Possession in Death (In Death #31.5)

Possession in Death (In Death #31.5)
J.D. Robb



Chapter One

She spent the morning with a murderer.

He’d been under guard in a hospital bed recovering from a near-fatal wound —courtesy of a misstep by his partner in crime—but she’d had no sympathy.

She was glad he’d lived, wished him a long, long life—in an off-planet concrete cage. She believed the case she and her team had built to be solid—as did the nearly gleeful prosecuting attorney. The sprinkles on the icing of this particular cupcake was the confession she’d finessed out of him as he’d sneered at her.

Given that he’d tried to kill her less than twenty-four hours before, the sneer was small change.

Sylvester Moriarity would receive the best medical care New York could provide, then he’d join his friend Winston Dudley behind bars until what promised to be a sensational, media-soaked trial, given their family fortunes and names.

Case closed, she told herself as she pushed her way through the heat-soaked Saturday afternoon traffic toward home. The dead now had the only justice she could offer, and their families and friends the comfort—if comfort it was—that those responsible would pay.

But it haunted her: the waste, the cruelty, the utter selfishness of two men who were so puffed up by their own importance, their station, that they’d considered murder a form of entertainment, a twisted sort of indulgence.

She maneuvered through New York traffic, barely hearing the blasts of horns, the annoyingly cheerful hype of the ad blimps heralding midsummer sales at the Sky Mall. Tourists swarmed the city—and likely the Sky Mall as well— chowing down on soy dogs from the smoking glide-carts, looking for souvies and bargains among the shops and street vendors.

A boiling stew, she thought, in the heat and humidity of summer 2060.

She caught the lightning move of a nimble-fingered street thief, bumping through a couple of tourists more intent on gawking at the buildings and their ringing people glides than their own security. He had the wallet in the goody slit of his baggy cargos in half a finger snap and slithered like a snake through the forest of people lumbering across the crosswalk.

If she’d been on foot, or at least headed in the same direction, she’d have pursued—and the chase might’ve lifted her mood. But he and his booty smoked away, and he’d no doubt continue to score well on today’s target shoot.

Life went on.

When Lieutenant Eve Dallas finally drove through the stately gates of home, she reminded herself of that again. Life went on—and in her case, today, that included a cookout, a horde of cops, and her odd assortment of friends. A couple years before, it would’ve been the last way she’d have spent a Saturday, but things had changed.

Her living arrangements certainly had, from a sparsely furnished apartment to the palace-fortress Roarke had built. Her husband—and that was a change, even if they’d just celebrated their second year of marriage—had the vision, the need, and, God knew, the means to create the gorgeous home with its myriad rooms filled with style and function. Here the grass was rich summer green, the trees and flowers plentiful.

Here was peace and warmth and welcome. And she needed them, maybe just a little desperately at the moment.

She left her vehicle at the front entrance, knowing Summerset, Roarke’s majordomo, would send it to its place in the garage. And hoped, just this once, he wasn’t looming like a scarecrow in the foyer.

She wanted the cool and quiet of the bedroom she shared with Roarke, a few minutes of solitude. Time, she thought as she strode toward the doors, to shake off this mood before the invasion.

Halfway to the doors, she stopped. The front wasn’t the only way in, for Christ’s sake—and why hadn’t she ever thought of that before? On impulse, she jogged around—long legs eating up ground—crossed one of the patios, turned through a small, walled garden, and went in through a side door. Into a parlor or sitting room or morning room—who knew? she thought with a roll of tired brown eyes—and made her way as sneakily as the street thief across the hallway, down and into the more familiar territory of the game room, where she knew the lay of the land.

She called the elevator and considered it a small, personal victory when the doors shut her in. “Master bedroom,” she ordered, then just leaned back against the wall, shut her eyes, while the unit navigated its way.

When she stepped into the bedroom, she raked a hand through her messy cap of brown hair, stripped the jacket off her lanky frame, and tossed it at the handiest chair. She stepped onto the platform and sat on the side of the lake-sized bed. If she’d believed she could escape into sleep, she’d have stretched out, but there was too much in her head, in her belly, for rest.

So she simply sat, veteran cop, Homicide lieutenant who’d walked through blood and death more times than she could count, and mourned a little.

Roarke found her there.

He could gauge her state of mind by the slump of her shoulders, by the way she sat, staring out the window. He walked to her, sat beside her, took her hand.

“I should’ve gone with you.”

She shook her head but leaned against him. “No place for civilians in Interview, and nothing you could’ve done anyway if I’d stretched it and brought you in as expert consultant. I had him cold and cut through his battalion of expensive lawyers like a f**king machete. I thought the PA was going to kiss me on the mouth.”