Eve started her drive on auto to do a quick search of Olsen’s and Tredway’s files for a mention of the caterer. If she stayed on auto, she’d likely nod off, then end up sleeping in the car parked outside the house.
She’d rather be in bed.
She drove across town, cursing the traffic to help stay alert. Then let out a long sigh of relief when she drove through the gates.
Night had fallen when she’d done her second round in the crime scene, and low, sulky clouds smothered moon and stars. But the house, with all its turrets and towers, its dignified gray stone, glowed in welcome.
She wound up the drive, parked in front of the entrance, and let out one more sigh before grabbing her file bag. She stepped out of the car into the bitter wind and thought: Winter sucks. Pushed her way through the wind to the door, and stepped inside to warmth and light and quiet.
Where the bony figure of Summerset loomed in the foyer with the pudge of a cat at his feet.
Galahad trotted to her to slip and slide through her legs.
As she shrugged out of her coat, she eyed Summerset and thought of the ghoul costume.
“Where were you on the night of November twenty-eight?” she demanded.
He arched one elegant eyebrow. “I’ll have to check my calendar.”
“Never mind.” She pulled off her hat, her scarf, tossed them on the newel post with her coat. “That asshole needed makeup to pull off the ghoul. You’re a natural.”
Ridiculously pleased she’d had the energy and brainpower for some decent snark, she started upstairs. The cat bounded up with her.
She thought of her newly redone office with its already beloved command center—with an AutoChef that would provide coffee right there. But calculated she didn’t have the energy or brainpower to so much as set up her murder board, much less review her notes or add to them.
Instead, she aimed for the bedroom.
And there it was, the big, glorious bed.
She’d been fine with the way the bedroom looked before. Hell, a lot more than fine, she thought now, plus she’d gotten used to it.
But she couldn’t fault the newly painted walls in their soft, relaxing gray, the deeper tones used on the thick molding of the ceiling to sort of showcase the height of it, the punch of the sky window. She could hardly bitch about the deep blue sofa in the sitting area—the longer, wider sofa.
She didn’t know squat about floor plans and decor, really, but she couldn’t dig up a complaint about the arrangement of chairs—and the rich tones of them—that all but insisted you sit down, relax, and let the world go somewhere else for a while.
Even she could appreciate the intricately carved doors closing off a slick little bar, including AutoChef and friggie. Maybe she thought the expansive closet/dressing room was over the top, but it didn’t detract from the whole. And she knew both she and Roarke would enjoy the addition of a terrace outside of what the decorator called atrium doors.
But the real star of the room, in her book, was that big bed with its fancifully carved head- and footboard, all dressed in soft bronze and copper tones with mounds of fluffy pillows.
She didn’t stumble to it, but it was close. Then fell across it, facedown, and dropped straight into sleep.
Galahad gathered himself, leaped up. He padded across the duvet, sniffed at Eve’s hair. Apparently satisfied, he stretched himself across her waist as if to hold her in place. And began to purr.
Roarke walked in moments later.
“Down for the count, is she?” he said as Galahad blinked his bicolored eyes.
Shaking his head, Roarke moved to the bed, crouched, pulled off Eve’s boots. She didn’t so much as stir.
He lit the fire, sat to pull off his own boots. Snagging the cashmere throw from the foot of the bed, he tossed it over his wife. Waited for the cat’s head to pop out.
Then he stretched out beside Eve, and slept.
* * *
Dreams broke down defenses. For hours she’d blocked out the echoes, the murmurs, the emotions. But sleep undermined boundaries.
She was a child, lost and frightened, bloody and broken. Though she kept it cradled against her body, the arm her father had snapped before she’d killed him jarred with every step, wept with pain. It burned where he’d raped her; her face throbbed where he’d struck her.
Yet it seemed she floated, like a ghost. Like the dead.
She feared the dark. Terrible things hid in the dark, waited there, watched from there.
Would they swallow her whole, would she fall into the bottomless pit where the rats and spiders would eat her as her father had said?
Everything around her looked like something she’d seen through a dirty window, all smudged and blurry. And all the sounds came from far, far away.
Was he coming after her? Would he find her and drag her back to that cold, cold room with the flashing red light?
He would hurt her, he would hurt her, he would hurt her. Kill her. Kill.
She wanted to hide, wanted to sleep.
She tried. But they found her. She couldn’t fight, even when they made everything inside her scream at the pain, shriek with the terror.
Then the lights were too bright, burning her eyes, and the voices were too loud, banging in her head. Someone told her she was going to be all right, that she was safe. But she knew about lies.
Someone asked her for her name, but she had none to give.
There were hands on her, everywhere, and she smelled her own blood. Even as she screamed again, the dark came and took her in.
“Dreaming, just dreaming. You’re home, you’re safe. I’m here.”
Roarke gathered her close, and his voice, his scent, broke the hold of the past.
“I’m all right.”
He brushed his lips to her brow. “I wondered how long it would take. You held it back all day.”
“I could see it in her face, in her eyes.” Because she could, Eve burrowed into him while the cat bumped his head against her shoulder. “I know what she felt, I know what it is to be trapped in that kind of shock, to run with that kind of fear. It echoed inside me, all day, but I couldn’t do the job if I listened.”
“I know it.” He held her close, held her tight. “I know it.”
“You heard them, too. I can’t let it break me.”
“You haven’t, and you won’t.” He tipped her face to his, met her eyes. “You won’t. But it had to be acknowledged.”
“It took me years to remember, and there are still blank spots. She’s not a child, Roarke, but there’s something defenseless about her. I don’t know how much she’ll remember, if she’ll be able to give us details we can use.”
“She’s alive.”
“Yeah, she’s alive. Mira’s already seen her, and Daphne seems okay with that. She trusts Nobel, that’s clear, and seems all right talking to me. It helped her, I think, when I could tell her the man who did this wasn’t a devil. It was makeup, a disguise. A false face.”
“She’ll know, as well as you and I, there was a monster under the false face.”
“Yeah. Yeah, but she knows he’s real. Flesh and blood.” Steadier now, she reached back to scratch the loyal Galahad between the ears. “Did you get any sleep?”
“I’d say we both got a bit more than an hour. Or rather the three of us did.”
“That’s good. And it’s one checked off.”
“Checked off?”
“We slept in the fancy new bed.”
“On more like, but check.”
She brushed back his hair. “How about we check off number two?”
He smiled at her. “I’m always in favor of finishing off a checklist.”
He continued to smile when she pressed her lips to his, as he stroked a hand over her. “You’re still armed, Lieutenant.”
She slid her own hand down, found him. “You, too.”
He laughed as she rolled over, straddled him. Studying his face, she pulled off her jacket, hit the release on her weapon harness. “You know, the first time I walked in here and saw the bed—the other one—it was: Wow. This one’s an even bigger wow,” she continued as she tossed the jacket aside, draped the harness over the footboard. “But I liked that bed.”
“It’s still in the house.”
“Is it?”
“In one of the guest rooms. I have very fond memories of that bed as well,” he reminded her. “We can visit it whenever you like.”
“Huh.” Considering, she pulled off her sweater, tossed it after the jacket. “You know how they have those pub crawls?”
“I do, yes. Have participated more than once in my time.”
“I’ve always been more find a bar, stay there, and do the drinking you came to do in one spot. But … one of these days we should have a bed crawl through this house. We’ll see how you hold up, ace.”
He laughed again. “Challenge accepted.”
He drew her down to him.
And there it was, she thought, the real deal. Her place, her man, her heart, all right here. Wherever she’d been, whatever brutal the beginnings, however lost, however broken she’d once been, she’d found this. And this, this was worth every painful, bleeding step of the journey.
Overwhelmed by it, she cupped his face in her hands, poured herself into the kiss.
“Eve,” he murmured.
“I’m alive.” She pressed his hand to her heart. “I love you.”
“You’re everything. All. Only. Everything.”
He shifted her so they lay facing each other, so he could glide his hands over her to soothe, to awaken. Gently, tenderly.
His only.
Every sigh, every murmur, every small tremble of response took him deeper into the beauty. The way she drew his sweater away to run warm hands over his skin, the way her mouth fit perfectly to his. He counted the pulse beats in her throat when he tasted there, felt the way her warrior’s body softened.
How she looked watching him, with firelight in her whiskey-colored eyes.
He could make her want simply by existing. There’d been no one else who could ever hold her heart with no more than a look, a word. He’d given her a life beyond survival, beyond even the badge that had been her world, and the symbol of that survival.
He’d given her love when she hadn’t truly believed in it, had never felt worthy of it.
And he’d made her believe, absolutely, she’d given him the same.
Now there was pleasure, pure and theirs. Flesh against flesh, hands and lips stoking that warm, glowing fire until it snapped and burned.
She arched when he undressed her, offering. She wrapped tight around him, giving. Her lips sought his, taking.
And when, as breath quickened, as pulses tripped, he slipped inside her, they shuddered together.
“A ghrá,” he said, and her pounding heart melted.
With every rise and fall, it poured out for him.
When they lay quiet, bodies slack and tangled together, she sighed again. “It’s official. I really like this bed.”
He turned his face into the curve of her shoulder, brushing warm skin with his lips. “Here’s to many hours of checking off both one and two on the list.”
“I’m for that. But God, now I need a shower. It feels like days.”
“A shower, some wine, a meal, I’d say.”
“All over all of that.” Lazily, she combed her fingers through his hair. “I need to set up my board. Not much more I can do at this point, but I need to do at least that.”
“Wine and food in your office then. And you can fill me in on the details.”
“I wish there were more of them, but I’d like your take.”
It was amazing, she thought, what a solid hour’s sleep, really nice sex, and a long hot shower could accomplish. And when you topped that off with a glass of really superior wine, a thirty-six-hour stint didn’t seem too bad.
She let him choose the meal—it seemed fair—even resigned herself to eating whatever vegetables she found on her plate. And since he set it all up while she worked on her board, she drafted herself to do the cleanup.
Comfortable in flannel pants, a sweatshirt, and skids, she stepped back to study the board.
“You might wish there were more details, but that’s a comprehensive murder board at this early stage.”
“Maybe.” Now she walked away from it, to the stylish new table by the new balcony doors. “What’s for dinner?”
He lifted the warming domes.
Her heart sang a happy tune when she saw steaks, salted-skinned potatoes, and …
“What are those purple things?”
“Carrots.”
“Carrots are orange.”
“And purple.” He didn’t mention the turnips and cauliflower in the mix. He knew his quarry.
“Why would somebody dye a harmless carrot purple?”
“They’re not dyed, they’re natural. Have some more wine,” he said, topping off her glass, “and try them out.”
She went for the steak first, she was no fool, but cut off a small bite of the little purple thing. “It tastes like a carrot, herbed and buttered up or something, but carrot-like.”
“Because it is one.”
She shrugged, added enough butter for her potato to swim in. “I forgot. I brought you dessert.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah, a cinnamon bun. It’s in an evidence bag—in my file bag.”
“Yum.”
She shook her fork at him before dipping it into the pool of butter. “Trust me. It’s from the caterer—Jacko—who did the dinner party.”
“He has a fine reputation. Is he a suspect?”
She shook her head. “Alibied, and no way he fits or his wife or his daughter or any of the catering team I interviewed. Same with the rental company.”
“That’s a lot to eliminate in one day. So again, considerable progress.”
“I guess it is.” She glanced back at the board. “A lot of threads to be tied together or snapped off. I did find a connection.”
“What connection?”
“Both the caterer and the rental company have done jobs for the first vic—or rather his company. The vic himself didn’t use them, but it’s a link from the company to the latest victims. And his partner used them personally a couple times. I need to see if I can make that link to the second victims. The SVU detectives didn’t go there because there wasn’t a there to go to then. Now there is.”
“Wouldn’t that un-eliminate the caterer and the rental company?”
“It’s an avenue to explore,” she admitted, “but … I just don’t think so. Not directly. But somebody who’s used them, done some work for them, knows someone—or more than one person on the crews. It also links to the hospital. Strazza was a big wheel at St. Andrew’s, and Daphne volunteered there for a time. I can link both companies to the hospital for events. So that adds hospital staff to the mix. I’m going to talk to the first four victims tomorrow, and something may shake there.”
She applied herself to the steak. Sleep, sex, shower, wine, and red meat. It was enough to bring a tear to the eye.
“Daphne thinks she smelled sulfur during the attack. So did he add that—let’s give them the full hell treatment? Or did she imagine it as he’d set the stage? Either way, this fucker gets fully in character—that’s the term, right—he likes to be the monster he wraps himself in. So maybe he’s an actor, or a wannabe actor. Actors connect to first vic’s company.”
“So they do.”
“Actor, performance, reviews,” she said as she ate. “Plus, if we go by the wit statements, the disguise is first-rate, so he’s either talented there or he’s practiced a lot. Do actor types do their own makeup and costumes?”
“I imagine some do, and others might pick up some of the steps.”
“That’s how I see it. He had to do some stalking, some research on the vics, on the locations. The attacks went too smooth for him not to have planned them. He had to have known when to move in. Those are all upper-level neighborhoods, all the locations had solid security. Single-family residences, that’s a key. Wealthy married couple, that’s another. Seriously good-looking female vics, so he has a type. That could work a couple ways.”
“He’s jealous of the looks and wealth as he’s had neither,” Roarke suggested, “or he’s of the same social strata and sticks to his own kind, so to speak.”
Again, she wagged her fork at him. “Don’t blame me for saying you think like a cop when you do.”
“I think like a criminal—reformed. It’s basically the same.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “He likes to steal.”
“Well now, I can relate.”
Since she knew he could, she took it a step further. “Can you relate to taking valuables and not cashing in?”
Roarke thought it over while he drank some wine. “I can, to a point. If you don’t need the money, or if profit itself isn’t the goal, it’s quite satisfying to have trinkets around that you’ve lifted from elsewhere.”
“A kind of payback. I’ve got it now, sucker, you don’t?”
“It could be. Still, people routinely collect souvenirs, after all, to remind them of a trip, an event, something they enjoyed. It may be just that simple.”
“Nothing personal,” she muttered.
“It’s often not, even most usually not personal—from the perspective of the thief.”
Something, he knew, the cop he loved would never appreciate.
“But as he’s cleaned out a number of safes,” Roarke continued as Eve brooded, “he’d have to make himself a kind of Aladdin’s Cave for his spoils, wouldn’t he? That’s excessive.”
Now she frowned. “Which guy’s Aladdin?”
“Depending on the version, he’s a young thief who stumbles across a cave filled with treasures—amassed by bigger, badder thieves—and acquires a genie in a lamp.”
“Hmm. So hoarding, basically. That’s an angle. Maybe this guy’s hoarding all the loot, either because he’s just a sick bastard or because he’s a well-off sick bastard. And there was cash in every hit, so that would add to the well-off. Add e-skills, a risk-taker. And I’m betting he knew the layout of the Strazza house. He may have been inside previously. Maybe as a guest, maybe as some sort of worker.”
“Or he might have accessed the floor plans.”
“Those e-skills.” She nodded. “He walked right in, right up the stairs. He waited up there for close to three hours. Patience, that he’s got. But he’s a coward. Comes in from behind, gets his prey restrained before he starts on them. Pounds on them even when they cooperate, so he likes to hurt people. But the rape, that’s the main event. Raping the woman, making the spouse watch. Forcing her to say she likes it so the spouse can hear it. And terrorizing with the costume, adding that flourish.”
Roarke waited a beat—she was in the groove. “Why does he untie them when he’s done?”
“It only adds to how helpless they were, rubs their noses in the helplessness. Free them so they know he was always in control. Free them and they call for help—have to tell what happened. Reporting a rape, it’s another level of humiliation. You have to go back over it, relive it to tell it. He likes that part, too.
“It’s all part of it,” she added. “Invade their home, where they feel the safest—their bedroom, their most intimate and private space.”
Without thinking, she stabbed some cauliflower, ate it.
“Hurt them, take away their freedom, humiliate them, and make the male vic feel helpless, enraged, impotent while you violate the female. Stealing adds a layer. I can take whatever I want. Beat them unconscious before you release them so they wake in pain, in that shock and humiliation, and somehow worse, free again. It’s a big mind-fuck, start to finish.”
“And when you have him in the box, Lieutenant, you’ll show him what it is to be mind-fucked.”
“Damn straight I will.” She looked back at the board, at the victims. “Damn straight.”
* * *
She refined her notes, wrote reports, studied case files. At the end of it, the best she could do was lay out her plans for the next day. She’d interview the previous victims, tug hard on those connections, start exploring possible theater angles.
She had to hope a night’s sleep would help coalesce her thoughts enough to pull a solid theory out of them.
This time she got in the fancy new bed, and decided it was more than fine.
“Married couples so far, not cohabs. Does that matter?” She closed her eyes as Roarke’s arm draped over her. “No kids in the house. I think that matters. No pets, no kids—or absent human staff.”
“Let it go for the night.”
“Except the Strazzas had a houseful. So…”
She didn’t let it go so much as drop away.
* * *
When she woke just after dawn, it took her brain a minute to catch up with her eyes. New room, she reminded herself.
Roarke sat on the big sofa, fully dressed in one of his impeccable dark suits—apparently unconcerned about cat hair on the material, as the cat had deserted her, and was now stretched out on his back beside Roarke.
Roarke absently scratched Galahad’s exposed belly while he sipped coffee and watched the incomprehensible stock reports on screen.
They made a hell of a good-morning picture, she thought, the insanely gorgeous man in his emperor-of-the-business-world suit and the big cat riding on bliss at the touch of those skilled hands.
She could relate to the bliss.
He’d probably already had a couple of ’link or holo meetings, she mused. Might have bought Saturn for all she knew. But all in all, her biggest interest at the moment involved the fact that he had coffee, and she didn’t.
“Good morning,” he said when she pushed up to sit. “It’s bitter out, and they’re calling for snow—quite a bit of it—starting mid-morning.”
She said, “Ugh,” and stumbled her way to the AutoChef, remembered it wasn’t where it used it be, stared blankly at the carved doors.
“Touch either,” Roarke reminded her.
“Right.” She slapped at one and both popped open, and the interior lights gleamed on. She programmed coffee—all that currently mattered—and waited to down the first heady gulp.
“You’re going to have cat hair all over your million-dollar suit, pretty boy.”
“It’s easy enough to deal with, and it only cost a half million.”
“Ha.” She took the coffee into the bathroom, caffeinated and showered herself awake.
When she came out, wrapped in a red robe she’d never seen before—but it was as soft as a cloud, as warm as a hug—he’d already set up breakfast.
She knew, thanks to his handy weather report, she’d start the day with oatmeal.
At least it came with lots of berries and the crunchy stuff—and he’d added a side of bacon. Which explained why he’d banished the cat. Galahad now sat in front of the fire, industriously washing himself—and sending the human an occasional steely stare.
“It matters,” she said.
“Does it?”
“That the victims are married. It matters. I just need to figure out why.”
“Did you dream?”
“Just slept—and let me add another hot damn on that bed. Three assaults is pattern and purpose and profile. Typical escalation, and the murder comes off as of the moment. That wasn’t planned. Next time it will be.”
“Because there’s no going back, only forward.”
“Yep. Do you have any—trinkets—from back when?”
Walking his fingers down Eve’s arm, Roarke ate some bacon. “Now that’s a loaded question from a cop over breakfast. I did have a few, here and there,” he said with a shrug. “But I passed them on, you could say, when a cop came into my life—as she wouldn’t like it.”
“She wouldn’t have known.”
“I would have. As a former thief, I’d say if your suspect is indeed keeping all his spoils, he’s what you termed him last night. A hoarder. He doesn’t need to liquidate, so it’s not for the money—and a man can have plenty of that and enjoy taking more. Serials often take souvenirs, don’t they?”
“Yeah, but it tends to be something specific to the victim, a memento. This is more … Aladdin’s Cave … He’d need a place, and a private one. The jewelry alone is a serious haul. The dresses—he’s taken a cocktail dress from each vic—though I haven’t confirmed that with the Strazza hit. That’s more a souvenir, but it’s a weird one. A fancy dress, shoes, and an evening bag.”
“Costume.”
Eve poked Roarke’s shoulder. “What I’m thinking. Not for him—different body types, so I don’t think we’re after a cross-dresser—but maybe for a woman or a droid or just one of those dead bodies the stores use to display clothes.”
“Mannequins, darling Eve. Not dead bodies.”
“They look like DBs. Anyway, he’s got a lot of whacked-out layers to him. No pets, no kids, in-home safes, married couples, single-family residences with good security. They’ve got to be surrogates, it’s too specific otherwise.”
“You’ll talk to Mira.”
“Yeah, soon.” She glanced back, frowned.
“Problem?”
“It’s intimidating. The new closet deal.”
“Some would find it efficient and convenient—especially some who don’t care to ponder overlong on what to wear on any given day.”
“Yeah, well.” She rose. “I’m going for it.”
“Good luck.”
It was more a damn room than a closet to her eye. Sure, everything was set up in order, and that helped. All the fancy duds and the fancy stuff that went with them had their own area. She didn’t even have to acknowledge their existence, and sure as hell didn’t intend to use the closet comp to have them sliding forward on their magic rods, or to preview on screen how this sparkly dress went with those ridiculous shoes.
Intimidating, she thought again, and just a little embarrassing.
She stared at the line of jackets. Why did she have so many jackets? If you just had a couple, choosing wasn’t a problem. But there had to be more than a hundred jackets, all arranged in color groups, the blacks leading to the grays, the grays leading to the blues and right down the line.
It could give a person a headache.
“Aim for warmth,” Roarke said as he stepped in.
Plenty of room for him, she thought. Hell, they could throw a party in here. Serve drinks. Hire a band.
He pulled a jacket from the blue section. Navy blue, she observed, no fancy work.
“Now if you used the comp, it would make suggestions on what to pair it with.”
“How does it know?” But when he turned to it, she grabbed his arm. “No, it’s too much for the first time in here. I have to sort of ease into it.”
“I simply adore you,” he stated, but stilled her hand before she grabbed navy trousers. “Then you’d have a sort of uniform, wouldn’t you? These.” He pulled out brown trousers, a kind of rusty brown, then shifted to vests, pulled one that had the same tone with navy blue buttons, added a crisp, tailored white shirt.
He handed her the lot, selected boots, brown and sturdy.
“I was getting the hang of it before everything got bigger.”
“And you’ll get the hang of it again.” He kissed her cheek, left her to dress.
Maybe she would, she thought, but she didn’t think she’d be making friends with the closet comp anytime soon.
When she came out, strapped her weapon harness over the vest, Roarke gestured to the screen. “Reports and speculations re the Strazza assault/murder and the investigation.”
“Then I’d better get to it.” She pulled on the jacket, picked up her badge, her ’link, her comm, her restraints, added her clutch piece.
“You look completely competent.”
“Clothes don’t make the cop.”
“But they give her an aura. Take care of my competent cop.”
“Will do.” She stepped to him, kissed him. Then left him to get to it.