Naked in Death (In Death #1)(21)

She saw stars again as her head smacked sharply into the side of a counter. Dozens of the candy bars she’d craved rained down on her.

“You son of a bitch. You son of a bitch.” She heard herself saying it, over and over as she landed three hard short arm blows to his face. Blood spurting from his nose, he grabbed her arm.

And she knew it was going to break. Knew she would feel that sharp, sweet pain, hear the thin crack as bone fractured.

But just as she drew in breath to scream, as her vision began to gray with agony, his weight was off her.

The ball still cupped in her hand, she rolled over onto her haunches, struggling to breathe and fighting the need to retch. From that position she saw the shiny black shoes that always said beat cop.

“Book him.” She coughed once, painfully. “Attempted robbery, armed, carrying an explosive, assault.” She’d have liked to have added assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, but as she hadn’t identified herself, she’d be skirting the line.

“You all right, ma’am? Want the MTs?”

She didn’t want the medi-techs. She wanted a f**king candy bar. “Lieutenant,” she corrected, pushing herself up and reaching for her ID. She noted that the perp was in restraints and that one of the two cops had been wise enough to use his stunner to take the fight out of him.

“We need a safe box — quick.” She watched both cops pale as they saw what she held in her hand. “This little boomer’s had quite a ride. Let’s get it neutralized.”

“Sir.” The first cop was out of the store in a flash. In the ninety seconds it took him to return with the black box used for transporting and deactivating explosives, no one spoke.

They hardly breathed.

“Book him,” Eve repeated. The moment the explosive was contained, her stomach muscles began to tremble. “I’ll transmit my report. You guys with the Hundred and twenty-third?”

“You bet, lieutenant.”

“Good job.” She reached down, favoring her injured arm and chose a Galaxy bar that hadn’t been flattened by the wrestling match. “I’m going home.”

“You didn’t pay for that,” Francois shouted after her.

“Fuck you, Frank,” she shouted back and kept going.

The incident put her behind schedule. By the time she reached Roarke’s mansion, it was 7:10. She’d used over the counter medication to ease the pain in her arm and shoulder. If it wasn’t better in a couple of days, she knew she’d have to go in for an exam. She hated doctors.

She parked the car and spent a moment studying Roarke’s house. Fortress, more like, she thought. Its four stories towered over the frosted trees of Central Park. It was one of the old buildings, close to two hundred years old, built of actual stone, if her eyes didn’t deceive her.

There was lots of glass, and lights burning gold behind the windows. There was also a security gate, behind which evergreen shrubs and elegant trees were artistically arranged.

Even more impressive than the magnificence of architecture and landscaping was the quiet. She heard no city noises here. No traffic snarls, no pedestrian chaos. Even the sky overhead was subtly different than the one she was accustomed to farther downtown. Here, you could actually see stars rather than the glint and gleam of transports.

Nice life if you can get it, she mused, and started her car again. She approached the gate, prepared to identify herself. She saw the tiny red eye of a scanner blink, then hold steady. The gates opened soundlessly.

So, he’d programmed her in, she thought, unsure if she was amused or uneasy. She went through the gate, up the short drive, and left her car at the base of granite steps.

A butler opened the door for her. She’d never actually seen a butler outside of old videos, but this one didn’t disappoint the fantasy. He was silver haired, implacably eyed and dressed in a dark suit and ruthlessly knotted old-fashioned tie.

“Lieutenant Dallas.”

There was an accent, a faint one that sounded British and Slavic at once. “I have an appointment with Roarke.”

“He’s expecting you.” He ushered her into a wide, towering hallway that looked more like the entrance to a museum than a home.

There was a chandelier of star-shaped glass dripping light onto a glossy wood floor that was graced by a boldly patterned rug in shades of red and teal. A stairway curved away to the left with a carved griffin for its newel post.

There were paintings on the walls — the kind she had once seen on a school field trip to the Met. French Impressionists from what century she couldn’t quite recall. The Revisited Period that had come into being in the early twenty-first century complimented them with their pastoral scenes and gloriously muted colors.

No holograms or living sculpture. Just paint and canvas.

“May I take your coat?”

She brought herself back and thought she caught a flicker of smug condescension in those inscrutable eyes. Eve shrugged out of her jacket, watched him take the leather somewhat gingerly between his manicured fingers.

Hell, she’d gotten most of the blood off it.

“This way, Lieutenant Dallas. If you wouldn’t mind waiting in the parlor, Roarke is detained on a transpacific call.”

“No problem.”

The museum quality continued there. A fire was burning sedately. A fire out of genuine logs in a hearth carved from lapis and malachite. Two lamps burned with light like colored gems. The twin sofas had curved backs and lush upholstery that echoed the jewel tones of the room in sapphire. The furniture was wood, polished to an almost painful gloss. Here and there objets d’art were arranged. Sculptures, bowls, faceted glass.