Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(27)

Coffee was banned, which didn’t seem right in any world, but she’d had to accept the edict.

More panels opened to a dressing area fully stocked with white towels, with mats, with gis of black or white. And the door within would lead to the shower, and through that she could access the gym if that space was more to her taste.

He’d even thought of art – but, then, the man thought of everything. Serene gardens, arching cherry blossoms, green hills misted with morning.

The space spoke of peace and discipline, and simplicity.

And was a fully operational holoroom.

The gift had been twofold. The dojo, and Master Lu. When time allowed she could go to the master for instruction, or schedule a session in her own dojo.

And when it didn’t, she could call him up holographically.

She did so now, eager for a good, strong workout with a master of martial arts.

His image shimmered on in the center of the room. He wore his hair in a long queue, and a plain black gi over his sinewy body.

He clasped one hand over the other, bowed. “Lieutenant Dallas.”

“Master Lu. Thank you for this honor.”

“I am pleased to have a worthy student.”

“I only have thirty minutes, but —”

“Then we must make each count.”

“Your flying spin kick is, well, almost unbelievable. I’ve never been able to get that height, or that form. If —”

“You are very kind. This will come. For this our first lesson, you will learn to breathe.”

“To… ‘breathe.’  ”

“Breath is the beginning of all. Breath,” he said as he approached her, “then breath and movement. Hands.”

He took her hands, pressed one palm to her belly, the other to her heart with his dark eyes locked on hers. “Breath is life. You are not the pebble washed to shore by the wave, but the fish that swims in the wave. Breathe in to fill, to draw in the light. Slow,” he told her, “with awareness. Breathe out to empty. And pause, hold in that space between. Now in to fill.”

She breathed.

When she took the elevator back up, she had to admit her brain had cleared out. Who knew there were so many ways to breathe?

When the elevator opened to the bedroom, and Roarke stood there unbuttoning his shirt, well, she lost her breath.

His hair fell nearly to his shoulders, a black silk frame for a face created to steal the breath, to weaken the knees, to capture the heart. It had done all to her, and more.

There were times like this when he looked at her, just looked, and those perfectly sculpted lips curved, those eyes – wilder, bluer than any sea – lit with what she knew was love, it wasn’t just more. It was all.

“A session with Master Lu?”

“Yeah.” She stepped in so the door could close behind her. “I’ve been learning how to breathe. I thought I already knew, being alive and all, but apparently not. Did you know you can breathe into your toes? I think I did it. It sounds like bullshit, but I think I breathed into my toes.”

He laughed and, putting his hands on her hips, drew her to him. “You were the fish, not the pebble. I reviewed the first couple of lessons.” His hands slid around her waist. “Here’s what I missed today.” He pulled back, kissed her – slow and deep, like breathing. “I got used to being able to do that at any time of the day or night.”

“Back to reality. Detroit?”

“Just a few bolts that needed tightening, and my hand on the spanner – wrench,” he corrected. “And you, I hear, a murder already?”

“They probably had a few while I was gone, too.”

“Undoubtedly. Dorian Kuper, the cellist.”

“Did you know him?”

With a shake of his head, Roarke stepped back, took off his shirt. “By reputation only, and I’ve heard him play. How was he killed? The reports were very thin – deliberately so, I assume.”

“He was tortured for two days before they – and it was they – sliced open his belly and let him bleed out.”

Roarke pulled on a gray sweater, and made Eve wonder why the color had looked so dull and stiff in Earnestina’s apartment, and was so rich and soft over Roarke’s torso.

“Back to reality, indeed,” Roarke murmured. “  ‘They’? You’ve identified his killers?”

“Not yet, but there are two, and he wasn’t their first. He was a long way from their first.”

“It sounds as if we should have a glass of wine, a meal, and you should tell me.”

“I could use a glass of wine. Sexual sadists,” she began as they walked out of the bedroom together. “With a twist.”

She ran it through for him as she would for another cop. He might’ve winced at the comparison, but he could – and did – think like a cop.

While she arranged her board, he put a meal together. Which meant she wouldn’t get pizza, but compromises had to be made. It was in the marriage rules. He certainly made them, she thought, just by having the meal in her office at the little table with murder and death on full display.

“You believe New York was their destination.”

“Long-term, can’t say, but you’ve only got to look at the map, see their kill spots. It’s not an arrow from point to point, but any time they veered off, then shifted right back – north and east.”