account with him, at my own expense. He's only got to do a standard background to verify my license. An LC's a reasonable client for sexual illegals."

"Get me the data by three o'clock," Eve decided. "Don't do anything else. I don't want him to have your name."

"You don't have to worry about me, Lieutenant Sugar."

"Just the data, Charles. Now go away."

"I need to get along myself. Thanks for the coffee." Louise set the cup down, glanced at Charles. "Want to share a cab?"

"Perfect." He trailed a fingertip over the flower in Peabody's buttonhole as he turned for the door. "I'll see you later, Delia."

"Keep it zipped, McNab," Eve warned. "Peabody, Roarke is generating some data. You'll assist in his office." Which should, she hoped, keep the peace for a while. She glanced at her wrist unit, thought of Mira. "I've got a meeting."