Loyalty in Death (5 page)

“Yeah.”

“European style’s a bit different,” he commented as he walked to a display cabinet. “The U.S. had two hand blasters during that period, the second — toward the end of the war — was lighter, more accurate.”

He chose a piece with a long double over-and-under barrel and molded grip in a dull gray. “Infrared sight, heat-seeking directional. The blast can be toned down to stun — which would drop a two-hundred-pound man to his knees and have him drooling for twenty minutes — or tuned up to shoot a fist-sized hole in a charging rhino. It can be pinpointed or scattered to wide range.”

He turned the weapon over, showing Eve the controls on either side. She held out her hand, testing the weight when Roarke passed the weapon to her.

“Can’t weigh more than five pounds. How does it charge?”

“Battery card in the butt. Same principle as a clip on an old-fashioned automatic.”

“Hmm.” She turned and tried it in the rack. It slid in, settled snug, like a foot in a comfortable shoe. “Looks like a winner. Are there many of these around?”

“That depends on if you choose to believe the U.S. government, which claims that the vast majority were confiscated from its troops and destroyed. But if you believed that, you wouldn’t be the cynic I know and love.”

She grunted. “I want to test this out. You’ve got a battery card, right?”

“Of course.” He picked up the gun and rack himself, walked to the wall, and opened the panel. Frowning a little, Eve got on the elevator with him.

“Don’t you have to go back to work?”

“That’s the beauty of being the boss.” He smiled as she hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “What’s this about?”

“I’m not sure. Probably a waste of time.”

“We don’t get to waste nearly enough time together.”

The doors opened to the lower-level target range with its high ceilings and sand-colored walls. He hadn’t indulged his appreciation for comfort here. This room was spartan and efficient.

Roarke ordered the lights, set the rack on a counter area on the long glossy black console. He took a slim battery card from a drawer. He slid it into a slot on the butt of the weapon, gave it a quick shove with the heel of his hand.

“Fully charged,” he told her. “You’ve only to activate. A thumb flick on the side here,” he showed her. “Set your preferences and let it rip.”

She tried it out, nodded. “It’s fast, efficient. If you were worried about an attack, you’d have it on, already set.” Experimentally, she laid it against her own weapon harness. “With decent reflexes, you could have it out, aimed, and fired in seconds. I want to discharge it a couple of times.”

He opened another drawer, took out earplugs and safety goggles. “Hologram or still target?” Roarke asked as she put them on, then laid his palm on the identiscreen so that console lights glowed on.

“Hologram. Give me a couple of guys, night scene.”

Obligingly, Roarke programmed the target range, then settled back to enjoy the show.

He’d given her two bulky men who were nonetheless fast on their feet. Their images came at her from both sides. With a quick pivot, she blasted them both.

“Too easy,” she complained. “You’d have to be a one-armed moron with a vision impairment to miss with this thing.”

“Try it again.” He reprogrammed while she balanced on the balls of her feet and tried to imagine herself a scared old man getting ready to run.

The first one came at her fast, out of the shadows, and head-on. She shifted, firing in a crouch, then swiveling around in anticipation. It was closer this time. The second man had a steel bat lifted, had started into his swing. She rolled clear, fired up, and took his face off.

“Christ, I love to watch you work,” Roarke murmured.

“Maybe he wasn’t as fast,” she considered as she rose. “Maybe they knew about the blaster. But it would’ve given him the edge. And I had it on pinpoint. If he’d put it on wide range, he’d have taken out half the block in one swing.”

To demonstrate, she switched it herself, then using a two-handed grip sprayed the street scene. The vehicle parked on the opposite curb went up in flames, window glass shattered, alarms screamed.

“See?”

“As I said.” He stepped forward to take the weapon from her. Her hair was a tousled mess, and in the hard light every shade upon shade, every tone upon tone in the mix of brown showed. “I do love watching you work.”

“They didn’t just step up and knock him cold when he had one of those,” she insisted. “They had to distract him, send in a decoy or someone he trusted. They needed enough time to blindside him and not get blown to hell while they were at it. He didn’t have a vehicle, and he didn’t call for transport. I checked. So he’d’ve been on foot. Armed, ready, street savvy. But they took him out as quick and easy as plucking a Nebraskan tourist’s pocket in Times Square.”

“You’re sure it was quick and easy?”

“He had a blow to the head, no defensive wounds. If he’d fired that thing and the blast didn’t go into someone, there’d be a sign of the discharge. It isn’t neat.”

She blew her hair out of her eyes, shrugged. “Maybe he was just old and slow after all.”

“Not everyone reacts to fear clearheadedly, Lieutenant.”

“No, but I’d have bet the bank he would.” She moved her shoulders again. “I say they were armed. One of them drew his attention.” She began to set a new program herself as she thought it through. To put herself more into the scene she was devising, she removed her safety gear. “When he’s focused on that target…”

She took the weapon back from Roarke, engaged the program, slid herself into it. One man slipping out of the shadows, swing toward him, reach for your weapon. Even as she flicked it on, pivoted, she felt the slight shock of a computer hit on her upper shoulder.

She’d gotten off a shot, that was true, she mused as she absently rubbed her shoulder. But she was young and fit, and her mind was cool.

“He was old and scared, but he figured himself tough, too smart for them. But they flanked him, somewhere between his door and the subway stop. He goes for one, and the other stuns him. A stun’s not going to show up on autopsy unless it was a severe shock to the nervous system. They don’t need that. They just need to jolt him, then they can knock him out and haul him off.”

She laid the weapon down. “Anyway, I’ve got some answers. I just have to figure out where they fit.”

“Then I take it this little demonstration is concluded.”

“Yeah. I’m just going to — Hey,” she protested when he reached out and yanked her against him.

“I’m remembering the first time with you.” He expected her to resist a little, at first. It would only make her surrender sweeter. “It started right here.” He lowered his mouth to graze her cheek, sampling the taste he intended to devour. “Nearly a year ago. Even then, you were everything I wanted.”

“You just wanted sex.” Even as she twisted, she angled her head so that his clever mouth could skim down her throat. Under her skin dozens of pulse points awakened.

“I did.” He chuckled as his hands roamed down to mold and squeeze. “I still do. Always with you, darling Eve.”

“You’re not going to seduce me in the middle of a workday.” But he was circling her toward the elevator, and she wasn’t putting up much of a fight.

“Did you take a lunch break?”

“No.”

He leaned back long enough to grin. “Neither did I.” Then his mouth was hot and demanding on hers, taking her in quick, greedy gulps that had her nerve ends going from alert to sizzle.

“Oh hell,” she muttered and groped clumsily for her communicator with one hand while she hung onto him with the other. “Wait, stop. Hold it a minute. Block video.” She let out a breath. God, the man could do the most amazing things with his tongue. “Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.”

He dragged her into the elevator, pressed her against the wall, and savaged her neck.

Dispatch, acknowledged.

“I’m taking an hour personal time.” She bit back a moan when his hand closed roughly over her breast. And his other hand slipped between her legs, the heel pressed firmly against her where the heat built fever bright.

The first helpless orgasm had her fighting a scream.

Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, on personal time. Affirmative. Dispatch out.

She barely managed to end transmission before he was tugging her shirt open. She fumbled for the release on her weapon harness, then grabbed a handful of his hair. “This is crazy,” she panted. “Why do we always want to do this?”

“I don’t know.” He swung her out of the elevator, then into his arms for the quick trip across the room to the big bed. “I just thank God for it.”

“Put your hands on me. I want your hands on me.” And they were, even as she fell beneath him onto the bed.

“A year ago.” His lips traced over her face, along her jaw. “I didn’t know your body, your moods, your needs. Now I do. It only makes me want you more.”

It was insane, she thought dimly, as she met his mouth with the same urgent hunger that touching him, tasting him, always caused this deep ache to grind inside her.

Whether they loved fast and furious such as now, or with sweeping tenderness, that ache, that want never seemed to lessen.

He was right. He knew her body now, as she knew his. She knew where to touch to make his muscles tense, where to stroke to make them quiver. And that knowledge, that familiarity was unbearably seductive.

She knew what he would bring her, this time, every time, whether it was a slow, burning build or one breathless burst: pleasure, deep and dazzling, with the excitement that shimmered around it.

He found her breast, giving himself the thrill of taking her into his mouth. Soft, firm, his. Her back bowed, her breath caught, and beneath his busy tongue, her heart hammered.

His hand closed around the teardrop diamond she wore — a symbol that she had learned to take what he so needed to give her.

Then they rolled, tugging at clothes so flesh could slide and stroke torturously against flesh.

Her breathing quickened, firing his blood. She who was strong and steady could be made to tremble under him. He could feel her body straining toward release, see in her face those flickers of shock and delight as it built.

As he took her over, he closed his mouth over hers and swallowed her long, shuddering moan.

It wouldn’t be enough. Even as her system started that lovely glide toward contentment, she knew he would drive her back up again. Drive her to where every pulse in her body pounded, every nerve sparked.

Braced and ready, she reached for him, struggling to give back even as her mind shattered and emptied, her system careened helplessly back into the heat.

She said his name, only his name, and arched up to take him inside her. The joining was smooth, and it was hot. Agile, eager, she pistoned her hips to meet each thrust. She could drive him as well as be driven. His fingers clamped down on hers, locked tight. Another layer of intimacy.

She could see in his eyes, so wildly blue, that he was as lost as she in this moment, this magic.

Only you. She knew he thought it, even as she did. Then those glorious eyes went opaque. With one breathless cry, she clung to his hands and threw herself over with him.

He lowered himself, sighing as he stretched out to rest his head between her breasts. Beneath him her body had gone lax as water. He knew she’d spring up soon enough, throw on her clothes, and go back to the work that consumed her.

But for now, for just a few moments more, she was content to drift.

“You should come home for lunch more often,” he murmured.

She laughed.

“Fun time’s over. I’ve got to get back.”

“Mm-hmm.” But neither of them made a move to rise. “We have dinner at eight at The Palace with some top-level staff and their spouses from one of my transportation arms.”

She frowned a little. “Did I know that?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. I’ve got this thing at seven.”

“What thing?”

“Will reading. At B. D. Branson’s.”

“Ah. No problem, I’ll shift dinner to eight-thirty and we’ll go by Branson’s first.”

“There’s no we here.”

He lifted his head from her breast, smiled. “I think I just proved you wrong.”

“It’s a case, not sex.”

“All right, I won’t have sex with you at Branson’s, but it might have been interesting.”

“Look, Roarke — “

“It simply makes sense, logistically.” He gave her cheek a pat and rolled aside. “We’ll go from Branson’s to the hotel where dinner is set.”

“You can’t just sit in on a will reading. It’s not a public event.”

“I’m sure B. D. has some comfortable place where I can wait for my wife without intruding, if that’s necessary. As I recall, he has a very spacious home.”

She didn’t bother to grumble. “I guess you know him.”

“Of course. We’re competitors — not unfriendly ones.”

She blew out a breath as she sat up and eyed him. “I’ll see if the lawyer approves it, so pending that, fine. And maybe later, you’ll give me your opinion of the Branson brothers.”

“Darling, I’m always delighted to help.”

“Yeah.” This time she did grumble. “That’s what worries me.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Eve fidgeted in the back of the limo. It wasn’t the mode of transport she’d have chosen when she considered herself on duty. The fact was, she preferred being at the wheel when she was on the clock. There was something just plain decadent about streaming along in a mile-long limo under any circumstances, but in the middle of an investigation, it was, well, embarrassing.

Not that she would use the words decadent or embarrassing to Roarke. He’d enjoy her dilemma entirely too much.

At least the long, somewhat severe black dress she wore was suitable enough for both a will reading and a business dinner. It was straight and simple, covering her from neck to ankle. She considered it practical, if foolishly expensive.

But there was no place to strap on her weapon without looking ridiculous, no place for her badge but the silly little evening purse.

When she squirmed again, Roarke draped an arm over the backseat and smiled at her. “Problem?”

“Cops don’t wear virgin wool and ride in limos.”

“Cops who are married to me do.” He skimmed a finger over the cuff beneath the sleeve of her coat. He enjoyed the way the dress looked on her — long, straight, unadorned so that the body under it was quietly showcased. “How do you suppose they know the sheep are virgins?”

“Ha ha. We could have taken my ride.”

“Though your current vehicle is a vast improvement over your last, it hardly provides this kind of comfort. And we wouldn’t have been able to fully enjoy the wines that will be served with dinner. Most importantly…” He lifted her hand, nipped at her knuckles. “I wouldn’t be able to nibble on you along the way.”

“I’m on duty here.”

“No, you’re not. Your shift ended an hour ago.”

She smirked at him. “I took an hour’s personal time, didn’t I?”

“So you did.” He shifted closer, and his hand slid up her thigh. “You can go back on the clock when we get there, but for now…”

She narrowed her eyes as the car swung to the curb. “I haven’t gone off the clock, ace. Move your hand, or I’ll have to arrest you for assaulting an officer.”

“When we get home, will you read me my rights and interrogate me?”

She snorted out a laugh. “Pervert,” she muttered and climbed out of the car.

“You smell better than a cop’s supposed to.” He sniffed at her as they walked toward the dignified entrance of the brownstone.

“You squirted that stuff on me before I could dodge.” He tickled her neck, made her jerk back. “You’re awfully playful tonight, Roarke.”

“I had a very satisfying lunch,” he said soberly. “Put me in a cheerful mood.”

She had to grin, then cleared her throat. “Well, shake it off, this isn’t exactly a festive occasion.”

“No, it’s not.” He stroked an absent hand down her hair before ringing the bell. “I’m sorry about J. C.”

“You knew him, too.”

“Well enough to like him. He was an affable sort of man.”

“So everyone says. Affable enough to cheat on his lover?”

“I couldn’t say. Sex causes the best of us to make mistakes.”

“Really?” She arched her brows. “Well, if you ever feel like making a mistake in that area, remember what an annoyed woman can do with a Branson power drill.”

“Darling.” He gave the back of her neck a quick squeeze. “I feel so loved.”

A solemn-eyed maid opened the door, her slick, black jumpsuit conservatively cut, her voice smooth and faintly British. “Good evening,” she began with the faintest of nods. “I’m sorry, the Bransons aren’t accepting visitors at the moment. There’s been a death in the family.”

“Lieutenant Dallas.” Eve took out her badge. “We’re expected.”

The maid studied the badge for a moment, then nodded. It wasn’t until Eve saw the quick jitter in the eyes that indicated a security probe that she tagged the maid as a droid.

“Yes, Lieutenant. Please come in. May I take your coats?”

“Sure.” Eve shrugged out of hers, then waited until the maid neatly laid it and Roarke’s over her arm.

“If you would follow me. The family is in the main parlor.”

Eve glanced around the foyer with its atrium ceiling and graceful curve of stairs. Urban landscapes done in spare pen and ink adorned the pearl gray walls. The heels of her dress boots clicked on tiles of the same hue. It gave the entranceway and wide hall a misty, sophisticated ambiance. Light slanted down from the ceiling like moonbeams through fog. The staircase, a pure white sweep, seemed to be floating unsupported.

Two tall doors slid silently into the wall at their approach. The maid paused respectfully at the entrance. “Lieutenant Dallas and Roarke,” she announced, then stepped back.

“How come we don’t have her instead of Summerset?”

Eve’s muttered question earned her another light neck squeeze from her husband as they walked into the room.

It was high-ceilinged, spacious, the lighting muted. The monochromatic theme carried through here, this time in layers of blue from the delicate pastels of fan-shaped conversation pits to the cobalt tiles of the fireplace where flames flickered.

Silver vases of varying sizes and shapes were arranged on the mantel. Each held white lilies. The air was ripely funereal with their scent.

A woman rose from the near curve of the seating area and crossed the sea of carpet toward them. Her skin was white as the lilies against her black suit. She wore her wheat-colored hair pulled severely back, knotted at the nape in smooth, snaking twists, in a way only the most confident and beautiful of women would dare. Unframed, her face was stunning, a perfect creation of planed cheekbones, slim, straight nose, smooth brow, shapely, unpainted lips all set off with large, lushly lashed eyes of dark violet.

The eyes grieved.

“Lieutenant Dallas.” She held out a hand. Her voice reminded Eve of her skin — pale and smooth and flawless. “Thank you for coming. I’m Clarissa Branson. Roarke.” In a gesture that was both warm and fragile, she offered him her free hand so that, for a moment, the three of them stood joined.

“I’m very sorry about J. C., Clarissa.”

“We’re all a little numb. I saw him just this weekend. We had… we all had brunch on Sunday. I don’t — I still don’t — “

As she began to falter, B. D. Branson stepped up, slid an arm around her waist. Eve watched her stiffen slightly, saw the gorgeous eyes lower.

“Why don’t you get our guests a drink, darling.”

“Oh yes, of course.” She released Eve’s hand to touch her fingers to her temple. “Would you like some wine?”

“No, thanks. Coffee, if you have it.”

“I’ll arrange for some to be brought in. Excuse me.”

“Clarissa’s taking this very hard,” Branson said quietly, and his gaze never left his wife.

“She and your brother were close?” Eve asked.

“Yes. She has no family, and J. C. was as much a brother to her as he was to me. Now we only have each other.” He continued to stare at his wife, then seemed to pull back into himself. “I didn’t make the connection until you’d left my office today, Lieutenant. Your connection to Roarke.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Not at all.” He managed a small smile for Roarke. “We’re competitors, but I wouldn’t say we’re adversaries.”

“I enjoyed J. C.,” Roarke said briefly. “He’ll be missed.”

“Yes, he will. You should meet the lawyers, so we can get on with this.” A bit grim around the mouth now, he turned. “You’ve spoken with Suzanna Day.”

Catching Branson’s eye, Suzanna came over. Handshakes were brisk and impersonal before Suzanna ranged herself beside Branson. The final person in the room rose.

Eve had already recognized him. Lucas Mantz was one of the top and priciest criminal defense attorneys in the city. He was trim, slickly attractive, with waving hair of streaked white on black. His smile was cool and polite, his smoky eyes sharp and alert.

“Lieutenant. Roarke.” He nodded to both of them, then took another sip from the straw-colored wine he carried. “I’m representing Ms. Cooke’s interests.”

“She didn’t spare any expense,” Eve said dryly. “Your client figuring on coming into some money, Mantz?”

His eyebrows lifted in an expression of amused irony. “If my client’s finances are in question, Lieutenant, we’ll be happy to provide you with records. Once you provide a warrant. The charges against Ms. Cooke have been filed and accepted.”

“For now,” Eve told him.

“Why don’t we get on with the business at hand.” Branson once more looked toward his wife who was directing the maid to position the coffee cart. “Please, let’s sit down.” He gestured toward the seating area.

Once they took their places and coffee was served, Clarissa sat beside her husband, her hand clinging to his. Lucas Mantz shot Eve one more cool smile, then settled on the far end. Suzanna sat in a facing chair.

“The deceased left personal bereavement discs to his brother and sister-in-law, to Ms. Lisbeth Cooke, and to his assistant, Chris Tipple. Those discs will be hand delivered to the appropriate parties within twenty-four hours of the reading of his will. Mr. Tipple was advised of tonight’s reading but has declined to attend. He is… unwell.”

She took a document out of her briefcase and began.

The opening was technical and flowery. Eve doubted the language for such things had changed in two centuries. The formal acknowledgment of one’s own death had a long tradition, after all.

Humans, she thought, had a tendency to start planning for their end well in advance. And to be pretty specific about it. There was the betting pool with life insurance. I bet so much a month that I’ll live till I die, she mused.

Then there were cemetery plots or cremation urns, depending on your preferences and income. Most people bought them in advance or gave them as gifts, picking out a sunny spot in the country or a snazzy box for the den.

Buy now, die later.

Those little details changed with the fashions and societal sensibilities. But one constant in the business end of life to death appeared to be the last will and testament. Who got what and when and how they got all the goodies the dead had managed to accumulate through the time fate offered.

A matter of control, she’d always thought. The nature of the beast demanded control be maintained even after death. The last grip on the controls, the last button pushed. For some, she imagined, it was the ultimate insult to those who had the nerve to survive. To others, a last gift to those loved and cherished during life.

Either way, a lawyer read the words of the dead. And life went on.

And she who dealt with death on a daily basis, who studied it, waded through it, often dreamed of it, found the whole business slightly offensive.

The minor bequests went on for some time, giving Eve a picture of the man who’d enjoyed foolish chairs and purple dressing gowns and carrot pasta with peas and cream sauce.

He’d remembered the people who’d had a part in his routine, from his doorman to the ‘link operator at his office. He left his attorney, Suzanna Day, a Revisionist sculpture she had admired.

Her voice hitched over that, then Suzanna cleared her throat and continued.

“To my assistant, Chris Tipple, who has been both my right and left arms, and often most of my brain as well, I leave my gold wrist unit and the sum of one million dollars, knowing he will treasure the former and make good use of the latter.

“To my beautiful and beloved sister-in-law, Clarissa Stanley Branson, I leave the pearl necklace my mother left to me, the diamond heart brooch that was my grandmother’s, and my love.”

Clarissa began to weep silently into her hands, her slender shoulders shaking even when her husband draped his arm around them.

“Hush, Clarissa,” Branson murmured in her ear, barely loud enough for Eve to hear. “Control yourself.”

“I’m sorry.” She kept her head lowered. “I’m sorry.”

“B. D.” Suzanna paused, casting Clarissa a glance of quiet sympathy. “Would you like me to stop for a few moments?”

“No.” Jaw set, mouth grim, he kept his arm firmly around his wife and stared straight ahead. “Please, let’s finish.”

“All right. To my brother and partner, B. Donald Branson.” Suzanna took a breath. “The disposition of my share of the business we ran together is set down in a separate document. I acknowledge here that all my interest in Branson Toys and Tools is to be transferred into his name upon my death should he survive me. If he should predecease me, that interest is to be transferred to his spouse or any children of that union. In addition, I hereby bequeath to my brother the emerald ring and diamond cufflinks that were our father’s, my disc library including but not exclusive to all family images, my boat the T and T, and my air cycle in the hopes he’ll finally try it out. Unless, of course, he was right, and my crashing it is the reason this will is being read.”

Branson made a sound, something that might have been a short, strained laugh, then closed his eyes.

“To Lisbeth Cooke.” Suzanna’s voice chilled several degrees as she spared Mantz one glimmering stare of dislike. “I leave all the rest of my personal possessions, including all cash, bank and credit accounts, real estate, financial holdings, furnishings, art, and personal property. Lissy my love,” Suzanne continued, biting off the words, “don’t grieve too long.”

“Millions.” Branson got slowly to his feet. His face was deathly pale, his eyes brilliant. “She murders him and stands to gain millions. I’ll fight this.” Hands clenched, he turned on Mantz. “I’ll fight this with everything I have.”

“I understand your distress.” Mantz rose as well. “However, your brother’s wishes were clearly and legally outlined. Ms. Cooke has not been charged with murder but with second-degree manslaughter. There are legal precedents that protect her inheritance.”

Branson bared his teeth. Even as he lunged. Eve sprang up to block him. Before she could, Roarke was doing so.

“B. D.” Roarke spoke calmly, but he had Branson’s arms pinned firmly to his sides. “This won’t help you. Let your lawyer handle it. Your wife’s very distraught,” he continued as Clarissa curled into a ball and wept wildly. “She should lie down. Why don’t you take her upstairs, give her a soother.”

The bones in Branson’s face stood out in sharp relief, so keen it seemed they might cut right through the flesh. “Get out of my house,” he ordered Mantz. “Get the hell out of my house.”