Naked in Death (In Death #1)(46)

“A random choice like that’s more difficult,” Roarke told her. “Caught my shoulder.”

“What?” Eve blinked, focused on him again. “Your shoulder.”

He grinned at her. “Don’t worry, darling. It’s just a flesh wound.”

Her heart was thudding in her ears, no matter how ridiculous she told herself was her reaction. “Hell of a toy, Roarke. Real fun and games time. Do you play often?”

“Now and again. Ready to try it?”

If she could handle a session with VR, Eve decided, she could handle this. “Yeah, run another random pattern.”

“That’s what I admire about you, lieutenant.” Roarke selected ammo, loaded fresh. “You jump right in. Let’s try a dry run first.”

He brought up a simple target, circles and a bull’s-eye. He stepped behind her, putting the. 38 in her hands, his over them. He pressed his cheek to hers. “You have to sight it, as it doesn’t sense heat and movement as your weapon does.” He adjusted her arms until he was satisfied. “When you’re ready to fire, you want to squeeze the trigger, not pump it. It’s going to jerk a bit. It’s not as smooth or as silent as your laser.”

“I’ve got that,” she muttered. It was foolish to be susceptible to his hands over hers, the press of his body, the smell of him. “You’re crowding me.”

He turned his head, just enough to have his lips brushing up to her earlobe. It was innocently unpierced, rather sweet, like a child’s.

“I know. You need to brace yourself more than you’re used to. Your reaction will be to flinch. Don’t.”

“I don’t flinch.” To prove it, she squeezed the trigger. Her arms jerked, annoying her. She shot again, and a third time, missing the heart of the target by less than an inch. “Christ, you feel it, don’t you?” She rolled her shoulders, fascinated by the way they sang in response to the weapon in her hands.

“It makes it more personal. You’ve got a good eye.” He was impressed, but his tone was mild. “Of course, it’s one thing to shoot at a circle, another to shoot at a body. Even a reproduction.”

A challenge? she noted. Well, she was up for it. “How many more shots in this?”

“We’ll reload it full.” He programmed in a series. Curiosity and, he had to admit, ego had him choosing a tough one. “Ready?”

She flicked a glance at him, adjusted her stance. “Yeah.”

The first image was an elderly woman clutching a shopping bag with both hands. Eve nearly took the bystander’s head off before her finger froze. A movement flickered to the left, and she shot a mugger before he could bring an iron pipe down on the old woman. A slight sting in her left hip had her shifting again, and taking out a bald man with a weapon similar to her own.

They came fast and hard after that.

Roarke watched her, mesmerized. No, she didn’t flinch, he mused. Her eyes stayed flat and cool. Cop’s eyes. He knew her adrenaline was up, her pulse hammering. Her movements were quick but as smooth and studied as a dance. Her jaw was set, her hands steady.

And he wanted her, he realized as his gut churned. Quite desperately he wanted her.

“Caught me twice,” she said almost to herself. She opened the chamber herself, reloaded as she’d seen Roarke do. “Once in the hip, once in the abdomen. That makes me dead or in dire straits. Run another.”

He obliged her, then tucked his hands in his pockets and watched her work.

When she was done, she asked to try the Swiss model. She found she preferred the weight and the response of it. Definitely an advantage over a revolver, she reflected. Quicker, more responsive, better fire power, and a reload took seconds.

Neither weapon fit as comfortably in her hand as her laser, yet she found both primitively and horribly efficient.

And the damage they caused, the torn flesh, the flying blood, turned death into a gruesome affair.

“Any hits?” Roarke asked.

Though the images were gone, she stared at the wall, and the afterimages that played in her mind. “No. I’m clean. What they do to a body,” she said softly, and put the weapon down. “To have used these — to have faced having to use them day after day, and know going in they could be used against you. Who could face that,” she wondered, “without going a little insane?”

“You could.” He removed his eye and ear protectors. “Conscience and dedication to duty don’t have to equal any kind of weakness. You got through Testing. It cost you, but you got through it.”

Carefully, she set her protectors beside his. “How do you know?”

“How do I know you were in Testing today? I have contacts. How do I know it cost you?” He cupped her chin. “I can see it,” he said softly. “Your heart wars with your head. I don’t think you realize that’s what makes you so good at your job. Or so fascinating to me.”

“I’m not trying to fascinate you. I’m trying to find a man who used those weapons I just fired; not for defense, but for pleasure.” She looked straight into his eyes. “It isn’t you.”

“No, it isn’t me.”

“But you know something.”

He brushed the pad of his thumb over, into the dip in her chin before dropping his hand. “I’m not at all sure that I do.” He crossed over to the table, poured coffee. “Twentieth-century weapons, twentieth-century crimes, with twentieth-century motives?” He flicked a glance at her. “That would be my take.”