Naked in Death (In Death, #1)(51)

She finger combed her hair. "Why did you tell me?"

"Apparently, I've decided you're a key." As disconcerted by that as she, Roarke led the way to the door. "If you need to contact me, tell Summerset. He'll put you through."

"The butler?"

Roarke smiled as they descended the stairs. "He'll see to it," was all he said. "I should be gone about five days, a week at the most. I want to see you again." He stopped, took her face in his hands. "I need to see you again."

Her pulse jumped, as if it had nothing to do with the rest of her. "Roarke, what's going on here?"

"Lieutenant." He leaned forward, touched his lips to hers. "Indications are we're having a romance." Then he laughed, kissed her again, hard and quick. "I believe I could have held a gun to your head and you wouldn't have looked as terrified. Well, you'll have several days to think it through, won't you?"

She had a feeling several years wouldn't be enough.

There, at the base of the stairs, was Summerset, stone-faced, stiff-necked, holding her jacket. She took it and glanced back at Roarke as she shrugged it on.

"Have a good trip."

"Thanks." Roarke laid a hand on her shoulder before she could walk out the door. "Eve, be careful." Annoyed with himself, he dropped his hands. "I'll be in touch."

"Sure." She hurried out, and when she glanced back, the door was closed. When she opened her car door, she noticed the electronic memo on the driver's seat. Scooping it up, she got behind the wheel. As she headed toward the gate, she flicked on the memo. Roarke's voice drawled out.

"I don't like the idea of you shivering unless I cause it. Stay warm."

Frowning, she tucked the memo in her pocket before experimentally touching the temperature gauge. The blast of heat had her yelping in shock.

She grinned all the way to Cop Central.

Eve closed herself in her office. She had two hours before her official shift began, and she wanted to use every minute of it on the DeBlass-Starr homicides. When her shift kicked in, her duties would spread to a number of cases in varying degrees of progress. This time was her own.

As a matter of routine, she cued IRCCA to transmit any and all current data and ordered it in hard copy to review later. The transmission was depressingly brief and added nothing solid.

Back, she thought, to deductive games. On her desk she'd spread out photos of both victims. She knew them intimately now, these women. Perhaps now, after the night she'd spent with Roarke, she understood something of what had driven them.

Sex was a powerful tool to use or have used against you. Both of these women had wanted to wield it, to control it. In the end, it had killed them.

A bullet in the brain had been the official cause of death, but Eve saw sex as the trigger.

It was the only connection between them, and the only link to their murderer.

Thoughtfully, she picked up the.38. It was familiar in her hand now. She knew exactly how it felt when it fired, the way the punch of it sung up the arm. The sound it made when the mechanism and basic physics sent the bullet flying.

Still holding the gun, she cued up the disc she'd requisitioned and watched Sharon DeBlass's murder again.

What did you feel, you bastard? she wondered. What did you feel when you squeezed the trigger and sent that slug of lead into her, when the blood spewed out, when her eyes rolled up dead?

What did you feel?

Eyes narrowed, she reran the disc. She was almost immune to the nastiness of it now. There was, she noted, the slightest waver in the video, as if he'd jostled the camera.

Did your arm jerk? she wondered. Did it shock you, the way her body flew back, how far the blood splattered?

Is that why she could hear the soft sob of breath, the slow exhale before the image changed?

What did you feel? she asked again. Revulsion, pleasure, or just cold satisfaction?

She leaned closer to the monitor. Sharon was carefully arranged now, the scene set as the camera panned her objectively and, yes, Eve thought, coldly.

Then why the jostle? Why the sob?

And the note. She picked up the sealed envelope and read it again. How did you know you'd be satisfied to stop at six? Have you already picked them out? Selected them?

Dissatisfied, she ejected the disc, replaced it and the.38. Loading the Starr disc, taking the second weapon, Eve ran through the process again.

No jostle this time, she noted. No quick, indrawn breath. Everything's smooth, precise, exact. You knew this time, she thought, how it would feel, how she'd look, how the blood would smell.

But you didn't know her. Or she didn't know you. You were just John Smith in her book, marked as a new client.

How did you choose her? And how are you going to pick the next one?

Just before nine, when Feeney knocked on her door, she was studying a map of Manhattan. He stepped behind her, leaned over her shoulder, and breathed candy mints.

"Thinking of relocating?"

"I'm trying geography. Widen view five percent," she ordered the computer. The image adjusted. "First murder, second murder," she said, nodding toward the tiny red pulses on Broadway and in the West Village. "My place." There was a green pulse just off Ninth Avenue.

"Your place?"

"He knows where I live. He's been there twice. These are three places we can put him. I was hoping I'd be able to confine the area, but he spreads himself out. And the security." She indulged in one little sigh, as she eased back in her chair. "Three different systems. Starr's was all but nonexistent. Electronic doorman, inoperable – and it had been, according to other residents, for a couple of weeks. DeBlass had top grade, key code for entry, hand plate, full building security – audio and video. Had to be breached on-site. Our time lag only hits one elevator, and the victim's hallway. Mine's not as fancy. I could breach the entry, any decent B and E man could. But I've got a System Five thousand police lock on the door. You have to be a real pro to pop it without the master code."