Loyalty in Death (In Death #9)(19)

Roarke ordered the lights, set the rack on a counter area on the long glossy black console. He took a slim battery card from a drawer. He slid it into a slot on the butt of the weapon, gave it a quick shove with the heel of his hand.

“Fully charged,” he told her. “You’ve only to activate. A thumb flick on the side here,” he showed her. “Set your preferences and let it rip.”

She tried it out, nodded. “It’s fast, efficient. If you were worried about an attack, you’d have it on, already set.” Experimentally, she laid it against her own weapon harness. “With decent reflexes, you could have it out, aimed, and fired in seconds. I want to discharge it a couple of times.”

He opened another drawer, took out earplugs and safety goggles. “Hologram or still target?” Roarke asked as she put them on, then laid his palm on the identiscreen so that console lights glowed on.

“Hologram. Give me a couple of guys, night scene.”

Obligingly, Roarke programmed the target range, then settled back to enjoy the show.

He’d given her two bulky men who were nonetheless fast on their feet. Their images came at her from both sides. With a quick pivot, she blasted them both.

“Too easy,” she complained. “You’d have to be a one-armed moron with a vision impairment to miss with this thing.”

“Try it again.” He reprogrammed while she balanced on the balls of her feet and tried to imagine herself a scared old man getting ready to run.

The first one came at her fast, out of the shadows, and head-on. She shifted, firing in a crouch, then swiveling around in anticipation. It was closer this time. The second man had a steel bat lifted, had started into his swing. She rolled clear, fired up, and took his face off.

“Christ, I love to watch you work,” Roarke murmured.

“Maybe he wasn’t as fast,” she considered as she rose. “Maybe they knew about the blaster. But it would’ve given him the edge. And I had it on pinpoint. If he’d put it on wide range, he’d have taken out half the block in one swing.”

To demonstrate, she switched it herself, then using a two-handed grip sprayed the street scene. The vehicle parked on the opposite curb went up in flames, window glass shattered, alarms screamed.

“See?”

“As I said.” He stepped forward to take the weapon from her. Her hair was a tousled mess, and in the hard light every shade upon shade, every tone upon tone in the mix of brown showed. “I do love watching you work.”

“They didn’t just step up and knock him cold when he had one of those,” she insisted. “They had to distract him, send in a decoy or someone he trusted. They needed enough time to blindside him and not get blown to hell while they were at it. He didn’t have a vehicle, and he didn’t call for transport. I checked. So he’d’ve been on foot. Armed, ready, street savvy. But they took him out as quick and easy as plucking a Nebraskan tourist’s pocket in Times Square.”

“You’re sure it was quick and easy?”

“He had a blow to the head, no defensive wounds. If he’d fired that thing and the blast didn’t go into someone, there’d be a sign of the discharge. It isn’t neat.”

She blew her hair out of her eyes, shrugged. “Maybe he was just old and slow after all.”

“Not everyone reacts to fear clearheadedly, Lieutenant.”

“No, but I’d have bet the bank he would.” She moved her shoulders again. “I say they were armed. One of them drew his attention.” She began to set a new program herself as she thought it through. To put herself more into the scene she was devising, she removed her safety gear. “When he’s focused on that target…”

She took the weapon back from Roarke, engaged the program, slid herself into it. One man slipping out of the shadows, swing toward him, reach for your weapon. Even as she flicked it on, pivoted, she felt the slight shock of a computer hit on her upper shoulder.

She’d gotten off a shot, that was true, she mused as she absently rubbed her shoulder. But she was young and fit, and her mind was cool.

“He was old and scared, but he figured himself tough, too smart for them. But they flanked him, somewhere between his door and the subway stop. He goes for one, and the other stuns him. A stun’s not going to show up on autopsy unless it was a severe shock to the nervous system. They don’t need that. They just need to jolt him, then they can knock him out and haul him off.”

She laid the weapon down. “Anyway, I’ve got some answers. I just have to figure out where they fit.”

“Then I take it this little demonstration is concluded.”

“Yeah. I’m just going to — Hey,” she protested when he reached out and yanked her against him.

“I’m remembering the first time with you.” He expected her to resist a little, at first. It would only make her surrender sweeter. “It started right here.” He lowered his mouth to graze her cheek, sampling the taste he intended to devour. “Nearly a year ago. Even then, you were everything I wanted.”

“You just wanted sex.” Even as she twisted, she angled her head so that his clever mouth could skim down her throat. Under her skin dozens of pulse points awakened.

“I did.” He chuckled as his hands roamed down to mold and squeeze. “I still do. Always with you, darling Eve.”