Random in Death (In Death, #58)

by J.D. Robb

He glanced out at the crowd as he had during the last song in the set, but still didn’t see Nadine. Probably headed for the john—and good luck with that, he thought. She earned big points for coming with him tonight. Rock It wasn’t a dive or a dump, but as clubs went, it clung to its Alphabet City roots. Never going to be fancy, never going upscale. And proud of it. But his ace reporter, bestselling writer, fucking Oscar-winning lady had come on a night that remained important to him and his friends, his bandmates.

Since Book 1!

When Lieutenant Eve Dallas wasn’t working a case, Saturday evenings often meant a vid, popcorn, and sex. With a Summerset-free house, as Roarke’s major domo and the hitch in her stride had the night out with friends—whoever they were—the sex portion of the evening arrived early in the game room.

In any case, after dinner on the patio, a walk through the gardens, sex in the game room, they settled down on the sofa, with the cat curled at their feet. She had Roarke, popcorn, wine, and an action vid with plenty of bangs and booms to cap off a Saturday at home. Knowing Roarke, she expected a second round of sex as an encore. And that suited her just fine.

The cat from book 1!

He talked now and then of adding a media room to the castle he’d built in the heart of New York City. But she liked this routine, stretched out or curled up together on the sofa in their bedroom sitting area with the cat purring in his sleep and her husband’s excellent body warm against hers.

Her life had taken a radical turn when he’d walked into it, she thought. She’d never get all the way used to it. Before Roarke, her life had been the job, and the job had been her life. Now she had two things she’d never expected, never looked for. Love and a home. And those two things, she’d come to realize, made her...

“We’re going through a lot of wine, pal.” “Safe and snug at home.” The mists of Ireland wove through his voice. “Something I intend to take advantage of in a bit of time.” “Is that so? Freeze screen,” she ordered, and rolled on top of him. So ridiculously gorgeous, she thought, with the carved-by-benevolent-gods face, the sculpted mouth, the wildly blue eyes. “No time like the right now.” She took that sculpted mouth, slid her free hand into the mane of black that framed his face.

Roarke set his glass beside the bottle, then nipped hers out of her hand to do the same. She laughed as he flipped her over, and with a grumble, Galahad slid off the couch. Then his hands were on her, slipping under her baggy Saturday-at-home T-shirt. And as the kiss turned greedy, she felt her need, the wine, the moment tie together in a single perfect thrill. Nipping at his jaw, she worked her hands between them to flip open the button of his jeans.

She walked back to Roarke. “Appreciate you circling the block like that.” “It’s a lovely night for a walk, if an ugly reason to need one.”

When they left, Roarke waited until they’d reached the car. Then he turned, wrapped his arms around Eve. “Give me a minute.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “I need it. Of all you do, of all I’ve seen or been part of, this duty, this horrendous weight, is the one I don’t know how you carry.”

“You just have to keep lifting it up. But I swear to Christ, Roarke, every time you do, it’s just a little heavier.

When they rang the bell, Charles, former licensed companion, now sex therapist, answered. “Well, look at this. Good to see you, Roarke. Lieutenant Sugar. Come on in. Louise just went to open another bottle of wine.”

Charles from book 1!

“Trying to look frosty. Bet you did that back when.” He smiled. “If your head’s down, you might miss a pocket ripe for the picking. In the game, it’s more important to look invisible, or at least innocent, rather than frosty.”

When he drove through the gates, she let out a sigh. “So much for a lazy weekend at home.” “We had almost half of one.” “Next time we both have one free, let’s make sure we get a whole one. We could go to the island.” When he parked, he leaned over, kissed her. “The very next.”

“You don’t have to get up at six. You have a free day.” “To paraphrase Ian, I go with the Boss Cop. No, not to the morgue.” Since she was fading, he guided her to the bed, where the cat sprawled. “But I’ll get you up, Lieutenant.” “’Kay.” She yanked off her boots, her clothes, and would’ve fallen facedown on the bed if he hadn’t pulled the spread off first. She was out before he slid in beside her. The cat stirred enough to rearrange himself. Roarke brushed his lips over her hair, closed his eyes. And dropped into sleep with her.

At six, he woke her with coffee, and even through the grogginess, she decided he was the most magnificent human in the history of humans. Enough so she set the coffee aside, crooked her finger. “C’mere.”

With her arms around his neck, she kissed him, long, slow, deep. “That’s exceedingly unfair when you’re soft and sleepy and naked.” “I know.” She dropped her heavy head on his sh...

When he kissed her goodbye, she leaned into him. “I probably won’t put in a full day. It’s harder to shake people loose on a Sunday.” “Either way, take care of my cop.” When she left, he turned to the cat. “What’s your Sunday look like then?” After a quick ribbon through Roarke’s legs, Galahad jumped on the sleep chair, stretched out. “Just as I expected.”

In New York, the carelessly rich and the quietly desperate breathed the same air.

“In those minutes when she was afraid and confused and hurting, someone was there with her. You were there with her. She heard your voice, she may not have understood the words, but she heard your voice. She saw your face, she felt your arms around her, and knew she wasn’t alone.

The heroin both she and Morris had suspected, along with ketamine, a trace of potassium chloride—something she knew had once been used in lethal injections before the outlawing of capital punishment. And the surprising addition of Rohypnol. Why add in a date-rape drug when death was the goal? The heroin, confirming Morris’s take, wasn’t Junk, not street-level, but high-octane, and not cut with any of the usual cheap agents. Death was the goal.

“What the hell is a dooser?” Eve demanded. “Oh, a cross between a dick and a loser.”

“No, but basically boring or awkward for weeb and tots are slutty types.”

On a laugh, he went under, grabbed her. And pulling her to him, met her mouth with his. Still locked together, they surfaced. Legs lazily kicking in tandem with his, she studied him. “You didn’t want me in something more comfortable. You wanted me naked.” “I’d be mad not to.”

“And your cap off to the nap included pool sex.” “Well now, naturally.” “Plus, it’s still Sunday.” “With more than enough time for Sunday pool sex before it’s Monday.”

He felt her heart race against his. “I’ll take a draw.” “Then you take me; I’ll take you.” Now she wrapped her legs around him and stole the rest of his breath with her lips. She bewitched him, delighted and enchanted him. And aroused him beyond all comprehension.

When he gripped the edge of the pool, he pressed her back to the wet wall. “Mine.” He touched his finger to the little dent in her chin, then skimmed it down, and down. “You’re all mine.” “Same goes. Now show me. Show me how much you want me.” He took her mouth first, let the hunger come, let it fill him to aching while she answered with equal fervor. And when her arms locked around his neck, she filled him.

He drove into her and watched the pleasure rush into her eyes, heard the echo of it in the catch and release of her breath. “Show me,” he said. Wanting to, wanting him, she kept her arms locked tight. Her hips moved, meeting and matching his thrusts while the water sparkled around them. His eyes, bluer, deeper than the water, held hers as everything in her opened for him, opened to him. It built and built, that glorious thrill, the d...

Still, she held him. She gave him more. “I love you.” On her words, the return of that love swirled into his eyes. When she tried it in Irish, his lips met hers with such tenderness her heart all but wept. “A ghrá.” He pressed his lips to her shoulder, to the side of her throat. And on love, took them both over. Blissful, she clung to him. She could feel his heartbeat slow again, as he...

“And we’ve probably still got some Sunday left.” “We do.” He’d have given the rest of his to help her set up her board, to let her bounce theories, timelines, whatever she needed. And for right now, knowing he would was enough.

“Why don’t we get some popcorn, more wine, and finish that vid?” He eased back, looked at her face. “That sounds perfect.” When they stretched out on the sofa, with popcorn, wine, and the cat, Eve thought: Everything else can wait until Monday.

She’d be a cop, and when she was a cop, she’d be somebody. She could get through twenty-two months, one week, and three days more, as long as at the end of it she climbed on a bus headed for New York.

“You don’t have another meeting?” “I do, and it’s breakfast with my wife. Pancakes, because whoever topples Big Bitch Brenda deserves them.”

She ran it through for him while she ate, and since it was right there, hit the bacon. And he kissed her cheek, so damn sweetly.

He grabbed Eve’s shoulders, pulled her into a kiss. “See you take care of my cop.” “I’m too old for him. Plus, I’m the one who took down Big Bitch Brenda.”

Then you’ve got traces of fucking potassium chloride. It’s overkill, it’s all overkill. Sick, twisted bastard son of a bitch. Used an infected needle on top of it. “See that?” The anger came through as he pointed to the screen again. “That’s Treponema pallidum.”

What he did here, what I’m seeing here, is he coated the needle with Treponema pallidum bacteria—with a chemical booster for fast action. It ain’t fatal, and she’d be dead before she showed any symptoms. But that’s the infection at the injection site.” “A roofie and an STD,” Eve murmured.

This took work, precision—and I mean precision—knowledge, and some goddamn skill. It’s fucking science. It’s bad science, fucking mean science, but it’s science.”

BEWARE THE LAB RATS! THEY’RE SMARTER THAN YOU.

She paid the ridiculous parking fee. “I need a cash machine.” “It looked like you had plenty.” “It’s Roarke’s.” “Isn’t most of the cash in all the world Roarke’s?” “Sure seems like it,” Eve muttered.

“You’d think a little rain ranked as one of those biblical plagues, like, what is it, locusts.” “Or water turning to blood.” “That’s ridiculous.” Wasn’t it? “That’s a plague?” “It’s a popular one. One of Egypt’s ten, and one of the seven predicted in Revelation.”

“I’m a cop, for Christ’s sake. I’ll kill you, quick and quiet, then plant evidence that implicates McNab. You’ll be dead; he’ll be in a cage for life.” “It could work,” the uniform crowbarred in behind them speculated.

“We’ll both see to her now, won’t we?” He sat on the side of the bed, skimmed a hand lightly over her hair. He took off his suit jacket, his tie, his shoes. Then lay down beside her. After setting his mental clock for ten minutes, he dropped into sleep with her.

He slid his hands into his pockets, felt the gray button he carried. A cheap suit, loose threads, and she’d given him a talisman he carried everywhere.

From book 1

“I suppose it is. Regardless, it should be somewhere in your Marriage Rules, that what we have, we share. The good and the bad of it.”

just need to pay you back. It doesn’t mean anything to you, a few hundred. But it does to me, especially since I damn well know I’m going to get comfortable and careless again. Then I’ll feel stupid, and annoyed with both of us, when you peel off a few hundred and hand it to me like I’m…” “My wife?”

She tried one more careful breath. “Your stupid, careless wife.” “You’re neither of those things. Hardheaded, hard-assed come to mind.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’d say we’re pretty evenly matched on that one.”

“Shit, I probably should’ve said that sometime along the way, probably a few dozen times. I am grateful you like what I hate, and I don’t have to carve out time for something I hate, like shopping.” “I don’t need thanks,” he began, but she shook her head. “Yes, you do.

It’s not you paying for them, because, Jesus Christ, I don’t want to think about what you paid for these boots. It’s embarrassing. Even a little horrifying. Or it would be if I thought about it, so I try not to. It’s not the money. It’s the time and thought. I’m grateful for it.”

“Darling Eve.” He sighed it out, and his eyes had gone warm again. “You intrigue me, constantly. I know who you are, what you are, how you think, how you feel, and still, you intrigue me. Constantly.” He took a step toward her, ...

Then you’ll graciously accept a loan.” “A loan I could accept. The graciously might be a tough reach.” “Graciously,” he repeated. “Then, when you’ve had time to deal with it, I’ll graciously accept repayment.” “No bloody shite about it?” “None.” “Okay, that’s a deal.”