Rapture in Death

CHAPTER NINE

Eve wasn't one for breaking rules, yet she found herself standing outside the locked door of Roarke's private room. It was disconcerting to realize that after a decade of going by the book, she could find it so easy to circumvent procedure.

Do the ends justify the means? she wondered. And are the means really so out of line? Maybe the equipment in the room beyond was unregistered and undetectable to Compuguard and therefore illegal, but it was also top of the line. The pathetic electronics budgeted to the Police and Security Department had been antiquated nearly before it was installed, and Homicide's slice of the budget pie was stingy and stale.

She tapped her fingers on her pocket where the disc rested and shifted her feet. The hell with it, she decided. She could be a law-abiding cop and walk away or she could be a smart one.

She placed her hand on the security screen. "Dallas, Lieutenant Eve."

The locks disengaged with a quiet snick and opened into Roarke's huge data center. The long curve of windows, which were shielded against sun and flybys, kept the room in shadows. She ordered lights, secured the door, and walked over to face the wide, U-shaped console.

Roarke had programmed her palm and voice print into the system months before, but she'd never used the equipment alone. Even now that they were married, she felt like an intruder.

She made herself sit, snugged the chair into the console. "Unit one, engage." She heard the silky hum of high-level equipment responding and nearly sighed. Her disc slid in smoothly, and within seconds had been decoded and read by the civilian unit. "And so much for our elaborate security at NYPSD," she muttered. "Wall screen on full. Display data, Fitzhugh File H-one two eight seven one. Split screen with Mathias File S-three oh nine one two."

Data flowed like water onto the huge wall screen facing the console. In her admiration, Eve forgot to feel guilty. She leaned forward, scanning birth dates, credit ratings, purchasing habits, political affiliations.

"Strangers," she said to herself. "You couldn't have had less in common." Then her lips pursed as she noted correlations on a section of purchasing habits. "Well, you both liked games. Lots of on-line time, lots of entertainment and interactive programs." Then she sighed. "Along with about seventy percent of the population. Computer, split screen display, brain scan both loaded files."

With an almost seamless segue, Eve was studying the images. "Increase and highlight unexplained abnormalities."

The same, she mused, eyes narrowed. Here the two men were the same, like brothers, twins in the womb. The burn shadow was precisely the same size and shape, in precisely the same location.

"Computer, analyze abnormality and identify."

Working… Incomplete data… Searching medical files. Please wait for analysis.

"That's what they all say." She pushed away from the console to pace while the computer juggled its brain. When the door opened, she spun around on her heel and very nearly flushed when Roarke walked in.

"Hello, Lieutenant."

"Hi." She dipped her hands in her pockets. "I – ah – had some trouble with my unit at Cop Central. I needed this analysis, so I… I can put a hold on it if you need the room."

"No need for that." Her obvious discomfort amused him. He strolled to her, leaned down, and kissed her lightly. "And no need for you to fumble through an explanation as to why you're using the equipment. Digging for secrets?"

"No. Not the way you mean." The fact that he was grinning at her increased the embarrassment level. "I needed something a little more competent than the tin cans we have at Cop Central, and I figured you'd be gone for a couple more hours."

"I got an early transport back. Need some help with this?"

"No. I don't know. Maybe. Stop grinning at me."

"Was I?" His grin only widened as he slid his arms around her and tucked his hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "How was your lunch with Dr. Mira?"

She scowled. "Do you know everything?"

"I try. Actually, I had a quick meeting with William, and he mentioned that Reeanna had run into you and the doctor. Business or pleasure?"

"Both, I guess." Her brows lifted as his hands got busy on her butt. "I'm on duty, Roarke. Your hands are currently rubbing the ass of a working cop."

"That only makes it more exciting." He shifted to nibble her neck. "Want to break a few laws?"

"I already am." But she turned her head instinctively to give him better access.

"Then what are a few more?" he murmured and slid his hand out of her pocket and around her body to cup her breast. "I love the feel of you." His mouth was trailing along her jawline toward her mouth when the computer beeped.

Analysis complete. Display or audio?

"Display," Eve ordered and wiggled free.

"Damn," Roarke sighed. "I was so close."

"What the hell is this?" Hands fisted on her hips, Eve scanned the display on the view screen. "It's gibberish. Fucking gibberish."

Resigned, Roarke sat on the edge of the console and studied the display himself. "It's technical; medical terms, primarily. A bit out of my realm. A burn, electronic in origin. Does that make sense?"

"I don't know." Thoughtfully, she tugged on her ear. "Does it make sense for a couple of dead guys to have an electric burn hole in the frontal lobe of their brains?"

"Some fumbling with the equipment during autopsy?" Roarke suggested.

"No." Slowly, she shook her head. "Not on two of them, examined by different MEs in different morgues. And they're not surface flaws. They're inside the brain. Microscopic pinpricks."

"What's the relationship between the two men?"

"None. Absolutely none." She hesitated, then shrugged. He was already involved in a peripheral manner, why not drag him into the center? "One of the men is yours," she told him. "The autotronics engineer from the Olympus Resort."

"Mathias?" Roarke pushed off the console, his half-amused, half-intrigued expression going dark. "Why are you investigating a suicide on Olympus?"

"I'm not, officially. It's a hunch, that's all. The other brain your fancy equipment's analyzing is Fitzhugh's. And if Peabody can untangle the red tape, I'll plug in Senator Pearly's."

"And you expect to find this microscopic burn in the senator's brain?"

"You're a quick study, Roarke. I've always admired that about you."

"Why?"

"Because it's annoying to have to explain everything step by step."

His eyes narrowed. "Eve."

"All right." She held up her hands, let them fall. "Fitzhugh just didn't strike me as the type to do himself. I couldn't close the case until I'd explored all the options. I've been running out of options. I might have put it to bed anyway, but I kept thinking about that kid hanging himself."

She began to pace restlessly. "No predisposition there, either. No obvious motive, no known enemies. He just has himself a snack and makes a noose. Then I heard about the senator. That makes three suicides without logical explanations. Now, for people like Fitzhugh and the senator, with their kind of financial base, there's counseling at the snap of a finger. Or in cases of terminal illness – physical or emotional – voluntary self-termination facilities. But they took themselves out in bloody and painful ways. Doesn't fit."

Roarke nodded. "Go on."

"And the ME on Fitzhugh came up with this unexplained abnormality. I wanted to see if, on the off chance, the kid had anything like it." She gestured to the screen. "He does. Now I need to know what put it there."

Roarke shifted his eyes back to the screen. "Genetic flaw?"

"Possibly, but the computer says unlikely. At least it's never come across anything like it before – through heredity, mutation, or outside causes." She moved behind the console, scrolled the screen. "See there, in the projection of possible mental affects? Behavioral alterations. Pattern unknown. A lot of help that is."

She rubbed her eyes, thought it through. "But that says to me that the subject could, and likely would, behave out of pattern. Suicide would be out of pattern for these two men."

"True enough," Roarke agreed. Leaning back against the console, he crossed his legs at the ankles. "But so would dancing naked in church or kicking elderly matrons off a sky walk. Why did they both choose self-termination?"

"That's the question, isn't it? But this gives me enough, once I figure out how to spin it to Whitney, to keep both cases open. Download data to disc, print hard copy," she ordered, then turned to Roarke. "I've got a few minutes now."

His brow quirked, a habitual gesture she secretly adored. "Do you?"

"Which laws did you have in mind to break?"

"Several, actually." He glanced at his watch as she stepped forward to unbutton his elegant linen shirt. "We have a premiere in California tonight."

Her fingers stopped, her face fell. "Tonight."

"But I think we have time for a few misdemeanors first." With a laugh, he scooped her off her feet and laid her back on the console.

Eve was tugging on a floor-length, siren-red sheath and complaining bitterly about the impossibility of wearing so much as a scrap of underwear under the clinging material when her communicator beeped. Naked to the waist, with the flimsy bodice hanging to her knees, she pounced.

"Peabody?"

"Sir." Several expressions passed over Peabody's face before it went carefully blank. "That's a lovely dress, Lieutenant. Are you premiering a new style?"

Baffled, Eve looked down, then rolled her eyes. "Shit. You've seen my tits before." But she set the communicator down and struggled the bodice into place.

"And may I say, sir, they're quite lovely."

"Sucking up, Peabody?"

"You bet."

Eve stifled a chuckle and sat on the edge of the sofa in the dressing room. "Report?"

"Yes, sir. I… ah…"

Noting that Peabody's eyes had shifted and glazed over, Eve glanced over her shoulder. Roarke had just walked into the room, damp from his shower, tiny beads of water glistening on his bare chest, a white towel barely hitched at his hips.

"Stay out of view, will you, Roarke, before my aide goes brain dead."

He looked toward the communicator screen, grinned. "Peabody, hello."

"Hi." Even over the unit, her swallow was audible. "Nice to see you – I mean, how are you?"

"Very well, and you?"

"What?"

"Roarke." Eve heaved a sigh. "Give Peabody a break, will you, or I'll have to block video."

"You don't have to do that, Lieutenant." Voice rusty, Peabody deflated as Roarke slipped out of view. "Jesus," she said under her breath and grinned foolishly at Eve.

"Settle your hormones, Peabody, and report."

"Settling, sir." She cleared her throat. "I've untangled most of the bureaucratic tape, Lieutenant. Just a couple more snags. At this juncture, we should have the requested data by oh nine hundred. But we have to go to East Washington to view it."

"I was afraid of that. All right, Peabody. We'll catch the shuttle at oh eight hundred."

"Don't be foolish," Roarke said from behind her while he critically studied the lines of the dinner jacket he held. "Take my transport."

"It's police business."

"No reason to squeeze yourselves into a tuna can. Traveling in comfort doesn't make it less official. In any case, I've some business I can see to in East Washington myself. I'll take you." He leaned over Eve's shoulder, smiled at Peabody. "I'll have a car sent for you. Seventy forty-five? Is that convenient?"

"Sure." She wasn't even disappointed that he was now wearing a shirt. "Great."

"Listen, Roarke – "

"Sorry, Peabody." He cut Eve off smoothly. "We're running a bit late here. See you in the morning." Reaching over, he manually disengaged the communicator.

"You know, it really pisses me off when you do that kind of thing."

"I know," Roarke said equably. "That's why it's irresistible."

"I've spent half my life on one sort of transport or another since I met you," Eve grumbled as she settled into her seat in Roarke's private Jet Star.

"Still cranky," he observed, and signaled the flight attendant. "My wife needs another dose of coffee, and I'll join her."

"Right away, sir." She slipped into the galley with silent efficiency.

"You really get a bang out of saying that, don't you? My wife."

"I do, yes." Roarke tipped her face up with a fingertip and kissed the shallow dent in her chin. "You didn't sleep enough," he murmured, rubbing his thumb under her eye. "You so rarely turn off that busy brain of yours." He flicked a glance up at the flight attendant as she set steaming coffee on the table in front of them. "Thank you, Karen. We'll take off as soon as Officer Peabody arrives."

"I'll inform the pilot, sir. Enjoy your flight."

"You don't really have to go to East Washington, do you?"

"I could have handled it from New York." He shrugged, lifted his coffee. "Personal attention always has more impact. And I have the added benefit of watching you work."

"I don't want you involved in this."

"You never do." He lifted her cup, handed it to her with an easy smile. "However, Lieutenant, I'm involved with you, and therefore you can't shut me out."

"You mean you won't be shut out."

"Precisely. Ah, here's the redoubtable Peabody now."

She came aboard pressed and polished, but spoiling the effect with her jaw hanging open as she swiveled her head right and left in an attempt to see everything at once.

The cabin was as plush and sumptuous as a five-star hotel, with deep, cushy seats and gleaming tables, the glint of crystal holding flowers so fresh they gleamed with dew.

"Stop gaping, Peabody, you look like a trout."

"Nearly finished, Lieutenant."

"Don't mind her, Peabody, she woke up surly." Roarke rose, disconcerting Peabody until she realized he was offering her a seat. "Would you care for coffee?"

"Well, ah, sure. Thanks."

"I'll fetch it and leave you two to discuss your work."

"Dallas, this is… ultra."

"It's just Roarke," Eve muttered into her coffee.

"Yeah, like I said. Ultra."

Eve glanced up as he came in with more coffee. Dark and gorgeous and just a bit wicked, she thought. Yeah, she supposed, ultra was the word all right. "Well, strap in, Peabody, and enjoy the ride."

The takeoff was smooth, and the trip was short, providing Peabody with just enough time to fill Eve in on the details. They were to report to the office of the Chief of Security for Government Employees. All data would be viewed in house, and nothing could be transferred or transported.

"Fucking politics," Eve complained as they jumped into a cab. "Who are they protecting, for Christ's sake? The man's dead."

"Standard CYA procedure. And there are always plenty of asses to cover in East Washington."

"Fat asses." Eve eyed Peabody consideringly. "Been to East Washington before?"

"Once, when I was a kid." Peabody moved her shoulders. "With my family. The Free-Agers staged a silent protest against artificial insemination of cattle."

Eve didn't bother to muffle a snort. "You're full of surprises, Peabody. Since you haven't been here in a while, you may want to take in the scenery. Check out the memorials." She gestured as they whizzed by the Lincoln Memorial and its throng of tourists and street hawkers.

"I've seen plenty of videos," Peabody began, but Eve lifted her brows.

"Check out the scenery, Peabody. Consider it an order."

"Sir." With what on another face might have been considered a pout, Peabody turned her head.

Eve nipped a card recorder out of her bag and tucked it under her shirt. She doubted security was so tight it would involve X rays or a strip search. And if it did, she'd simply claim she always carried her spare on her person. Eve flipped a glance at the driver, but the droid had her eyes bland and on the road.

"Not a bad town for sightseeing," Eve commented as they veered onto the vehicle bypass of the White House where the old mansion could just be seen through reinforced gates and steel bunkers.

Peabody swiveled her head, looked dead into Eve's eyes. "You can trust me, Lieutenant. I thought you knew that."

"It's not a matter of trust." Because she heard the hurt in Peabody's voice, Eve spoke gently. "It's a matter of not being willing to put anyone's ass but my own in a sling."

"If we're partners – "

"We're not partners." Eve inclined her head, and there was authority in her tone now. "Yet. You're my aide, and you're in training. As your superior, I decide how far your butt sticks out in the wind."

"Yes, sir," Peabody said stiffly and made Eve sigh.

"Don't get your briefs in a twist, Peabody. There'll come a time when I'll let you take your lumps with the commander. And believe me, he's got a hell of a punch."

The cab pulled over to the curb outside the gates of the Security Building. Eve shoved credits through the safety slot, climbed out, and approached the view screen. She placed her palm on the plate, slipped her badge into the identification slot, and waited for Peabody to mirror the procedure.

"Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and aide, appointment with Chief Dudley."

"One moment for verification. Authorization confirmed. Please place all weapons in holding bin. Warning. It is a federal offense to bring any weapons into the facility. Any individual entering with a weapon in his or her possession will be detained."

Eve slipped her police issue out of her holster, then, with some regret, bent down to take her clinch piece out of her boot. At Peabody's bland look, she shrugged. "I started carrying a spare after my experience with Casto. A clinch piece might have saved me some grief."

"Yeah." Peabody dumped her standard-issue stunner in the bin. "I wish you'd blasted the son of a bitch."

Eve opened her mouth, closed it again. Peabody had been careful not to mention the Illegals detective who'd charmed her, bedded her, and used her while he'd killed for profit.

"Look," Eve said after a moment. "I'm sorry about the way things went down there. If you want to vent about it sometime – "

"I'm not much of a venter." Peabody cleared her throat. "Thanks, anyway."

"Well, he'll be stretching those long legs of his in lockup into the next century."

Peabody's mouth curved grimly. "There is that."

"You are cleared to enter. Please step through the gate, proceed to the autotram on the green line for transport to second level clearing."

"Jesus, you'd think we were going to see the president instead of some suit-and-tie cop." Eve walked through the gate that efficiently shut and bolted behind them. She and Peabody settled down on the stiff plastic seats of the tram. With a mechanical hum, it sped them through bunkers and into a steel-walled passageway that angled down until they were ordered to step out into an anteroom filled with harsh, artificial light and walls of view screens.

"Lieutenant Dallas, Officer." The man who approached wore the smoke gray uniform of Government Security with the rank of corporal. His blond hair was buzz cut so close his pale white scalp peeked through. His thin face was equally pale, the skin tone of a man who spent his time indoors and underground.

His uniform shirt bulged under hefty mountains of biceps.

"Leave your bags with me, please. No electronic or recording devices are permitted beyond this point. You are under surveillance and will remain so until you leave the facility. Understood?"

"Understood, Corporal." Eve handed him her bag, then Peabody's, and pocketed the receipts he gave her. "Some place you've got here."

"We're proud of it. This way, Lieutenant."

After depositing the bags in a bomb-safe lockup, he led them to an elevator, programmed it for Section Three, Level A. The doors closed without a sound; the car ran with barely a trace of movement. Eve wanted to ask how much the taxpayers had paid for the luxury, but decided the corporal wouldn't appreciate the irony.

She was certain of it when they were deposited in a wide lobby decorated with foam scoop chairs and potted trees. The carpet was thick and undoubtedly wired for motion detection. The console at which three clerks busily worked was equipped with a full range of computers, monitors, and communications systems. The piped-in music was beyond soothing and edging toward mind dulling.

The clerks weren't droids, but they were so stiff and polished, so radically conservative in dress, that she thought they'd have been better off as automatons. Mavis, she thought with deep affection, would have been appalled at the lack of style.

"Reconfirmation of palm prints, please," the corporal requested, and obediently, Eve and Peabody laid their right hands flat on the plate. "Sergeant Hobbs will escort you from here."

The sergeant, tucked neatly into her uniform, stepped from behind the console. She opened another reinforced door and led the way down a silent corridor.

At the last checkpoint, there was a final screen for weapons, then they were key-coded into the chief's office.

Here was a sweeping view of the city. Eve supposed, after one glance at Dudley, that he considered it his city. His desk was as wide as a lake, and one wall flashed with screens spot-checking various areas of the building and grounds. On another were photos and holograms of Dudley with heads of state, royalty, ambassadors. His communications center rivaled the control room at NASA Two.

But the man himself cast the rest in shadow.

He was enormous, easily six seven and a beefy two seventy. His wide, rawboned face was weathered and tanned, with his brilliantly white hair cropped short. On hands as big as Virginia hams, he wore two rings. One was the symbol of military rank; the other was a thick gold wedding band.

He stood poker straight and studied Eve out of eyes the color and texture of onyx. For Peabody, he never spared a glance.

"Lieutenant, you're inquiring into the death of Senator Pearly."

So much for amenities, Eve thought and answered in kind. "That's affirmative, Chief Dudley. I'm investigating the possibility that the senator's death is connected to another case on which I am primary. Your cooperation in this matter is duly noted and appreciated."

"I find the possibility of a connection slim to none. However, after reviewing your record with NYPSD, I found no objection to allowing you to view the senator's file."

"Even a slim possibility bears investigating, Chief Dudley."

"I agree, and I admire thoroughness."

"Then, might I ask if you knew the senator personally?"

"I did, and though I did not agree with his politics, I considered him a dedicated public servant and a man with a strong moral base."

"One who would take his own life?"

Dudley's eyes flickered for a moment. "No, Lieutenant, I would say not. Which is why you're here. The senator has left behind a family. In the area of family, the senator and I were in harmony. Therefore, his apparent suicide does not fit the man."

Dudley touched a control on his desk, inclined his head to the view wall. "On screen one, his personal file. On screen two, his financial records. Screen three, his political file. You'll have one hour to review data. This office will be under electronic surveillance. Simply request Sergeant Hobbs when you've completed your hour."

Eve's opinion of Dudley was a little hum in her throat as he left the office. "He's making it easy for us. If he didn't particularly like Pearly, I'd say he respected him. Okay, Peabody, let's get to work."

She scanned the screens as her cop's eyes had already scanned the room. She was nearly certain she'd spotted all the security cameras and recorders, and taking a chance on a very uncomfortable detention, shifted so that her body was partially blocked by Peabody's.

She pulled the diamond Roarke had given her from under her shirt, ran it idly along its chain, and with her free hand slid the small recorder out, kept it pressed just at her throat as she aimed it at the screens.

"A clean life," she said aloud. "No criminal record whatsoever. Parents married, still living, still based in Carmel. His father did military time, ranked colonel, served during the Urban Wars. Mother an MT with time off as professional parent. That's a pretty solid upbringing."

Peabody kept her eyes on the screen and off the recorder. "Solid education, too. Graduate of Princeton, with post-grad work at the World Learning Center on Space Station Freedom. That was right at its conception, and only the top students could get in. Married at thirty, just before his first run for office. Adjusted Population advocate. Requisite one child, male."

She shifted her gaze to another screen. "His politics are dead center Liberal Party. Butted heads with your old friend DeBlass over the repeal of the Gun Ban and the Morality Bill DeBlass was pushing."

"I have a feeling I would have liked the senator." Eve turned slightly. "Scroll personal data to medical history."

The screen flipped, and the technical terms made her eyes want to cross. She'd have them translated later, she thought, if she managed to get out of the facility with the recorder.

"Looked like a healthy specimen. Physical and mental records show no abnormality. Tonsils treated in childhood, a broken tibia in his twenties as a result of a sport injury. Sight correction, standard, in middle forties. A permanent sterilization procedure during the same period."

"This is interesting." Peabody continued to scan the political screen. "He was endorsing a bill that would require all legal representatives and technicians to be rescreened every five years, at their own expense. That wouldn't sit too well with the legal community."

"Or with Fitzhugh," Eve murmured. "Looks like he was after the electronic empire, too. Tougher testing requirements for new devices, new licensing laws. That wouldn't have made him Mister Popularity, either. Autopsy report," she demanded, then narrowed her eyes when it flashed on screen.

She skimmed through the jargon, shook her head. "Boy, was he a mess when they scraped him up. Didn't leave them a hell of a lot to work with. Brain scan and dissection. Nothing," she said after a moment. No report here of an abnormality or flaw."

"Display," she demanded, and stepped closer to the screen to study the visual herself. "Cross section. Side view, enhance. What do you see, Peabody?"

"Unattractive gray matter, too damaged for transplant."

"Enhance right hemisphere, frontal lobe. Jesus, what a fucking mess he made out of himself. You just can't see. Can't be sure." She stared until her eyes burned. Was that a shadow, or was it simply part of the trauma caused when a human skull smashed brutally into concrete?

"I don't know, Peabody." She had all she needed, and she slid the recorder under her shirt again. "But I do know that there's no motive or predisposition for self-destruct in this data. And that makes three. Let's get the hell out of this place," she decided. "It gives me the creeps."

"I'm with you all the way on that one."

They got tubes of Pepsi and what passed for a hash sandwich at a glide-cart on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Security Row. Eve was just about to hail a transport back to the airport when a sleek black limo glided to the curb. The rear window slid down, and Roarke smiled out at them.

"Would you ladies like a lift?"

"Wow," was all Peabody could manage as she scanned the car from bumper to bumper. It was a gleaming antique, a luxury from another era, and as romantic and tempting as sin.

"Don't encourage him, Peabody." When Eve started to climb in, Roarke took her hand and tumbled her into his lap. "Hey." Mortified, she jabbed with her elbow.

"I love to fluster her when she's on duty," Roarke said, wrestling Eve back onto his lap. "And how was your day, Peabody?"

Peabody grinned, delighted to see her lieutenant flushed and cursing. "It just got better. If this thing has a privacy screen, I can leave you two alone."

"I said not to encourage him, didn't I?" This time her elbow had better aim, and Eve managed to slide off onto the seat. "Idiot," she muttered at Roarke.

"She dotes on me so." He sighed, settled back. "It's almost smothering. If you've finished your police business, can I offer you a tour of the city?"

"No," Eve said before Peabody could open her mouth. "Straight back to New York. No detours."

"She's a real party animal, too," Peabody said soberly, then neatly folded her hands and watched the city stream by.