Ceremony in Death (14 page)

She rose, raked her not quite clean hands through her hair. “Bag him,” she ordered, and walked to Roarke. “I’m going to go in, do the report while it’s fresh in my mind.”

“All right.” He took her arm.

“No, you should go home. I’ll catch a ride with one of the team.”

“I’ll take you.”

“Peabody — “

“Peabody can catch a ride with one of the team.” She needed a few minutes, he knew, to decompress. He touched a button on his wrist unit to signal his driver.

“I feel stupid going into Central in a limo,” she muttered.

“Really? I don’t.” He walked her out of the garage, then around to the front of the funeral parlor. The limo streamed up to the curb. “You can catch your breath,” he suggested as he slid in behind her. “And I can have a brandy.” He poured one from a crystal decanter, and knowing Eve, programmed her coffee.

“Well, since we’re going it this way, you can tell me what you know about Wineburg.”

“One of the irritating rich and pampered.”

She took the hot, rich coffee served in a thin, classy cup of bone china, and gave Roarke — his plush limo, his pricey brandy — a long, cool look. “You’re rich.”

“Yes.” He smiled. “But pampered? Certainly not.” He swirled his brandy, kept smiling. “That’s what stops me from being irritating.”

“You think so?” The coffee helped, got her circuits running. “So he was a banker. He ran Wineburg Financial.”

“Hardly. His father’s still hale and hearty. This little fish would have been more of a minion. The type given busy-work and a useless title and a big office. He’d gobble up his expense account, shuffle forms, and have his cosmetician in for weekly sessions.”

“Okay, you didn’t like him.”

“I didn’t know him, actually.” He gave the brandy a lazy swirl and sip. “Just the type. I don’t have any business dealings with Wineburg. In the dawn of my… career, I needed some backing for a couple of projects. Legal projects,” he added at Eve’s speculative look. “They wouldn’t let me in the door. I wasn’t up to their level of client. So I went elsewhere, got the backing, and made a killing. Figuratively speaking. The Wineburg organization took it poorly.”

“So they’re a conservative, established, family-run institution.”

“Exactly.”

“It would be embarrassing to have the scion… Would he be like the scion?”

“If there’s such a thing as a minor scion, I suppose.”

“Okay if he was into Satanism, it probably wouldn’t go down well at the company picnic.”

“It would turn the board of directors white with shock — and, family or not, this little Wineburg would have been out on his ass.”

“He didn’t look like the type to risk it, but you never know. Sex, he said. Just for the sex. He could have been one of the ones who had at Alice. Then he’s guilty or cunous and comes by the viewing. The one thing he was, was scared. He saw something, Roarke. He saw someone murdered. I know it. If I’d gotten him in, I’d have pulled it out of him. I could have broken him in ten minutes.”

“Apparently, someone else thought so, too.”

“Someone who was right there. On the spot. Watching him. Watching the viewing.”

“Or watching you,” Roarke finished. “Which is more likely.”

“I hope they keep watching, because before long, I’m going to turn around and bite them on the throat.” She glanced up as the limo pulled up to the front of Cop Central. Vaguely embarrassed, she peered out, hoping no cops were loitering nearby. She’d be ragged on for days. “I’ll see you at home. Couple hours.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Go home.”

He simply leaned back, ordered the screen to engage and list the latest stock information. “I’ll wait,” he repeated and poured another brandy.

“Hardhead,” she muttered as she got out, then winced when someone called her name.

“Woowee, Dallas, going to slum with us working poor for awhile?”

“Bite me, Carter,” she muttered, and rushed inside before the delighted laughter forced her to break someone’s face.

An hour later, she-was back, bone weary and sparking mad. “Carter just had it announced over the main that my carriage awaited anon. What an idiot. I don’t know whether to kick his ass or yours.”

“Kick his,” Roarke suggested and draped an arm around her. He’d switched from work to pleasure mode and had an old video on screen.

She caught the scent of expensive tobacco clinging to the air and wished she could claim it irritated her. But it soothed, along with his arm and the ancient black-and-white video.

“What is this?”

“Bogart and Bacall. First film together. She was nineteen, I think. Here’s the line.”

Eve stretched out her legs and listened to Bacall ask Bogie if he knew how to whistle. Her lips twitched. “Clever.”

“It’s a good film. We’ll have to watch it all the way through sometime. You’re tense, Lieutenant.”

“Maybe.”

“We’ll have to fix that.” He shifted, poured a stemmed glass full of straw-colored liquid. “Drink.”

“What is it?”

“Wine, just wine.”

She sniffed it suspiciously. He wasn’t above doctoring it, she knew. “I was going to work a little when we get home. I need my head clear.”

“You have to shut down sometime. Relax. Your head can be clear in the morning.”

He had a point. She had too much data in her head, and none of it was helping. Four deaths now, and she was no closer. Maybe if she backed off for a few hours, she’d see better.

“Whoever did Wineburg was quick and quiet. And smart, going for the heart. Hit the throat like Lobar, and you get blood all over you. Hit the heart, it’s over fast and with minimal mess.”

“Umm-hmm.” He began to knead the back of her neck. It was always a magnet for her stress.

“What were we, thirty, forty seconds behind? Fast, really fast. If Wineburg cracked, there could be another. I’ve got to get the membership list. There has to be a way.” She sipped at the wine. “What were you and Feeney talking about?”

“Mexico. Stop worrying.”

“Okay, okay.” She leaned her head back, closed her eyes for what seemed like three seconds. But when she opened them again, they were through the gates and pulling up in front of the house. “Did I fall asleep?”

“For about five minutes.”

“That was just wine, right?”

“Absolutely. The next part of our program is a hot bath.”

“A bath isn’t…” She reconsidered as they stepped inside. “Actually, that sounds pretty good.”

Ten minutes later, while water gushed into the tub and swirled in the power of jets, it began to sound better. But she arched a brow when she saw Roarke begin to undress. “Who’s the bath for, me or you?”

“Us.” He gave her a tap on the butt, nudging her forward.

“That’s fine then. It’ll give you a chance to tell me all about saving the life of a beautiful woman.”

“Hmm.” He slipped into the frothy water, facing her. “Oh. I can’t be held responsible for actions that took place in a former life.” He passed her another glass of wine he’d had the foresight to pour. “Now, can I?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t the theory something like you repeat things, or learn from them, or don’t?” She held the glass aloft and dunked herself down, resurfacing with a sigh. “You figure you were lovers, or what?”

Considering, he trailed a fingertip up and down Eve’s leg. “If she looked then the way she looks now, I’d certainly hope so.”

She gave him a sour smile. “Yeah, I’d guess you’d go for the big, beautiful, exotic type then and now.” With a shrug, she drank more wine, then toyed with the stem. “Most people figure you stepped wide of the mark with me.”

“Most people?”

She downed the rest of the wine, set the glass aside. “Sure. I get the drift when we’ve got to make time with some of those rich and high-toned business associates of yours. Can’t blame them for wondering what came over you. I’m not big, beautiful, or exotic.”

“No, you’re not. Slim, lovely, strong. It’s a wonder I looked twice.”

She felt ridiculous and flustered. He could do that to her just by the way he looked at her. “I’m not fishing,” she muttered.

“And it surprises me that you’d give a damn what any of my associates thought of either one of us.”

“I don’t.” Damn it, she’d stepped right in it. “I was just making an observation. The wine’s got my tongue running away with me.”

“You annoy me, Eve.” His voice was dangerously cool. A warning she recognized. “Criticizing my taste.”

“Forget it.” She dunked again, surfaced like a shot when his hands clamped over her waist. “Hey, what are you doing? Trying to drown me?” She blinked water out of her eyes and saw that his were indeed annoyed. “Listen — “

“No, you listen. Or better yet.” He crushed his mouth to hers, hot, hungry, hurried. It made the top of her lead lift off and spin. “We’ll just move to the third part of our program a little early,” he said when he let her suck in a gulp of air. “And I’ll show you why I’m precisely on the mark with you, Lieutenant. Precisely. I don’t make mistakes.”

She scowled at him even as the blood hummed under her skin. “That arrogant routine doesn’t work for me. I said it was the wine.”

“You won’t blame what I can do to you on the wine,” he promised. He tilted his hands so that his thumbs traced the vulnerable fold between thigh and crotch. “You won’t blame it on the wine when I make you scream.”

“I won’t scream.” But her head fell back as a moan tore through her lips. “I can’t breathe when you do that.”

“Then don’t. Don’t breathe.” He lifted her up until her breasts were above water, and his hands busy below. He dipped, caught one dripping point between his teeth. “I’m going to take you. You’re going to let me.”

“I don’t want to be taken, unless I take back.” But even as her arms came around him, he ripped her to peak, made her body buck and her arms go limp.

“Not this time.” He was suddenly ravenous for her, just this way, limp and open and mindless.

“How do you do that?” Her voice was weak and slurred.

He nearly chuckled, though the need was growing painful. Saying nothing, he stood, lifted her. Her eyes fluttered open as he carried her out of the bath.

“I want you in bed,” he said. “I want you wet, inside and out. I want to feel your body tremble when I touch you.” He laid her down, fastened his mouth on her throat. “And taste you.”

She felt drunk, too loose for control, too pliant for shock, as his hands got busy again. She bucked, she reached for him, but he slipped away, sliding down her damp body, hands fast, mouth urgent. She couldn’t keep up. Now her body was tight, a white-knuckled fist, ready to strike. She came abruptly, violently, and didn’t hear her own scream.

He took what he wanted. Everything. His blood pounded harder and hotter every time he dragged her over the next edge. Their flesh was wet with sweat now as he drove them both ruthlessly.

When the need to be inside of her was unbearable, he pulled her up, parted her legs until they clamped around his waist. And when her arms were around him as well, clinging, her body trembling hard against his, he gripped her hips and filled her in one deep stroke.

His mouth found her breast, felt the wild, ragged beat of her heart beneath the damp flesh. And when she climaxed again, vising around him like silk-coated iron, he held himself back.

“Look at me.” He arched her back, watching as her body shuddered, her hips moved. Arousal built fresh as he took himself deeper into her. “Look at me, Eve.” He stroked his hands over her, molding each curve again while he continued to thrust, slow, steady. His breath came in pants. His control vibrated on a thin, fraying wire.

She opened her eyes. They were glazed, heavy, but they watched him. “You’re the one,” he said, and braced himself over her. “You’re the only.”

His mouth swooped down to hers, found it eager and open as he emptied himself into her.

For once, he slept first. She lay in the dark, listening to him breathe, stealing a little of his warmth as her own body cooled. Since he was asleep, she stroked his hair.

“I love you,” she murmured. “I love you so much, I’m stupid about it.”

With a sigh, she settled down, closed her eyes, and willed her mind to empty.

Beside her, Roarke smiled into the dark.

He never slept first.

CHAPTER TWELVE

In his midtown office high above the city, Roarke dealt with his last meeting of the morning. As originally scheduled, he should be concluding this business in Rotterdam, but he had arranged to take the meeting holographically so as to remain close to home. Close to Eve.

He sat at the head of his gleaming conference table, aware that his image sat at a similar one an ocean away. His assistant sat on his left, feeding him the necessary hard copy for his approval and signature. His translator sat on his right, as backup, should there be any problem with the computer headset’s language program.

The board of ScanAir filled the other seats. Or their images did. It had been a very good year for Roarke Enterprises and its subsidiaries. It had not been a good year nor a good several years for ScanAir. Roarke was doing them the favor of buying them out.

From the stony expressions on several holographic faces, they were not entirely grateful.

The company needed to be right-sized, which meant several of the cushier positions would be adjusted in salary and responsibility. Some would be eliminated altogether. He had already hand-picked several men and women who were willing to relocate to Rotterdam and whip the skyline back into shape.

As the computer-generated translation of the contract droned in his ears, he watched the faces, the body language. Occasionally, he conferred with his translator for subtleties and syntax.

He already knew every phrase, every word of the buyout agreement. He wasn’t paying what the board had hoped for. Then again, they had hoped his examination of the company wouldn’t turn up some of the more delicate — and well-hidden — financial difficulties.

He couldn’t blame them for that. He would have done the same. But his examinations were always thorough and turned up everything.

He signed his name on each copy, added the date, then passed the contracts to his assistant for her to witness and seal. She rose, fed the contacts into a laser fax. Seconds later, the copy was across the ocean and being signed by his counterpart.

“Congratulations on your retirement, Mr. Vanderlay,” Roarke said pleasantly when the countersigned and witnessed copies were faxed back to him. “I hope you’ll enjoy it.”

This was acknowledged by a brief nod and a short formal statement. The holograms winked off.

Roarke eased back, amused. “People aren’t always grateful when you give them large quantities of money, are they, Caro?”

“No, sir.” She was tidy, with hair shockingly white and gloriously styled. She rose, taking both the hard copy and the record disc of the transaction for filing. Her trim, rust-colored suit showed off beautifully shaped legs. “They’ll be less grateful when you turn ScanAir into a financial success. Within a year, I’d say.”

“Ten months.” He turned to the translator. “Thank you, Petrov, your services were invaluable, as always.”

“My pleasure, sir,” He was a droid, created by one of Roarke’s science arms. His body was slim, garbed in a well-cut dark suit. His face was attractive, but not distractingly so, and formed to simulate trustworthy middle age. Several of his line were leased by the UN.

“Give me an hour, Caro, before the next. I have some personal business to tend to.”

“You have a one o’clock lunch with the department heads of Sky Ways to discuss the absorption of ScanAir, and the publicity strategies.”

“Here, or off site?”

“Here, sir, in the executive dining hall. You approved the menu last week.” She smiled. “In anticipation.”

“Right. I remember. I’ll be there.” He moved through the side door and into his office. Before going to the desk, he engaged locks. It wasn’t strictly necessary. Caro would never come in unannounced, but it paid in certain areas to be cautious. The work he intended to do couldn’t go on his log. He would have preferred to handle it at home, but he was squeezed for time. And so, he thought, was Eve.

At his desk unit, he engaged the jamming field that would block any scan by CompuGuard. The law frowned on unauthorized hacking, and the penalties were stiff.

“Computer, membership data, Church of Satan, New York City branch, under direction of Selina Cross.”

Working… That data is protected under religious privacy act. Request denied.

Roarke only smiled. He’d always preferred a challenge. “Oh well, I think we can change your mind about that.” Prepared to enjoy himself, he slipped off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work.

Downtown, Eve paced Dr. Mira’s pretty, designed-to-soothe office. She was never completely relaxed there. She trusted Mira’s judgment; she always had. More recently, she had come to trust the doctor on a personal level. As much as it was possible. But it didn’t make her relax.

Mira knew more about her than anyone. More, Eve suspected than she knew about herself. Facing someone with that kind of intimate knowledge wasn’t relaxing.

But she hadn’t come to talk about personal matters, Eve reminded herself. She was here to talk murder.

Mira opened the door and stepped in. Her smile was slow and warm and personal. She always looked so… perfect, Eve decided. Never too glossy, never undone, never less than competent. Today, instead of her customary suit, Mira wore a slim, pumpkin-colored dress with a single-button matching coat of the same above-the-knee length. Her shoes were of a slightly darker tone and boasted the skinny heels that Eve always marveled a woman would wear by choice.

Mira offered both hands, a gesture of affection that simultaneously baffled and pleased Eve.

“It’s good to see you back in fighting shape, Eve. No problem with the knee?”

“Oh?” With a faint frown Eve glanced down, remembering the injury she’d suffered while closing a recent case. “No. The MTs did a good job. I’d forgotten about it.”

“A side affect of your job.” Mira settled in one of her scoop chairs. “I’d think it would be a bit like childbirth.”

“Excuse me?”

“The ability to forget the pain, the trauma to both body and mind, and go on to do the same thing again. I’ve always believed women make good cops and doctors because they’re inherently resilient that way. Won’t you sit, have some tea, tell me what I can do for you?”

“I appreciate you fitting me in.” Eve sat, shifted restlessly. She always felt inclined to bare her soul once she was settled in this room with this woman. “It’s about a case I’m working on. I can’t give you many details. There’s an internal block.”

“I see.” Mira programmed tea. “Tell me what you can.”

“One subject is a young woman, eighteen, very bright, and apparently very impressionable.”

“It’s an age for explorations.” Mira took out the tea steaming fragrantly in delicate china cups, offered one to Eve.

Eve would drink it, but she wouldn’t particularly like it. “I suppose. The subject has family. Close family. Though the father is out of the picture, there is extended family — grandparents, cousins, that kind of thing. She wasn’t — isn’t,” Eve corrected, “alone.”

Mira nodded. Eve had been alone, she thought, brutally alone.

“The subject had an interest in ancient religions and cultures, was studying same. Over the past year, she developed a certain interest in the occult.”

“Hmm. That’s also fairly typical. Youth often explores various creeds and beliefs in order to find and cement their own. The occult, with its mystique and its possibilities is very attractive.”

“She became involved in Satanism.”

“As a dabbler?”

Eve frowned. She’d expected Mira to show some surprise or disapproval. Instead, she was sipping tea with that slight attentive smile playing around her mouth. “If that means was she toying with it, I’d say she went deeper.”

“Initiated?”

“I’m not sure what that involves.”

“Depending on the sect, there would be slight variations. Broadly, it would entail a waiting period, the taking of vows, a physical mark on the body, generally on or near the genitalia. The initiate would be accepted into the coven with a ceremony. There would be an altar, a human one, probably female, within a circle. The princes of hell would be called while the initiate or initiates knelt. Symbolism would include flame, smoke, the ringing of a bell, graveyard dirt, preferably from an infant. They would be given water or wine mixed with urine to drink, then the high priest or priestess would mark the initiate with a ceremonial knife.”

“An athame.”

“Yes.” Mira smiled, as though pleased with a bright student. “And though it’s illegal, if the coven is able, they will then sacrifice a young goat. With some, the blood of the goat is mixed with wine and consumed. Once done, the coven engages in sex. The altar may be used by all or many. It would be considered both a duty and a pleasure.”

“Sounds like you’ve been there.”

“No, but I was allowed to observe a sabbat ceremony once. It was quite fascinating.”

“You don’t actually believe that stuff.” Stunned, Eve set the cup aside. “Calling up the devil.”

Mira lifted a smoothly arched brow. “I believe in good and evil, Eve, and I don’t by any means discount the likelihood of an ultimate good, or an ultimate evil. In my profession, and yours, we see too much of both to deny it.”

Humans committed evil, Eve thought. Evil was human. “But devil worship?”

“Those who choose to focus their lives — and shall we say souls — on this creed generally do so for its freedom, its structure, and its celebration of selfishness. Others are seduced by the promise of power. And many by the sex.”

“It was just sex.” That’s what Wineburg had said, had sobbed, Eve remembered, before he died.

“Your young woman, Eve, was likely drawn in first by the intellect. Satanism is centuries old, and like most pagan religions, predates Christianity. Why does it survive, and in some eras even prosper? It’s filled with secrets and sins and sex, its rites are mysterious and elaborate. She would have wondered, and coming from a close and likely sheltered homelife, was at an age ripe for rebellions against the status quo.”

“The ceremony you described was similar to one she described to me. But she had only begun to observe and she was sexually used. She was a virgin, and was, I suspect drugged.”

“I see. There are always sects that diverge from the established rules of law. Some can be dangerous.”

“She had blanks, time losses, and became almost slavishly devoted to two of the members. She backed away from her family and her studies. Until she witnessed the ritual murder of a child.”

“Human sacrifice is an old practice, and a deplorable one.” Mira sipped delicately. “If drugs were involved, it’s highly possible she was made an addict, dependent upon these people. That would explain the blanks. I take it the murder she witnessed shocked her away from the cult and its rituals.”

“She was terrified. She didn’t go to her family, didn’t report the incident. She ran to a witch.”

“A white witch? A Wiccan?”

Eve compressed her lips. “She did what I expect would be considered a religious one eighty. Started burning white candles instead of black. And she lived in terror, claimed that one of the membership could turn into a raven.”

“Shape-shifting.” Thoughtfully, Mira rose to program more tea. “Interesting.”

“She believed they would kill her, had killed someone close to her, though that death is for now officially listed under natural causes. I have no doubt they tormented her, found a way to play on her delusions and fears. I’m thinking some of that came from her own sense of guilt and shame.”

“You could be right. Emotions influence the intellect.”

“Just how much?” Eve demanded. “Enough for her to see things that weren’t there? Enough for her to run from an illusion into the path of an oncoming car and kill herself?”

Mira sat again. “She’s dead then. I’m sorry. Are you quite sure she ran from an illusion?”

“A trained observer was on the scene. There was nothing there. Except,” Eve added with a twist of her lips, “a black cat.”

“The traditional familiar. That alone might have been enough to push her over the edge. Even if the cat was planted in order to frighten her, you would have a difficult time terming it homicide.”

“They played on her mind, drugged her, possibly used hypnosis. They tormented her with tricks and ‘link transmissions. Then they pushed her over. Damned if that isn’t murder. And I will make it stick.”

“Taking religion, particularly religions the masses don’t wish to acknowledge, into court won’t be easy.”

“I don’t care about easy. The people behind this cult are dirty. And I believe they have killed four people in the last two weeks.”

“Four.” Mira paused, set the cup down. “The body that was left near your home. The details in the media were sketchy. It’s connected?”

“Yeah. He was an initiate, and he had his throat slit by an athame. It was left in him, stuck in his groin with a note that condemned Satanism. He was strapped to an inverted pentagram.”

“Mutilation and murder.” Mira pursed her lips. “If it was Wiccans, it’s very much out of character. Very much against their creed.”

“People do things out of character and against their creeds all the time,” Eve said impatiently. “But at this time, I suspect a member or members of his own cult. Another man was killed last night with an athame. We held it from the morning reports, but it’ll be all over the media within a couple of hours. I was on scene, chasing him down. I didn’t run fast enough.”

“He was killed quickly, without ritual? With a police officer in pursuit?”.Mira shook her head. “A desperate or arrogant move. If this was committed by the same people, it shows a growing boldness.”

“And maybe a taste for it. Blood becomes addictive. I want to know where the weaknesses are in the kind of personality who runs a cult like this. I’ve got a female, long yellow sheet involving illegal sex and drug trafficking. Bisexual. She heads up the club, lives well. Her companion is a well-built male who caters to her. She likes to show off,” Eve added, remembering the fire trick. “She claims to be clairvoyant. She’s edgy, with a slippery temper.”

“Pride would likely be the first weakness. If she’s in a position of power and authority, she would likely take disrespect badly. Is she clairvoyant?”