Seduction In Death

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Roarke met them at the door. It only took one look at Eve's face to confirm his suspicion that she was running on fumes. At that moment, he'd have preferred closing the door in Peabody's and McNab's faces, scooping his wife up, and pouring her into bed.

Because she read something of his thoughts, Eve nudged everyone inside. "It was quicker to bring them here."

"We can catch a cab downtown," Peabody said, sacrificing the delights of lolling in one of the magnificent beds for a few hours.

"Don't be silly." Roarke skimmed a hand over Eve's hair, a subtle gesture of reassurance. "We've plenty of room. Whose fist did you run into, Ian?"

"Monroe's." He smirked and sent his sore lip throbbing. "We ran into each other's."

"It's nothing to brag about." Eve stripped off her jacket. "Crash here. The briefing's at oh six hundred anyway. Pick a couple of bedrooms on opposite sides of the house."

"Aw" was all Peabody said.

Laughing, Roarke patted her arm. "She doesn't mean it."

"Do, too," Eve replied. "Mavis and Trina?"

"In the pool, along with Leonardo, who arrived about two hours ago. I bowed out when they decided it was time for nude relay races."

"They're naked?" McNab perked right up. "Wet and naked? You know, a quick swim would be good. Just a passing thought," he murmured when Peabody curled her lip.

"Playtime's over. Bed." Eve pointed up the stairs. "We've got a major op tomorrow, and I want you both fresh. Where are the mermaids and friend bunking?"

"Oh, here and there," Roarke said easily. "Why don't you go up? I'll settle our company in."

"Good. I've got some things left to run before I turn in." She started up the stairs. "And I don't want to hear the patter of little feet sneaking around the corridors."

"She's so strict," Peabody said under her breath.

"Tired and cross is what she is. Now, why don't we take the elevator." Roarke gestured. "I think you'll like the accommodations I have in mind. Plenty of room for two."

Eve went to his office first, brought up a diagram of Greenpeace Park. After highlighting the picnic site, she let the computer select the most strategic locations for her men. She'd see if she agreed – after a few hours of sleep.

She listed the men she wanted for the operation, transmitted the order, and copied Whitney.

A shower, she decided when her vision blurred. Maybe a shower would wash some of the fog out of her brain so she could put another hour in.

She was staggering into the bedroom when her pocket-link beeped. "Dallas."

"Figured I'd tag you on the portable." Morris yawned hugely. "Our guest this evening departed this plane of existence at seven-forty. Previously, he had an unpleasant altercation with a blunt object. This altercation would have resulted in death within an hour, perhaps a tad less. The medical term would be having one's brains bashed in."

"Got it." Too tired to stand, she sat on the arm of the sofa in the sitting area. "I hate to be the one to break this to you, Morris, but I already got the data from a media source. You've got a gossip in your house."

"No! Why, I'm shocked and amazed. A city official leaking information to the media. What is the world coming to?"

"You're a fucking jolly soul."

"Love your work, love the world. I don't imagine your media contact had quite everything, as I've just gotten the tox results."

She shook her head clear as Roarke came into the room. "He was drugged?"

"Between the initial insults and the coup de grace, the doctor was given a stimulant."

"They tried to revive him?" Her thoughts jumbled, then cleared before Morris could answer. "No, that doesn't make sense. They wanted to keep him alive a little longer."

"Give the lady a stuffed panda. The substance used stimulates the heart, and it's quickly absorbed. If we'd gotten him in here twenty, thirty minutes later, we wouldn't have found a trace of it."

"They kept him alive so they could get him to a dumping site and kill him there. He'd have died anyway, right, from the initial beating?"

"Without immediate medical attention, yes. And even then his chances were minimal. He'd certainly have drowned without that final blow."

"So they wanted to give him that last shot. When he was unconscious, helpless. Stripped of his dignity."

"You've got yourself mighty nasty customers, Dallas. I'm sending the data to our mutual friend Renfrew. His robbery theory doesn't cut the mustard."

"Thanks. I appreciate you handling this yourself."

"Just part of our luxury package. Get some sleep, for sweet Christ's sake, Dallas. I've got customers in here who look perkier than you."

"Yeah, I'll do that." She broke transmission, then just sat, staring down at her 'link. She blinked back when Roarke released her weapon harness. "You put them in a room together, didn't you?"

"Haven't you more to worry about than the sexual activities of your subordinates?"

"My subordinates come dragging their asses into the briefing because they've spent what's left of the night playing hide the salami… What're you doing?"

"Taking off your boots. You're going to bed."

She stared down at the top of his head. Jesus, the man had the most incredible hair… All black and silky, she thought as her head started to loll. So you just wanted to bury your hands in it. Your face in it and…

She snapped back. "I'm going to grab a shower and get another hour in."

"No, Eve, you're not." Temper simmered in his voice as he tossed her boots aside with just enough force to have them bounce and skitter. "I'm not standing here watching while you make yourself sick. You go to bed on your own, or I knock you out and put you there."

She frowned at him. It wasn't often the rage showed, that hot and bubbling violence they both knew lived inside him. Seeing it leap, she knew she must look every bit as ragged as Morris indicated.

"I saw his face. I looked in his face." She spoke quietly. "I can't sleep, Roarke, because I'll see it." She pressed her fingers to her eyes, then rose. "I looked at him, and if I hadn't known what he was, I wouldn't have seen it."

She walked away, dragged open a window. Breathed. "He's young. His face is still a little soft around the edges. His hair's all red and curly like, I don't know, a pretty kid's doll or something. He'd killed tonight, taken a life – a life connected to him by blood – with deliberation and forethought and extreme violence. And he sat there talking to me. Teary. Remorseful. He played it perfectly, and I wouldn't have seen it. I wouldn't have seen what's in him."

He hated to hear the fatigue in her voice, and more the discouragement that ghosted through it. "Why should you?"

"Because I was watching for it, and it wasn't there." She whirled back. "He enjoyed it. I know that, in my gut, but I didn't see it on his face, didn't see it in his eyes. He was… entertained. I'd upped the stakes for him again. Same game, new level.

"I wanted to hurt him," she continued. "Personally. I wanted to ram my fist into his face until I erased it. Erased him."

"Instead you walked away." He crossed to her, certain she was unaware that her cheeks were wet. "Because you'll erase him by stopping him, by putting him in a cage for the rest of his life. Eve." He framed her face in his hands, brushed at the damp with his thumbs. "Darling Eve, you're exhausted, right down to the bone. If you don't rest, who'll stand for those women?"

She lifted her hands to his wrists. "The dream I had, the last one, with my father standing there bleeding from dozens of holes I'd put in him. He said I'd never be rid of him. He was right. You take one down and another one's right there. Right there waiting. I can't sleep, because I'll see them."

"Not tonight." He drew her in. "We won't let them come in tonight. If you won't sleep…" He brushed his lips over her temple. "… you'll rest."

He picked her up, carried her back to the sofa.

"What are we doing?"

"We'll watch a movie," he told her.

"A movie. Roarke – "

"It's something you don't do enough of." He laid her down, selected a film disc. "Go outside yourself and into make-believe. Dramas or comedies, joys and sorrows that pull you away from your own for a bit of time."

He came back, slid behind her, and tucked her head on his shoulder. "I've told you about this one, Magda Lane. It took me out of my own miseries once."

It felt so good to lie with him, to have his arm hooked cozily around her waist. The opening music swept into the room, color and costume swirled on-screen. "How many times have you seen this?" she asked him.

"Oh, dozens, I suppose. Shh. You'll miss the opening lines."

She watched, and when her lids drooped, she listened. Then she slept.

When she woke, it was quiet, and it was dark, and his arm was still around her. Fatigue wanted to drag her back under, but she willed it back and turned her wrist up to check the time.

Already after five,she thought. She'd had a solid three hours' sleep, and it would have to be enough. But when she started to move, Roarke's arm tightened.

"Take a few minutes more."

"Can't. It's going to take a half hour in the shower to beat my brain back into shape. I wonder if I can take a shower lying down."

"It's called a bath."

"Not the same."

"Why are you whispering?"

"I'm not whispering." She cleared her throat. And felt as if she'd swallowed splinters of glass. "Just a little hoarse."

"Lights on, ten percent." In the dim glow he nudged her onto her back. "Pale as a ghost, too," he said and laid a hand on her brow. Something like panic ran over his face. "I think you're running a fever."

"I am not." If he could feel panic at the thought of illness, she could feel fear. "I'm not sick. I don't get sick."

"You don't sleep more than a handful of hours in a week and live on coffee, you get sick. Damn it, Eve, you've sabotaged your immune system once too often."

"I have not." She started to sit up, then plopped back when the room spun. "I'm just getting my bearings."

"I ought to strap you in bed for the next month. You need a bloody keeper." He rolled off the sofa, strode to the house 'link.

"I don't know what you're so pissed off about." Her voice was perilously close to a whine, and appalled her. "I'm just a little muggy yet."

"You set a single toe off that sofa, and I'm hauling you to the doctor."

"You just try it, pal, and we'll see who needs medical attention." Since the threat came out in a wheeze, it wasn't particularly effective.

Roarke simply glared at her, and snapped into the 'link. "Summerset. Eve's ill. I need you up here."

"What? What are you doing?" She shoved herself up, nearly gained her feet before Roarke stalked back and held her down. "He's not touching me. He lays one hand on me and I'm beating you both bloody. Where's my weapon?"

"It's him or the health center."

She sucked in air. "You are not the boss here."

"Prove it," he challenged. "Take me down."

She pushed up, he shoved her back. She reared again, and this time pumped her fist into his belly.

"It's gratifying to see you have some strength left, even if that was a girl punch."

The insult nearly rendered her speechless. "The first chance, the very first chance I get, I'm tying your dick into a knot."

"Won't that be fun?" He looked over as Summerset came in. "She's running a fever."

"I am not. Don't you touch me. Don't lay a hand – " She cursed, struggled, when Roarke straddled her and pinned her arms,

"Such childishness." Summerset clucked his tongue, laid a hand on her brow. "Temperature's slightly elevated." He danced his long fingers under her jaw, along her throat. "Stick out your tongue."

"Eve." Roarke's single word was drenched in warning as she pressed her lips tightly together. She stuck out her tongue.

"Do you have any pain?" Summerset asked her.

"Yeah, in my ass. I call it Summerset."

"I see your droll wit hasn't suffered. Just a bit of a bug," he said to Roarke. "Due, I imagine, to exhaustion, stress, and juvenile eating habits. We can ward it off, and treat the symptoms. I'll go get what she needs. She'll do best with a day or two in bed."

"Get off me," she said in a low, clear voice when Summerset went out. "Right now."

"No." Her arms were trembling under his grip, and he didn't think it was all from temper. "Not until we've dealt with this. Are you cold?"

"No." She was freezing. And the pitiful struggle she'd put up had awakened aches everywhere.

"Then why are you shivering?" He bit off an oath, snagged a throw from the back of the couch and had it flung over her before she could push the order from brain to body to move.

"Damn it, Roarke, he's going to come back and poke at me, and try to make me drink one of his weird brews. I just need a hot shower. Let me up. Have a heart."

"I do, and it's yours." He lowered his brow to hers. "That's the problem."

"I'm feeling better. Really." It was a lie, poorly executed as her voice was beginning to tremble. "And when I close this case, I'll take a day off. I'll sleep for twenty hours. I'll eat vegetables."

He had to smile. "I love you, Eve."

"Then don't let him back in here." Her eyes wheeled as she heard the elevator doors open. "He's coming," she whispered. "In the name of everything holy, save me."

"She needs to sit up." Summerset set a tray on the table. On it was a glass of milky liquid, a trio of white tablets, and a pressure syringe.

Eve let herself go limp, and when Roarke eased back, she sprang. It was a sweaty battle, but a short one. Without batting a lash, Summerset stepped over, pinched her nose closed, dropped the tablets in her mouth, and chased them down her throat with the liquid.

He smiled at Roarke while she sputtered. "I recall having to do that to you a time or two."

"That's where I learned it."

"Get her shirt off. The vitamin booster will work fastest this way."

To save time, and his own skin, Roarke simply ripped off her sleeve. "How's that?"

"Good enough."

She'd gone past anger into weeping, humiliating herself. Everything hurt – head, body, pride. When the syringe pressed against her arm, she barely felt it.

"Shh, baby. Shh." Shaken, Roarke stroked her hair and rocked her. "It's all over now. Don't cry."

"Go away," she said even as she clung to him. "Just go away."

"Leave me alone with her." Summerset touched Roarke's shoulder, felt a pang when he saw the naked emotion on his face. "Give us a few minutes."

"All right." Roarke held her tight another minute. "I'll be in the gym."

When he set her aside, she curled into a ball. Summerset sat beside her, saying nothing until she'd sniffled herself into silence.

"What he feels for you overwhelms him," Summerset began. "There was never anyone else. The women who came and went before you were diversions, temporary interests. He might care, because despite everything that was done to him, he's a man with a large capacity for caring. And still, there was no one before you. Don't you see how he worries?"

She uncurled herself, rubbed her hands over her wet face as if she could rub away the embarrassment of the tears. "He shouldn't worry."

"He does and he will. You need rest, Lieutenant, and a few days without work and worry. And so does he. So very much does he. He won't take his without you."

"I can't. Not now."

"Won't."

She closed her eyes. "Go up to my office, look at the faces of the dead pinned to my board. Then tell me to step away."

"He wouldn't, would he? But to do what you need to do, you require your strength, energies, and wit." He leaned over, picked up the glass. "Finish it."

She frowned at the glass. She hated to admit whatever he'd given her was already working. So she wouldn't. "It's probably poison."

"Poison," he said, amused. "Why didn't I think of that? Perhaps next time."

"Har-har." She took the glass, downed the remaining contents. "There must be a way to make this taste less like sewage."

"Certainly." He set the glass back on the tray, then got to his feet. "But I'm entitled to my small pleasures. I might suggest you try some moderate exercise now."

She didn't have time, but she took it anyway and went down to the gym. He wasn't using the machines, he rarely did, but was steadily, sweatily, working his way through bench presses. He had the screen on, with the audio set to spew out the various stock reports.

She found she didn't understand the words any more than she did the symbols.

She went to him, knelt by his head. "I'm sorry."

He continued to lift, set, lower. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah. Roarke, I'm sorry. I was an idiot. Don't be mad at me. I don't think I could handle it right now."

"I'm not mad at you." He lifted the bar into the safety, then slid out from under. "The situation occasionally rips my throat out."

"I can't do anything else. I can't be anything else."

He reached down for his towel, rubbed it over his face. "I wouldn't want you to do or be anything else. It's beyond my capabilities not to react as I do when you run yourself into the ground."

"You usually drag me back out before the ground closes over my head."

He looked at her face. Still so pale, he thought. Nearly transparent. "Doesn't seem I was quite quick enough this time."

"Let's go to Mexico."

"Excuse me?"

"The house in Mexico." She figured if she could surprise him, she was still in reasonable shape. "It's been a while. Why don't we take a long weekend once this is over?"

Considering her, he drew the towel between his hands, then hooked it behind her head to bring her closer. "Who's dragging who back out now?"

"Let's drag each other. Give me time to close this down, and you do whatever it is you do to clear a few days. Then we'll run away. We'll lie on the beach, we'll get drunk and have monkey sex. We'll watch film discs until our eyes fall out."

"Go back to the monkey sex."

She laid her hands on his cheeks. "I've got to get ready for the briefing. We've got a deal, right?"

"Yes." He pressed his lips to her forehead, relieved to find it cool again. "We definitely have a deal."

She got up, but when she reached the door, turned back to look at him. He still sat on the bench, lean and sweaty in a black muscle shirt. He'd tied his hair back and had yet to bother with shoes.

And he watched her through eyes so brilliantly blue, it seemed she could dive through them, and into him.

"There was never anybody before you," she said. "I just wanted to say that. And when I did what I do, and it opened a crack in me like it did last night, there was nobody there to hold on to me. I didn't want anyone to hold on to me. Until you. And I got through and I got by, and it was okay. But I think, maybe, if I'd just kept getting through and getting by, I'd have come to a point where I couldn't do it anymore. And if I couldn't do it anymore, it'd be the end of me, Roarke."

She took a steadying breath. "So when you hold on to me, you're helping me stand up, one more time. And the dead, you're standing for them, too. I just wanted to say that."

She went out quickly, and left him staring after her.

When she strode into her office at six minutes after six, she was heavy-eyed, pale, but clear-headed. She found McNab and Peabody had already raided the AutoChef. And Feeney, just arrived, was helping himself to the spread set out across her desk.

"What the hell do you think this is, the Breakfast Barn?"

"Gotta have fuel." Feeney munched into a strip of bacon. "Mother Mary, it's pig meat. Know how long it's been since I had a slice of real pig?"

She nipped it out of his fingers, ate it herself. "Then get a damn plate. You can eat while I bring you up to speed. Peabody, it appears there's no cup of coffee in my hand. I can only assume I've somehow stepped into an alternate universe."

Peabody swallowed a heaping forkful of ham and eggs. "Maybe in this one I'm the lieutenant, and you're…" She hopped up, propelled by Eve's frightening look. "Let me get you a cup of coffee, Lieutenant. Sir."

"You do that. The rest of the team are due here by oh eight hundred. I've already got the diagram of the target area on-screen, with computer-generated selections for personnel placement. We'll consider those and adjust if warranted. Feeney, I'd suggest you take McNab into the surveillance vehicle."

"I'd prefer a spot in the park, sir, and a chance to be in on the takedown."

Eve angled her head at McNab and copped another slice of bacon from the plate Feeney had just fixed. "You should have thought of that before you picked a fight and got your pretty face all banged up. Which will only draw attention to you in a place where children play and birds sing merrily in the trees."

"Gotcha there," Feeney said to McNab. "You're with me."

"You'll want another e-man as point," Eve continued. "You know your men better than I do, so I leave it to you."

"Good, because I've already picked him. Roarke," he said, and wagged a finger at the doorway as the man in question strode in.

"Good morning." He was still in black, and though the shirt and trousers were elegant, he managed to look every bit as lean and dangerous as he had in the muscle shirt. "Sorry. Am I late?"

"You think you're sneaky, don't you?"

He snatched the bacon Eve had snatched out of her hand. "Not at all, Lieutenant. I know I am. Which is why I'm very suited for this op."

"You want in, it's up to him." She jerked a thumb at Feeney. "But remember, this is my op."

He bit into the bacon, handed it back to her. "How could I forget?"

By eight-thirty, the full team was briefed. She began assigning roles and positions.

"Hey, hey." Detective Baxter waved a hand. "How come I have to be a sidewalk sleeper?"

"Because you make such a good one," Eve told him. "And you look so sexy with a beggar's license around your neck."

"Trueheart ought to be the sleeper," Baxter insisted. "He's the rookie."

"I don't mind, Lieutenant."

Eve glanced at Trueheart. "You're too young, too wholesome. Baxter's got some miles on him. Peabody, you and Roarke will do the couple's stroll through this area." Eve used her laser pointer to highlight the diagram on-screen. Trueheart, you're park maintenance staff, and you'll cover this sector."

"I've got the best gig," Peabody told McNab.

"Nobody approaches the suspect," Eve continued. "That time of the afternoon, spring day, the park's going to have a lot of traffic. People taking their lunch in the open air, kids running around. The park's open daily to botany clubs, bird-watching clubs, school field trips. The area the suspect selected is fairly secluded, but there will be civilians. Weapons are not to be drawn without extreme need. I don't want to see little Johnny stunned off the swing set because somebody got jumpy."

She sat on the edge of her desk. "You'll also be on the lookout for the second suspect. We have no way of knowing if they work in tandem during their setup stage. If you spot him, if you think you've spotted him, you relay that data to Feeney. You do not, repeat, do not, move on him. If he shows, he's to be kept under surveillance."

She scanned the room. "To lock this cage tight, I have to wait for this asshole to spike the drink and offer it to me. When that occurs, we take him – possibly both of them – quick, quiet, clean. Questions?"