The In Death Collection Books 16-20 - J. D. Robb [307]
She could see the two figures huddled together under the silk and lace of the coverlet. They’d fallen asleep, she thought bitterly. All cozy and warm and loose from sex.
Their clothes were tossed over a chair, messily, as if they’d been in a hurry to start. Seeing them, the tangle of clothes, broke her heart in hundreds of pieces.
Bracing against it, she strode to the bed, gripped the stunner in her hand. “Wake-up call, you piss-buckets.”
And whipped the silk and lace cover away.
The blood. Oh my God, the blood. The sight of it all over flesh, all over the sheets made her head spin. The sudden smell of it, of death, mixed with the scents of flowers and candles, made her gag and stumble back.
“Blair? Blair?”
She screamed once, shocking herself into action. Sucking in air to scream again, she lunged forward.
Something, someone, slipped out of the shadows. She caught the movement, and another smell—harsh, medicinal. It filled her throat, her lungs.
She turned, to flee or defend she wasn’t sure, and fought to swim through air that had gone to water around her. But the power had drained out of her limbs, numbing them seconds before her eyes rolled back in her head.
And she collapsed in a heap beside the dead who had betrayed her.
1 LIEUTENANT EVE DALLAS, one of New York’s top cops, sprawled naked with the blood beating in her ears and her heart pounding like an airjack. She managed to wheeze in a breath, then gave it up.
Who needed air when the system was revving from the aftermath of truly spectacular sex?
Beneath her, her husband lay warm and hard and still. The only movement was the knock of his heart against hers. Until he lifted one of those amazing hands and cruised it along her spine, from nape to butt.
“You want me to move,” she mumbled, “you’re out of luck.”
“I’d say my luck’s in.”
She smiled in the dark. She loved hearing his voice, the way Ireland shimmered through it. “Pretty good welcome home, especially since you were gone less than forty-eight hours.”
“It certainly put a nice cap on a short trip to Florence.”
“I didn’t ask, did you stop off in Ireland to see your—” She hesitated just a beat. It was still so odd to think of Roarke with family. “Your family?”
“I did, yes. Had a nice few hours.” He continued to stroke that hand, up and down, up and down her back so that her heartbeat slowed and her eyes began to droop. “It’s very strange, isn’t it?”
“I guess it will be, for a while yet.”
“And how’s the new detective?”
Eve snuggled in, thinking of her former aide and how she was handling her recent promotion. “Peabody’s good. Still finding her rhythm. We had a family dispute gone sour. Two brothers mixing it up over inherited property. Knocked the shit out of each other before one of them takes a header down the steps and breaks his stupid neck. So the other brother tries to mock it up like a bungled burglary. Tosses all this stuff they were fighting over in a blanket, hauls it out to his car, shoves it in the trunk. Like we’re not going to look there.”
The derision in her tone had him chuckling. Eve rolled off and stretched.
“Anyway, it was pretty much connect the big, pulsing red dots, so I put Peabody on as primary. After she started breathing again, she did fine. Sweepers were already sucking up evidence, but she takes this jerk in the kitchen, sits down with him all sympathetic—used all that family business she knows so well. Had him babbling out a confession in about ten minutes. Got him on Man Two.”
“Good for her.”
“It’ll help build her confidence.” She stretched again. “We could use a few more walks in the meadow like that one after the summer we put in.”
“You might take a few days off. We could walk in a real meadow.”
“Give me a couple of weeks with her. I want to make sure she finds her feet before I let her solo.”
“That’s a date, then. Oh, your . . . enthusiastic welcome, while much appreciated, drove this right out of my mind.