Purity in Death (In Death #15)(6)

"That's not our call." Eve dismissed him by turning her back. She moved to the desk, frowned at the computer screen.

ABSOLUTE PURITY ACHIEVED

"What the hell does this mean?" she asked aloud. "Peabody, any new shit on the streets going by the name Purity?"

"I haven't heard of it."

"Computer, identify Purity."

INVALID COMMAND.

Frowning, she entered her name, badge number, and authorization. "Identify Purity."

INVALID COMMAND.

"Huh. Peabody do a run on new and known illegals. Computer, save current display. Display last task performed."

The screen wavered, then opened a tidy, organized spreadsheet detailing inventory, profit, loss, and coded customer base.

"So, according to the last task, and time logged, Louie was sitting here, very efficiently doing his books when he got a bug up his ass to bust his neighbor's head open."

"It's hot, Dallas." Peabody looked over Eve's shoulder. "People can just get crazy."

"Yeah." Maybe it was just that simple. "Yeah, they can. Nothing on his inventory named Purity."

"Nothing on the current illegals list by that name either."

"So what the hell is it, and how was it achieved?" She stepped back. "Let's take a look at Louie K., see what he tells us."

Chapter 2

He didn't tell her as much as she'd have liked.

The best she could determine on-scene with her field kit was that Louie K. had died due to neurological meltdown. That wasn't exactly the sort of term that elicited sage nods from the brass.

She passed the body off to the ME, flagged for priority.

Which meant, due to summer hours and summer glut, she'd be lucky if she got a confirmed pathology by the first frost.

She meant to push, calling in chips with the chief medical examiner.

Meanwhile she spoke with Trueheart's departmental rep via 'link, and danced the bureaucratic dance. She sent the still shaken rookie home, and ordered him to stand by for Testing.

Then she went back to Central to write, and rewrite, a detailed report on the incident that had resulted in two deaths and one critical injury.

And though her stomach curdled, she followed procedure and copied Internal Affairs.

By the time she got home, it was well past the dinner hour.

The lights were on, so that the urban fortress Roarke had built glowed like a beacon in the night. Green shadows from grand and leafy trees threw patterns on velvet grass and slid softly over rivers of flowers that were bright and bold by day.

The Lower East Side neighborhood that had eaten up most of her evening was a world away from this private paradise of wealth, of privilege, of indulgence.

She was almost accustomed to straddling worlds now without losing her balance. Almost.

She left her vehicle at the base of the stone steps and jogged up them more out of a desperate desire to shrug off the weight of heat than out of hurry.

She'd barely stepped in, taken that first breath of cool, clean air, when Summerset, Roarke's majordomo, appeared in the foyer like an unwelcome vision.

"Yes, I missed the dinner," she said before he could open his mouth. "Yes, I'm a miserable failure as a wife and a poor example of a human being. I have no class, no courtesy, and no sense of decorum. I should be dragged naked into the streets and stoned for my sins."

Summerset raised one steel gray eyebrow. "Well, that seems to cover it."

"Good, saves time." She started up the stairs. "Is he back?"

"Just."

A little annoyed she'd given him no opportunity to criticize, he frowned after her. He'd have to be quicker next time.

When she was sure he'd evaporated to wherever he'd appeared from, Eve paused at one of the house screens. "Where's Roarke?"

GOOD EVENING, DARLING EVE. ROARKE IS IN HIS OFFICE.

"Figures." Business dinner followup. She gave one blissful thought to detouring to the bedroom, jumping headlong into the shower. But guilt had her heading to his office.

The door was open. She could hear his voice.

She supposed he was refining the details of some deal he had going, most likely the one that had involved tonight's dinner. But she didn't care about the words.

His voice was poetry, seductive in itself even to a woman who'd never understood the heart of a poet. Wisps of Ireland trailed through it, adding music to what she assumed were dry facts and figures.

It suited his face, one that bore all that wild Celtic beauty in its strong, sharp bones, deep blue eyes, in the full, firm mouth that might have been sculpted by some canny god on a particularly good day.

She stepped to the doorway, saw that he stood at one of the windows, looking out while he dictated his memo. He'd pulled his hair back, she noted, all that thick black silk he usually wore loose so that it streamed nearly to his shoulders.

He still wore his dinner suit, black and sleek, over his long, rangy form. You could look and see the elegant businessman, madly successful, perfectly civilized. He'd polished himself, Eve thought, but that dangerous Celt was still, always, just beneath the surface.

It still, always, allured her.

She caught a glimpse of it now as he turned, though she hadn't made a sound, and his eyes met hers.

"Sign Roarke," he said, "and transmit. File copy Hagerman-Ross. Hello, Lieutenant."