Loyalty In Death Part 2

She nearly sighed. "There are plenty of cops who'll bother. Plenty who'll work their b.u.t.t off trying to close the case, Ratso."

"You'll work harder." He said it simply, almost childlike faith in his eyes. And Eve felt her conscience stir restlessly. "And I can find out s.h.i.t for you. If Fixer talked to me some, he coulda maybe talked to somebody else. He didn't scare easy, you know. He come through the Urban Wars. But he was plenty scared when he called me that night. They didn't do him that way 'cause they was gonna take out a bank."

"Maybe not." But she knew there were some who would gut a tourist for a wrist unit and a pair of airboots. "I'll look into it. I can't promise any more than that. You find out anything that adds to this, you get in touch."

"Yeah, okay. Right." He grinned at her. "You'll find out who did Fixer that way. The other cops, they didn't know about the s.h.i.t he was into, right? Right? So that's good data I give you."

"Yeah, good enough, Ratso." She rose, dug credits out of her pocket, and laid them on the table. "You want me to run down the file on this floater?"

Peabody asked when they stepped back outside.

"Yeah. Tomorrow's soon enough." As they climbed back up to her vehicle, Eve dug her hands into her pockets. "Do a run on Arlington, too. See what buildings, streets, citizens, businesses, that kind of thing have that name. If we find anything, we can turn it over to the investigating officer."

"This Fixer, did he weasel for anybody?"

"No." Eve slid behind the wheel. "He hated cops." For a moment she frowned, drummed her fingers. "Ratso's got a brain the size of a soybean, but he's got Fixer down. He didn't scare easy, and he was greedy. Kept that shop of his open seven days a week, worked it solo. Rumor was he had his old army- issue blaster under the counter, and a hunting knife. Used to brag he could fillet a man as quick and easy as he could a trout."

"Sounds like a real fun guy."

"He was tough and sour and would sooner p.i.s.s in a cop's eye than look at one. If he wanted out of this deal he was in, it had to be way over the top.

Nothing much would've put this old man off."

"What's that I hear?" c.o.c.king her head, Peabody cupped a hand at her ear.

"Oh, that must be the sound of you getting sucked in." Eve hit the street with a bit more bounce than necessary. "Shut up, Peabody."

She missed dinner, which was only mildly irritating. The fact that she'd been right about the PA and the plea bargain on Lisbeth Cooke was downright infuriating. At least, Eve thought as she let herself into the house, the twit could have stuck for murder two a little longer.

Now, scant hours after Eve had arrested her in the wrongful death of one J.

Clarence Branson, Lisbeth was out on bail and very likely sitting cozily in her own apartment with a gla.s.s of claret and a smug little smile on her face.

Summerset, Roarke's butler, slipped into the foyer to greet her with a baleful eye and a sniff of disapproval. "You are, once again, quite late." "Yeah? And you are, once again, really ugly." She dropped her jacket over the newel post.

"Difference is, tomorrow I might be on time."

He noted that she looked neither pale nor tired -- two early signs of overwork.

He would have suffered the torments of the d.a.m.ned before he would have admitted -- even to himself -- that the fact pleased him.

"Roarke," he said in frigid tones as she breezed by him and started up the steps, "is in the video room." Summerset's brow arched slightly.

"Second level, fourth door on the right."

"I know where it is," she muttered, though it wasn't absolutely true. Still, she would have found it, even though the house was huge, a labyrinth of rooms and treasures and surprises.

The man didn't deny himself anything, she thought. Why should he? He'd been denied everything as a child, and he'd earned, one way or another, all the comforts he now commanded.

But even after a year, she wasn't really used to the house, the huge stone edifice with its juts and its towers and the lushly planted grounds. She wasn't used to the wealth, she supposed, and never would be. The kind of financial power that could command acres of polished wood, sparkling gla.s.s, art from other countries and centuries, along with the simple pleasures of soft fabrics, plush cushions.

The fact was, she'd married Roarke in spite of his money, in spite of how he'd earned a great portion of it. Fallen for him, she supposed, as much for his shadows as his lights.

She stepped into the room with its long, luxurious sofas, its enormous wall screens, and complex control center. There was a charmingly old- fashioned bar, gleaming cherry with stools of leather and bra.s.s. A carved cabinet with a rounded door she remembered vaguely held countless discs of the old videos her husband was so fond of.

The polished floor was layered with richly patterned rugs. A blazing fire -- no computer-generated image for Roarke -- filled the hearth of black marble and warmed the fat, sleeping cat curled in front of it. The scent of crackling wood merged with the spice of the fresh flowers spearing out of a copper urn nearly as tall as she and the fragrance of the candles glowing gold on the gleaming mantel.

On-screen, an elegant party was happening in black and white.

But it was the man, stretched out comfortably on the plush sofa, a gla.s.s of wine in his hand, who drew and commanded attention.

However romantic and sensual those old videos with their atmospheric shadows, their mysterious tones could be, the man who watched them was only more so. And he was in three glorious dimensions.

Indeed, he was dressed in black and white, the collar of his soft white shirt casually unb.u.t.toned. At the end of long legs clad in dark trousers, his feet were bare. Why, she wondered, she should find that so ripely s.e.xy, she couldn't say.

Still, it was his face that always drew her, that glorious face of an angel leaping into h.e.l.l with the light of sin in his vivid blue eyes and a smile curving the poetic mouth. Sleek black hair framed it, falling nearly to his shoulders. A temptation for any woman's fingers and fists. It hit her now, as it often did, that she'd started falling for him the moment she'd seen that face. On her computer screen in her office, during a murder investigation. When he'd been on her short list of suspects.

A year ago, she realized. Only a year ago, when their lives had collided. And irrevocably changed.

Now, though she'd made no sound, came no closer, he turned his head. His eyes met hers. And he smiled. Her heart did the long, slow roll in her chest that continued to baffle and embarra.s.s her.

"h.e.l.lo, Lieutenant." He held out a hand in welcome.

She crossed to him, let their fingers link. "Hi. What are you watching?" "Dark Victory. Bette Davis. She goes blind and dies in the end."

"Well, that sucks."

"But she does it so courageously." He gave her hand a little tug and urged her down on the sofa with him.

When she stretched out, when her body curved easily, naturally against his, he smiled. It had taken a great deal of time and a great deal of trust between them to persuade her to relax this way. To accept him and what he needed to give her.

His cop, he thought as he toyed with her hair, with her dark corners and terrifying courage. His wife, with her nerves and her needs. He shifted slightly, content when she settled her head on his shoulder.

Since she'd gone that far, Eve decided it would be a pretty good idea to pull off her boots and to take a sip from his gla.s.s of wine. "How come you're watching an old video like this if you already know how it ends?"

"It's the getting there that counts. Did you have dinner?"

She made a negative sound, pa.s.sed him back his wine. "I'll get something in a bit. I got hung up on a case that came in right before end of shift. Woman screwed a guy to the wall with his own drill."

Roarke swallowed wine, hard. "Literally, or metaphorically?"

She chuckled a little, enjoying the wine as they pa.s.sed the gla.s.s back and forth. "Literally. Branson 8000." "Ouch."

"You betcha."

"How do you know it was a woman?"

"Because after she pinned him to the wall, she called it in, then waited for us. They were lovers, he was playing around, so she drilled a two-foot steel rod through his cheating heart."

"Well, that'll teach him." Ireland cruised through his voice like whiskey and had her tilting her head to look up at him. "She went for the heart. Me, I'd've screwed it through his b.a.l.l.s. More to the point, don't you think?"

"Darling Eve, you're a very direct woman." He lowered his head to touch his lips to hers -- one brush, then two.

It was her mouth that heated, her hands that reached up to fist in his thick, black hair and drag him closer. Take him deeper. Before he could shift to set the wine aside, she flipped over, knocking the gla.s.s to the floor as she straddled him.

He lifted a brow, eyes glinting, as he used his nimble fingers to unb.u.t.ton her shirt. "I'd say we know how this one ends, too." "Yeah." Grinning, she bent down to bite his bottom lip. "Let's see how we get there this time."

CHAPTER TWO

Eve scowled at her desk-link after she'd finished her conversation with the PA's office. They'd accepted a plea of man two on Lisbeth Cooke. Second- degree manslaughter, she thought in disgust, for a woman who had cool- headedly, cold-bloodedly ended a life because a man couldn't control his d.i.c.k.

She'd do a year at best in a minimum-security facility where she'd paint her nails and brush up on her f.u.c.king tennis serve. She'd very likely sign a disc and video deal on the story for a tidy sum, retire, and move to Martinique.

Eve knew she'd told Peabody to take what you could get, but even she hadn't expected it to be so little.