Naked in Death - J. D. Robb [0]
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
NAKED IN DEATH
A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1995 by Nora Roberts
This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.
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The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
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ISBN: 978-1-1012-0354-5
A BERKLEY BOOK®
Berkley Books first published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
Berkley and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.
Electronic edition: May, 2002
What’s past is prologue.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Violence is as American as cherry pie.
—RAP (HUBERT GEROLD) BROWN
chapter one
She woke in the dark. Through the slats on the window shades, the first murky hint of dawn slipped, slanting shadowy bars over the bed. It was like waking in a cell.
For a moment she simply lay there, shuddering, imprisoned, while the dream faded. After ten years on the force, Eve still had dreams.
Six hours before, she’d killed a man, had watched death creep into his eyes. It wasn’t the first time she’d exercised maximum force, or dreamed. She’d learned to accept the action and the consequences.
But it was the child that haunted her. The child she hadn’t been in time to save. The child whose screams had echoed in the dreams with her own.
All the blood, Eve thought, scrubbing sweat from her face with her hands. Such a small little girl to have had so much blood in her. And she knew it was vital that she push it aside.
Standard departmental procedure meant that she would spend the morning in Testing. Any officer whose discharge of weapon resulted in termination of life was required to undergo emotional and psychiatric clearance before resuming duty. Eve considered the tests a mild pain in the ass.
She would beat them, as she’d beaten them before.
When she rose, the overheads went automatically to low setting, lighting her way into the bath. She winced once at her reflection. Her eyes were swollen from lack of sleep, her skin nearly as pale as the corpses she’d delegated to the ME.
Rather than dwell on it, she stepped into the shower, yawning.
“Give me one oh one degrees, full force,” she said and shifted so that the shower spray hit her straight in the face.
She let it steam, lathered listlessly while she played through the events of the night before. She wasn’t due in Testing until nine, and would use the next three hours to settle and let the dream fade away completely.
Small doubts and little regrets were often detected and could mean a second and more intense round with the machines and the owl-eyed technicians who ran them.
Eve didn’t intend to be off the streets longer than twenty-four hours.
After pulling on a robe, she walked into the kitchen and programmed her AutoChef for coffee, black; toast, light. Through her window she could hear the heavy hum of air traffic carrying early commuters to offices, late ones home. She’d chosen the apartment years before because it was in a heavy ground and air pattern, and she liked the noise and crowds. On another yawn, she glanced out