The In Death Collection Books 6-10 - J. D. Robb [6]
“If Strobie’s finished vomiting, ask him the way to the master bedroom.”
“Down the hall to the left,” Peabody said a moment later. “But he’s still heaving out there.”
“Find him a bucket, then secure the elevator and this door.”
Eve started down the hall. The smell grew riper, thicker. She began to breathe through her teeth. The door to the bedroom wasn’t secure. Through the crack came a slash of bright artificial light and the majestic sounds of Mozart.
What was left of Brennen was stretched out on a lake-sized bed with a stylish mirrored canopy. One arm had been chained with silver links to the bedpost. Eve imagined they would find his feet somewhere in the spacious apartment.
Undoubtedly the walls were well soundproofed, but surely the man had screamed long and loud before he died. How long had it taken, she wondered as she studied the body. How much pain could a man stand before the brain turned off and the body gave out?
Thomas Brennen would know the answer, to the second.
He’d been stripped naked, his hand and both his feet amputated. The one eye he had left stared in blind horror at the mirrored reflection of his own mutilated form. He’d been disemboweled.
“Sweet Jesus Christ,” Peabody whispered from the doorway. “Holy Mother of God.”
“I need the field kit. We’ll seal up, call this in. Find out where his family is. Call this in through EDD, Feeney if he’s on, and have him put a media jammer on before you give any details. Let’s keep the details quiet as long as possible.”
Peabody had to swallow hard twice before she was sure her lunch would stay down. “Yes, sir.”
“Get Strobie and secure him before he can babble about this.”
When Eve turned, Peabody saw a shadow of pity in her eyes, then it was gone and they were flat and cool again. “Let’s get moving. I want to fry this son of a bitch.”
It was nearly midnight before Eve dragged herself up the stairs to her own front door. Her stomach was raw, her eyes burning, her head roaring. The stench of vicious death clung to her though she’d scrubbed off a layer of skin in the locker room showers before heading home.
What she wanted most was oblivion, and she said one desperate and sincere prayer that she wouldn’t see the wreckage of Thomas Brennen when she closed her eyes to sleep.
The door opened before she could reach it. Summerset stood with the glittery light of the foyer chandelier behind him, his tall bony body all but quivering with dislike.
“You are unpardonably late, Lieutenant. Your guests are preparing to leave.”
Guests? Her overtaxed mind struggled with the word before she remembered. A dinner party? She was supposed to care about a dinner party after the night she’d put in?
“Kiss my ass,” she invited and started passed him.
His thin fingers caught at her arm. “As Roarke’s wife you’re expected to perform certain social duties, such as assisting him in hosting an important affair such as this evening’s dinner.”
Fury outdistanced fatigue in a heartbeat. Her hand curled into a fist at her side. “Step back before I—”
“Eve darling.”
Roarke’s voice, managing to convey welcome, amusement, and caution in two words, stopped her curled fist from lifting and following through. Scowling, she turned, saw him just outside the parlor doorway. It wasn’t the formal black that made him breathtaking. Eve knew he had a leanly muscled body that could stop a woman’s heart no matter what he wore—or didn’t wear. His hair flowed, dark as night and nearly to his shoulders, to frame a face she often thought belonged on a Renaissance painting. Sharp bones, eyes bluer than prized cobalt, a mouth fashioned to spout poetry, issue orders, and drive a woman to madness.
In less than a year, he had broken through her defenses, unlocked her