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Chapter Five. End
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jlk
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03 October 2012
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With sealed hands, Eve examined the necklace and bracelets. Nothing unusual hit her. “They’re just glitters” she announced, putting them back into the evidence bag, handing it to McNab. Her attention turned to the notes. One for each her and Peabody. They’d been printed out on an old fashioned machine that Feeney promised every elementary school in the State of New York used, or had used.
She sipped coffee and read them.
“Lovely Eve, I offer you this small token to join the other you found. Your eyes have the same colors as the stones. I look forward to looking into your eyes as we make love. Until then, Your Teacher.”
She rolled her eyes, read the second letter.
“Charming Delia, I offer you this small token to join the flowers I sent. Your eyes have the same colors as the pearls. I look forward to looking into your eyes as we make love. Until then, Your Teacher.”
“Boy, he couldn’t even give us original letters,” Peabody complained, softly. She’d been treading very, very, very lightly around Eve.
“Amen” Eve commented, hiding a grin. She hadn’t addressed her Detective’s little breakdown into free speech as yet. Was planning to let her simmer in that pot for a long while. “Get them to Mira. This case is stalling on you, Peabody. What do you do when its stalling?”
“Go back to the beginning.” Peabody took the bagged letters, typed in orders for their transfer on her PPC to #5 on her SS list.
“You do remember,” Eve stated, standing. “How many family members do you think there are?”
“Over fifty.” Peabody sounded glum.
“Rally the troops, let Baxter and Trueheart know they’re no longer alone. Everyone takes two. Use your SS people on the minor ones, if necessary. I want, I mean you want them all re-interviewed by end of shift. Tag Mira, push her. She can be too soft sometimes. Have the kid taking the letters to her swipe some of the crime scene photos in front of her face. Call Summerset and have him arrange a nice carrot for Dickie so we get some kind of forensics before hell freezes over.” Eve tapped her fingers on her thighs, thinking. She was still missing something important. Procedural. They’d have to go over every step again, until she saw it.
“I’m primary, Dallas. I can’t use Roarke’s money or resources to bribe Dickie.” Peabody hunched and shrugged defensively at Dallas’ goggling open-mouthed astonishment.
“You’re my partner. Other than Roarke and possibly my wedding ring, what’s mine is yours.” Eve refused to feel any embarrassment over saying it. It should be obvious. They were partners for Christ’s sake.
“Lemme wear the necklace” Peabody begged, then her mouth dropped open when Dallas reached under her shirt, pulled the necklace out and over her head, handed it to her. She stared at the huge diamond striking out with multiple colors around the room as it shone in the sunlight of the conference room. Wow. Then she looked at Dallas. She was back studying the board, but Peabody sensed that she was also studying her. “Nah. Doesn’t match my outfit,” she offered quietly, casually laying it down on the table, giving it and the St. Jude’s medal bravely sharing the silver chain a push. “Let’s get going. We gotta look at the beginning of this muddle.” She picked up her side bag, headed for the door. As Dallas followed her out, Peabody glanced at the table. The necklace was gone, no doubt safely back where it belonged.
Peabody found the hidden camera in the beginning of the second hour of their search of the second crime scene. It was attached over the doorway, small, almost flat as it lay taped against the frame. She swore and didn’t stop swearing until she’d called the sweepers back in and called herself every name she could remember. She tagged McNab and Feeney, got them headed down toward both scenes with scanners to find whatever else they’d missed. Mindful of politics, she gave Whitney the new detail. One of the SS had a possible witness who remembered the computer purchases. She tagged Carmichael and Yancy, sent them over to retrieve the probie and wit. Dallas had stopped praying and meditating, apparently relieved that the charity event was secured, or whatever. Now she was focused on what they would be wearing in Florida. When she didn’t get any input from her partner, she tagged Summerset and Leonardo for assistance. Then Dallas called Trina and hired her for the trip as a beauty consultant. Peabody resisted pulling at her hair. But she had a headache brewing. When Dallas demanded they get some egg rolls from a restaurant across the street, she gave in and beat her head on the steering wheel.
Eve amused herself driving her partner into behaving like … her. But she was still searching for what they had missed. During the drive back to Central, eating her egg roll, something shook loose and hit her. Starvation. Most people won’t turn to eating another until they are close to starvation. A quick look at her PPC told her that the average human could go for weeks without food. And from what Mira and the medicals could tell her, the survivors hadn’t been forced to eat their fellow victim or victims. They had chosen to. Or been mentally coerced to. Because none of them had been so starved that it was their last resort. “We’re looking for a psychologist, psychiatrist, some kind of shrink guy” Eve told Peabody, letting her lead the way along the maze of glides. “He’s convincing them that they have to kill and eat each other. How long could you last without food?” She pinned Peabody with a considering look as they stepped off the moving stairs on the EDD level.
Peabody stood, considered. “Free Agers fast sometimes. My Father claims he’s gone two weeks.” She thought. “I could beat that.”
They started toward EDD. “So. Whitney says you’re doing some charity thing for the Catholic Church here in New York.” She kept her eyes front.
Eve was amused her Commander was pumping her partner for information. “I’ll probably need you when it comes time for the actual event. Since we work so well together. Don’t worry. McNab, don’t start slobbering over her in public that way.”
She thought of another piece of the puzzle as she was writing updated reports while Peabody gave that evening’s briefing. Giving up, her partner had brought the entirety of Sparilou’s Squad into the conference room. It irritated Eve, seeing all those fresh eager young faces, and she could understand why the other Homicide Lieutenant had dropped them on her like a bad tasting fish. They yapped. They asked questions. They offered opinions. But they worked hard, and three had come up with significant leads or probabilities. She liked the way Peabody flung assignments at them, freeing the others of her team up. And seeing her partner in action, it finally hit her. “The delivery man. The goddamn flower delivery man. You didn’t interview him, Peabody.”
Peabody dove for the computer. McNab beat her, pulling up the file, tossing it onto the wall screen. Peabody stared at the report, her notes as her damn handy cohab hacked her files, putting them beside the official data. Dallas was right. She’d neglected the most basic of steps. She’d never found the delivery man and interviewed him, done a background on him, hell, even confirmed he was employed with the florist shop. She leaned back and grinned fiercely. Score one for her trainer.
+++++++++++++++++
Florida was hot. One hundred degrees in Spring. And who said global warming was bull shit, Eve thought, adjusting her girly flopping hat to shade her face. For this one day, she’d pulled out all the stops for Roarke. One day to have the girliest wife in the world of moneyed elite, finishing the fantasy week out with an extra surprise. Eve figured if she only had to do one day out of her life, she’d made out pretty good. So here she stood in a decked out tent, it even had air conditioning shooting through it, dressed like a fashion droid, wearing an outfit significantly lacking in material by Leonardo, enough makeup applied by Trina to paint three women, and a big-assed floppy hat. Not to mention the fortune in jewelry Summerset had made her put on, assuring her it was tasteful. And watching Roarke have the time of his life running around the Florida Marlins Baseball Stadium field.
Eve smiled and waved daintily like she’d seen some of the other wives do as Roarke jogged around, was rewarded by the beam of happy satisfaction in his eyes. That almost identical look had hit her when she’d gotten here earlier today. He’d been waiting for them to arrive with crowds of the other campers, and she’d gotten half way into the lobby when he’d spotted her. Spotted her because she was wearing dangerously high heeled sandals, shorts and midriff showing off-the-shoulder blouse set that emphasized long legs, slender toned body, upped the boobs, and yelled SEXY, so unlike his normally jean-clad with sweater wearing wife that he had looked right over her when she drifted into the lobby. It had taken the appreciative wolf whistles and lusty comments making him take a second look, blink with recognition, and that look had solidified as he realized she’d done this for him. So happiness, satisfaction … and lust.
Peabody took her link off of privacy, looked around. “Where’d McNab go?” She brushed back her own floppy hat, accepted a fluted glass of whatever the waiter was pushing at her, looked around for her man. He’d been a constant worry to her since they’d gotten to Florida and Leonardo had produced outfits for both of them. Dressed in some Roarke-esque lightweight monochromatic suit, Peabody had to admit he looked richly edible. The problem was all the women wandering around this shindig. These women were man-eaters, and Peabody had already found hers being chewed on once by what looked to be an anorexic sixteen year old supermodel. Since McNab’d had his hands in the air and was obviously frozen in horror at the lip lock, Peabody had satisfied herself with a good stomp to the woman’s instep and an elbow to the gut.
“Summerset’s got him safe,” Eve told her, nodding with her chin toward a sparkling water sculpture melting placidly. A good half dozen alley cats were circling. “Anything?”
“Not yet. Wave to Roarke,” Peabody ordered as he came around again. She wished they’d just start the damn game so she could sneak Dallas back a few dozen yards and get back to work. “They’re still trying to track the delivery man. He wasn’t employed by the florist.” Peabody felt the only silver lining to that fuckup was that she would never make that mistake again, if she lived to be a hundred and forty year old cop. Now, she evaluated the way the dugouts were set up, decided that if she and Dallas were settled in the south side of the pavilion, he’d only expect to see her when he was up at bat or on the field. She grabbed Dallas’ arm, gave the rest of them a tilt of the head, and started that way. She got her partner settled, looking like some kind of sleek expensive sex kitten, then got ahold of Trina. She couldn’t trust Mavis to stay focused. “I need you to flag me every time Roarke’s somewhere out there that he might look around for Dallas. We’ve got to get some work done, but she wants Roarke to think she’s focused on him. So let me know and I’ll get her back here to be giving him puppy dog eyes when he looks. Got it?”
Trina was a professional. She worked with women and men every day that dished gossip that could bring governments down. When it came to deceit and manipulation regarding relationships, she’d heard it all. She’d known Delia for three years and she’d never heard the younger woman snap out orders and directions like this little escapade. Impressed, Trina snapped her gum and nodded. “Got it. Can you fix this up so I can give you a tone?” She held up her link.
“McNab,” Peabody snapped, and waited for her personal geek to look around. Trina explained and he fixed them up. She would have said a prayer of thanksgiving when the announcers settled in and began yacking about the celebrity game, but she’d had enough of prayers to last her a while. She was still half afraid Dallas would start up again. Instead, she got one of the waiter-types to set up a table behind the tent and focused McNab, with Summerset guarding him, on making a virtual murder board screen they could use. Before Dallas, Peabody hadn’t been so visually focused; now she almost needed a murder board to process information. It could be considered a draw-back, or not. Trina gave her the beep and Peabody dragged Dallas back to work.
Dallas had gotten another tiger’s eye necklace, Peabody twin chocolate pearl bracelets. Both had now been tracked down to the stores where they were purchased, and their method of purchase, one time credit cards through speciality banks allowing high dollar amounts to be programmed on the cards. The cots purchased the same way. No originality, repeating his pattern. Peabody smiled. Not smart. Their killer was not as smart as he thought. Not only was Peabody going to catch him, but Roarke was going to kill him for sending gifts to his wife. She smiled and didn’t even mind for a minute that Dallas had to run over, smile and wave at Roarke.
++++++++++++++++++++
The funny thing was that he’d done this for years before Eve. Exclusive events with a woman who looked like cotton candy and made every wealthy and respected man, those type of man he had longed to be when he had been an illiterate and grubby street thief, in the room envy him the piece of enticing fluff he’d be bedding that night. And for those years Roarke had wanted it, demanded it, soaked it up to fill those cold places inside him, been proud of the admiration he’d culled with all those women. And now he just wanted these men to stop lusting after his wife, and his wife to actually look and act like his Eve. How the mighty had fallen, he mused ruefully.
Eve gave another sparkling little laugh, ran her long painted fingernails through his hair, and smiled at him with sultry eyes heavily and exotically made up before giving a bright look around the room. He noted the proud looks exchanged by Trina and Mavis, who’d obviously been coaching Eve on this display. And he had Leonardo to thank for the Thai-style dress that covered her devotedly head to toe except for one bare shoulder, and had every bowsie picturing himself tearing it off her. About one more brush of her body against his, and Roarke would be tearing it off. “Stop it,” he ordered his wife.
She gazed at him, merriment in those golden eyes mixing with desire and pride. “Can’t help it,” she responded, not pretending to misunderstand his hissed order. “I’ve never been with a MVP before. It turns me on.” She breathed the last sentence into his ear, nibbled gently on the lobe.
Roarke closed his eyes, clamped his arms around her and thought of frozen meat lockers with hanging slabs of beef. With blood. Lots of blood dripping thick and sluggish to the dirty icy floor. Thinking himself under control, he redirected his mind, only to find Eve making the softest of whimpering noises in his ear, body subtly trembling against him with need. Christ Almighty! His eyes snapping open, Roarke looked for the nearest exit, his mind routing the most direct route to their suite and the floor inside the door, because he wasn’t going to make it as far as the bed.
“Roarke, give up your beautiful wife,” the Marlins Coach, Xavier Herlitzer, stepped into his focus on the side hallway doors. He held out a hand to Eve, tugged her away from Roarke who felt he had little choice in the matter as his wife giggled inanely and batted her fake eyelashes at the older man. “My dear, you make my best player also the luckiest man here tonight.” And he pulled her to the dance floor.
The only satisfaction Roarke could find was that Peabody looked just as pissed off and frustrated as he felt with Eve being diverted.
Before this second, Eve would never have imagined Mavis Freestone singing Take Me Out To The Ball Game. Yet here she was, leading the entire ballroom of the Marlin Stadium Palace Hotel in the old baseball favorite. It just made her laugh, she couldn’t help it. She even let go for the moment that whoever the idiot she’d been dancing with had his hand on her ass. Roarke was across the room looking like a grumpy child whose toy had been borrowed, with Peabody looking equally cranky looking ready to stun the woman trying to twine herself around McNab. The award part of the evening was finished and the drinking and partying was well under way. Eve thought she had performed every task of a trophy wife that Summerset had listed: fashionable, attractive, energized and energizing, social and socially networking, photogenic, entertaining, obtaining favor and gaining interest of the important men who weren’t her husband, and just behaving as anti-Lieutenant Eve Dallas as possible. Yep, mission achieved.
Time to wrap it up. Peabody had been strident that they be heading back to New York by six tomorrow morning, and going straight in to Cop Central from the transpo station. Since it would only take Roarke’s shuttle half an hour, they should be there by seven, given drive time from the station. If she wanted to get any sleep, time for Cinderella to exit the stage. Mavis finished the song with the crowd giving a roaring round of applause. Eve got the idiot’s hand off her ass, turned, and found McNab offering his arm. Leonardo had dressed him in a grey pin-stripe suit with black shirt and grey tie that rivaled anything Roarke stuffed in his closet, and he looked so un-McNab that it was scary. Maybe it was because his long blonde hair fell in loose waves down his back to his skinny butt. She shook her head, took his arm. “Thank you, Detective.”
He offered her a cheeky grin. “Dallas, you have amazed everyone who knows you tonight. Including yours truly. Didn’t know you could act like such a girl.”
Eve decided to take it as a compliment to her acting abilities and not an insult. “Same here.” She gave him a quick up and down glance. Shuddered. “Anything new?” She meant to their case.
“No. Listen, can I convince you to let me and Roarke and the others take a later shuttle back tomorrow morning? Dee wants you two back a.s.a.p. I know. But there’s a great baseball signing thing at eight that I know Roarke wants to go to. And me. Probably Leonardo.” He shrugged.
“Whatever makes you happy. Just tell Summerset and he’ll get it arranged,” Eve directed, hugging McNab’s arm as he got her through the hazardous obstacle course of men seeking her attention. “Christ, I’m never doing this again,” she muttered. And then she was being safely deposited into Roarke’s hold. Eve smiled at him. “Hello.” She batted the heavy eyelashes. “I hear MVPs get lots of sex.” His eyes had darkened, emotion like tossing seas flowing there. Her easy smile slid away. “What?” Seeking to soothe whatever had him disturbed, she gently kneaded his shoulders.
“Why, aghra, did ten minutes ago Ian just reassure me that Delia doesn’t really think I’m a playboy?” His mouth quirked and he slid his hands up her arms until he held her close to him, settling his brow on hers. Ignoring the world around them, Roarke listened to the music that was his wife, his wife, and moved with her against him.
Eve laughed, a low husky sound she knew drove him crazy. “Aren’t you?”
“Reformed.” His mouth touched hers, gently, warmly. “Can I take you upstairs, now?”
“Maybe.” It was too great a temptation. She reminded herself that this was a supposed to be a pleasing fantasy for Roarke, and she certainly wasn't in New York City where her rep as a cop kept her from inappropriate behavior in public - mostly. Eve leaned in and suckled his lower lip. “It’s been too long, Roarke” she whispered when she released him. With a sigh, she offered his top lip the same delicious tugging intimate caress, her head tilting to rest on his shoulder, his following hers to provide easy access. The feel of the long black lashes attached to her own, fluttering on his cheeks, was an added caress. The long nails were an irritant, but her fingertips found their way from his wide shoulders to his soft hair, tangling lightly. She released him reluctantly, murmured “Oh, Roarke, I’ve missed you.” Silly to feel so loving. But Eve wouldn’t change it for any other feeling in the world. She’d been so jittery, so scared since her dream two weeks ago. And now here she was in the middle of a crowd of people, reassured that his soul had been secured, just wanting him. She drew in a shaky breath, “I love you, my Roarke.”
Then her lips trembled with amusement, the moment passed, as Mavis’ voice piped, “Get a room, you two” alerting whoever hadn’t already noticed them standing on the periphery of the room lost in each other.
“I believe we have one,” Roarke told her, then scooped up his blushing wife and carried her out of the ballroom to the raucous cheers of his contemporaries.
+++++++++++++++++
Peabody reached to the ceiling, balanced on the flimsy cot, feeling for the latch the sweeper had reported there. “I don’t feel it, Dallas. You’re taller than me. You try.” She jumped down, steadied the cot for Dallas to climb on to. This was her fourth visit to this crime scene. It still gave her the willies. The door locking devices had been disabled, but even now with the door closed, she felt a sense of dread and thought of the people here, where she and Dallas stood now, trying to get out, failing, dying, eating each other. Her heart rate rose.
Eve felt along the grooves of the tile, fingertips feeling for the latch. “I –“ she saw the mist fill the air. Stopped breathing. “Get out” she growled the warning to Peabody, leaping to the floor. But she kept going down, her legs refusing to hold her. She felt Peabody’s collapse on top of her.
Her last thought, like a flash of lightening across her conscious mind, was that Roarke had better find her before a week was up. She didn’t trust that Peabody could go hungry any longer than that.
End. TBC
She sipped coffee and read them.
“Lovely Eve, I offer you this small token to join the other you found. Your eyes have the same colors as the stones. I look forward to looking into your eyes as we make love. Until then, Your Teacher.”
She rolled her eyes, read the second letter.
“Charming Delia, I offer you this small token to join the flowers I sent. Your eyes have the same colors as the pearls. I look forward to looking into your eyes as we make love. Until then, Your Teacher.”
“Boy, he couldn’t even give us original letters,” Peabody complained, softly. She’d been treading very, very, very lightly around Eve.
“Amen” Eve commented, hiding a grin. She hadn’t addressed her Detective’s little breakdown into free speech as yet. Was planning to let her simmer in that pot for a long while. “Get them to Mira. This case is stalling on you, Peabody. What do you do when its stalling?”
“Go back to the beginning.” Peabody took the bagged letters, typed in orders for their transfer on her PPC to #5 on her SS list.
“You do remember,” Eve stated, standing. “How many family members do you think there are?”
“Over fifty.” Peabody sounded glum.
“Rally the troops, let Baxter and Trueheart know they’re no longer alone. Everyone takes two. Use your SS people on the minor ones, if necessary. I want, I mean you want them all re-interviewed by end of shift. Tag Mira, push her. She can be too soft sometimes. Have the kid taking the letters to her swipe some of the crime scene photos in front of her face. Call Summerset and have him arrange a nice carrot for Dickie so we get some kind of forensics before hell freezes over.” Eve tapped her fingers on her thighs, thinking. She was still missing something important. Procedural. They’d have to go over every step again, until she saw it.
“I’m primary, Dallas. I can’t use Roarke’s money or resources to bribe Dickie.” Peabody hunched and shrugged defensively at Dallas’ goggling open-mouthed astonishment.
“You’re my partner. Other than Roarke and possibly my wedding ring, what’s mine is yours.” Eve refused to feel any embarrassment over saying it. It should be obvious. They were partners for Christ’s sake.
“Lemme wear the necklace” Peabody begged, then her mouth dropped open when Dallas reached under her shirt, pulled the necklace out and over her head, handed it to her. She stared at the huge diamond striking out with multiple colors around the room as it shone in the sunlight of the conference room. Wow. Then she looked at Dallas. She was back studying the board, but Peabody sensed that she was also studying her. “Nah. Doesn’t match my outfit,” she offered quietly, casually laying it down on the table, giving it and the St. Jude’s medal bravely sharing the silver chain a push. “Let’s get going. We gotta look at the beginning of this muddle.” She picked up her side bag, headed for the door. As Dallas followed her out, Peabody glanced at the table. The necklace was gone, no doubt safely back where it belonged.
Peabody found the hidden camera in the beginning of the second hour of their search of the second crime scene. It was attached over the doorway, small, almost flat as it lay taped against the frame. She swore and didn’t stop swearing until she’d called the sweepers back in and called herself every name she could remember. She tagged McNab and Feeney, got them headed down toward both scenes with scanners to find whatever else they’d missed. Mindful of politics, she gave Whitney the new detail. One of the SS had a possible witness who remembered the computer purchases. She tagged Carmichael and Yancy, sent them over to retrieve the probie and wit. Dallas had stopped praying and meditating, apparently relieved that the charity event was secured, or whatever. Now she was focused on what they would be wearing in Florida. When she didn’t get any input from her partner, she tagged Summerset and Leonardo for assistance. Then Dallas called Trina and hired her for the trip as a beauty consultant. Peabody resisted pulling at her hair. But she had a headache brewing. When Dallas demanded they get some egg rolls from a restaurant across the street, she gave in and beat her head on the steering wheel.
Eve amused herself driving her partner into behaving like … her. But she was still searching for what they had missed. During the drive back to Central, eating her egg roll, something shook loose and hit her. Starvation. Most people won’t turn to eating another until they are close to starvation. A quick look at her PPC told her that the average human could go for weeks without food. And from what Mira and the medicals could tell her, the survivors hadn’t been forced to eat their fellow victim or victims. They had chosen to. Or been mentally coerced to. Because none of them had been so starved that it was their last resort. “We’re looking for a psychologist, psychiatrist, some kind of shrink guy” Eve told Peabody, letting her lead the way along the maze of glides. “He’s convincing them that they have to kill and eat each other. How long could you last without food?” She pinned Peabody with a considering look as they stepped off the moving stairs on the EDD level.
Peabody stood, considered. “Free Agers fast sometimes. My Father claims he’s gone two weeks.” She thought. “I could beat that.”
They started toward EDD. “So. Whitney says you’re doing some charity thing for the Catholic Church here in New York.” She kept her eyes front.
Eve was amused her Commander was pumping her partner for information. “I’ll probably need you when it comes time for the actual event. Since we work so well together. Don’t worry. McNab, don’t start slobbering over her in public that way.”
She thought of another piece of the puzzle as she was writing updated reports while Peabody gave that evening’s briefing. Giving up, her partner had brought the entirety of Sparilou’s Squad into the conference room. It irritated Eve, seeing all those fresh eager young faces, and she could understand why the other Homicide Lieutenant had dropped them on her like a bad tasting fish. They yapped. They asked questions. They offered opinions. But they worked hard, and three had come up with significant leads or probabilities. She liked the way Peabody flung assignments at them, freeing the others of her team up. And seeing her partner in action, it finally hit her. “The delivery man. The goddamn flower delivery man. You didn’t interview him, Peabody.”
Peabody dove for the computer. McNab beat her, pulling up the file, tossing it onto the wall screen. Peabody stared at the report, her notes as her damn handy cohab hacked her files, putting them beside the official data. Dallas was right. She’d neglected the most basic of steps. She’d never found the delivery man and interviewed him, done a background on him, hell, even confirmed he was employed with the florist shop. She leaned back and grinned fiercely. Score one for her trainer.
+++++++++++++++++
Florida was hot. One hundred degrees in Spring. And who said global warming was bull shit, Eve thought, adjusting her girly flopping hat to shade her face. For this one day, she’d pulled out all the stops for Roarke. One day to have the girliest wife in the world of moneyed elite, finishing the fantasy week out with an extra surprise. Eve figured if she only had to do one day out of her life, she’d made out pretty good. So here she stood in a decked out tent, it even had air conditioning shooting through it, dressed like a fashion droid, wearing an outfit significantly lacking in material by Leonardo, enough makeup applied by Trina to paint three women, and a big-assed floppy hat. Not to mention the fortune in jewelry Summerset had made her put on, assuring her it was tasteful. And watching Roarke have the time of his life running around the Florida Marlins Baseball Stadium field.
Eve smiled and waved daintily like she’d seen some of the other wives do as Roarke jogged around, was rewarded by the beam of happy satisfaction in his eyes. That almost identical look had hit her when she’d gotten here earlier today. He’d been waiting for them to arrive with crowds of the other campers, and she’d gotten half way into the lobby when he’d spotted her. Spotted her because she was wearing dangerously high heeled sandals, shorts and midriff showing off-the-shoulder blouse set that emphasized long legs, slender toned body, upped the boobs, and yelled SEXY, so unlike his normally jean-clad with sweater wearing wife that he had looked right over her when she drifted into the lobby. It had taken the appreciative wolf whistles and lusty comments making him take a second look, blink with recognition, and that look had solidified as he realized she’d done this for him. So happiness, satisfaction … and lust.
Peabody took her link off of privacy, looked around. “Where’d McNab go?” She brushed back her own floppy hat, accepted a fluted glass of whatever the waiter was pushing at her, looked around for her man. He’d been a constant worry to her since they’d gotten to Florida and Leonardo had produced outfits for both of them. Dressed in some Roarke-esque lightweight monochromatic suit, Peabody had to admit he looked richly edible. The problem was all the women wandering around this shindig. These women were man-eaters, and Peabody had already found hers being chewed on once by what looked to be an anorexic sixteen year old supermodel. Since McNab’d had his hands in the air and was obviously frozen in horror at the lip lock, Peabody had satisfied herself with a good stomp to the woman’s instep and an elbow to the gut.
“Summerset’s got him safe,” Eve told her, nodding with her chin toward a sparkling water sculpture melting placidly. A good half dozen alley cats were circling. “Anything?”
“Not yet. Wave to Roarke,” Peabody ordered as he came around again. She wished they’d just start the damn game so she could sneak Dallas back a few dozen yards and get back to work. “They’re still trying to track the delivery man. He wasn’t employed by the florist.” Peabody felt the only silver lining to that fuckup was that she would never make that mistake again, if she lived to be a hundred and forty year old cop. Now, she evaluated the way the dugouts were set up, decided that if she and Dallas were settled in the south side of the pavilion, he’d only expect to see her when he was up at bat or on the field. She grabbed Dallas’ arm, gave the rest of them a tilt of the head, and started that way. She got her partner settled, looking like some kind of sleek expensive sex kitten, then got ahold of Trina. She couldn’t trust Mavis to stay focused. “I need you to flag me every time Roarke’s somewhere out there that he might look around for Dallas. We’ve got to get some work done, but she wants Roarke to think she’s focused on him. So let me know and I’ll get her back here to be giving him puppy dog eyes when he looks. Got it?”
Trina was a professional. She worked with women and men every day that dished gossip that could bring governments down. When it came to deceit and manipulation regarding relationships, she’d heard it all. She’d known Delia for three years and she’d never heard the younger woman snap out orders and directions like this little escapade. Impressed, Trina snapped her gum and nodded. “Got it. Can you fix this up so I can give you a tone?” She held up her link.
“McNab,” Peabody snapped, and waited for her personal geek to look around. Trina explained and he fixed them up. She would have said a prayer of thanksgiving when the announcers settled in and began yacking about the celebrity game, but she’d had enough of prayers to last her a while. She was still half afraid Dallas would start up again. Instead, she got one of the waiter-types to set up a table behind the tent and focused McNab, with Summerset guarding him, on making a virtual murder board screen they could use. Before Dallas, Peabody hadn’t been so visually focused; now she almost needed a murder board to process information. It could be considered a draw-back, or not. Trina gave her the beep and Peabody dragged Dallas back to work.
Dallas had gotten another tiger’s eye necklace, Peabody twin chocolate pearl bracelets. Both had now been tracked down to the stores where they were purchased, and their method of purchase, one time credit cards through speciality banks allowing high dollar amounts to be programmed on the cards. The cots purchased the same way. No originality, repeating his pattern. Peabody smiled. Not smart. Their killer was not as smart as he thought. Not only was Peabody going to catch him, but Roarke was going to kill him for sending gifts to his wife. She smiled and didn’t even mind for a minute that Dallas had to run over, smile and wave at Roarke.
++++++++++++++++++++
The funny thing was that he’d done this for years before Eve. Exclusive events with a woman who looked like cotton candy and made every wealthy and respected man, those type of man he had longed to be when he had been an illiterate and grubby street thief, in the room envy him the piece of enticing fluff he’d be bedding that night. And for those years Roarke had wanted it, demanded it, soaked it up to fill those cold places inside him, been proud of the admiration he’d culled with all those women. And now he just wanted these men to stop lusting after his wife, and his wife to actually look and act like his Eve. How the mighty had fallen, he mused ruefully.
Eve gave another sparkling little laugh, ran her long painted fingernails through his hair, and smiled at him with sultry eyes heavily and exotically made up before giving a bright look around the room. He noted the proud looks exchanged by Trina and Mavis, who’d obviously been coaching Eve on this display. And he had Leonardo to thank for the Thai-style dress that covered her devotedly head to toe except for one bare shoulder, and had every bowsie picturing himself tearing it off her. About one more brush of her body against his, and Roarke would be tearing it off. “Stop it,” he ordered his wife.
She gazed at him, merriment in those golden eyes mixing with desire and pride. “Can’t help it,” she responded, not pretending to misunderstand his hissed order. “I’ve never been with a MVP before. It turns me on.” She breathed the last sentence into his ear, nibbled gently on the lobe.
Roarke closed his eyes, clamped his arms around her and thought of frozen meat lockers with hanging slabs of beef. With blood. Lots of blood dripping thick and sluggish to the dirty icy floor. Thinking himself under control, he redirected his mind, only to find Eve making the softest of whimpering noises in his ear, body subtly trembling against him with need. Christ Almighty! His eyes snapping open, Roarke looked for the nearest exit, his mind routing the most direct route to their suite and the floor inside the door, because he wasn’t going to make it as far as the bed.
“Roarke, give up your beautiful wife,” the Marlins Coach, Xavier Herlitzer, stepped into his focus on the side hallway doors. He held out a hand to Eve, tugged her away from Roarke who felt he had little choice in the matter as his wife giggled inanely and batted her fake eyelashes at the older man. “My dear, you make my best player also the luckiest man here tonight.” And he pulled her to the dance floor.
The only satisfaction Roarke could find was that Peabody looked just as pissed off and frustrated as he felt with Eve being diverted.
Before this second, Eve would never have imagined Mavis Freestone singing Take Me Out To The Ball Game. Yet here she was, leading the entire ballroom of the Marlin Stadium Palace Hotel in the old baseball favorite. It just made her laugh, she couldn’t help it. She even let go for the moment that whoever the idiot she’d been dancing with had his hand on her ass. Roarke was across the room looking like a grumpy child whose toy had been borrowed, with Peabody looking equally cranky looking ready to stun the woman trying to twine herself around McNab. The award part of the evening was finished and the drinking and partying was well under way. Eve thought she had performed every task of a trophy wife that Summerset had listed: fashionable, attractive, energized and energizing, social and socially networking, photogenic, entertaining, obtaining favor and gaining interest of the important men who weren’t her husband, and just behaving as anti-Lieutenant Eve Dallas as possible. Yep, mission achieved.
Time to wrap it up. Peabody had been strident that they be heading back to New York by six tomorrow morning, and going straight in to Cop Central from the transpo station. Since it would only take Roarke’s shuttle half an hour, they should be there by seven, given drive time from the station. If she wanted to get any sleep, time for Cinderella to exit the stage. Mavis finished the song with the crowd giving a roaring round of applause. Eve got the idiot’s hand off her ass, turned, and found McNab offering his arm. Leonardo had dressed him in a grey pin-stripe suit with black shirt and grey tie that rivaled anything Roarke stuffed in his closet, and he looked so un-McNab that it was scary. Maybe it was because his long blonde hair fell in loose waves down his back to his skinny butt. She shook her head, took his arm. “Thank you, Detective.”
He offered her a cheeky grin. “Dallas, you have amazed everyone who knows you tonight. Including yours truly. Didn’t know you could act like such a girl.”
Eve decided to take it as a compliment to her acting abilities and not an insult. “Same here.” She gave him a quick up and down glance. Shuddered. “Anything new?” She meant to their case.
“No. Listen, can I convince you to let me and Roarke and the others take a later shuttle back tomorrow morning? Dee wants you two back a.s.a.p. I know. But there’s a great baseball signing thing at eight that I know Roarke wants to go to. And me. Probably Leonardo.” He shrugged.
“Whatever makes you happy. Just tell Summerset and he’ll get it arranged,” Eve directed, hugging McNab’s arm as he got her through the hazardous obstacle course of men seeking her attention. “Christ, I’m never doing this again,” she muttered. And then she was being safely deposited into Roarke’s hold. Eve smiled at him. “Hello.” She batted the heavy eyelashes. “I hear MVPs get lots of sex.” His eyes had darkened, emotion like tossing seas flowing there. Her easy smile slid away. “What?” Seeking to soothe whatever had him disturbed, she gently kneaded his shoulders.
“Why, aghra, did ten minutes ago Ian just reassure me that Delia doesn’t really think I’m a playboy?” His mouth quirked and he slid his hands up her arms until he held her close to him, settling his brow on hers. Ignoring the world around them, Roarke listened to the music that was his wife, his wife, and moved with her against him.
Eve laughed, a low husky sound she knew drove him crazy. “Aren’t you?”
“Reformed.” His mouth touched hers, gently, warmly. “Can I take you upstairs, now?”
“Maybe.” It was too great a temptation. She reminded herself that this was a supposed to be a pleasing fantasy for Roarke, and she certainly wasn't in New York City where her rep as a cop kept her from inappropriate behavior in public - mostly. Eve leaned in and suckled his lower lip. “It’s been too long, Roarke” she whispered when she released him. With a sigh, she offered his top lip the same delicious tugging intimate caress, her head tilting to rest on his shoulder, his following hers to provide easy access. The feel of the long black lashes attached to her own, fluttering on his cheeks, was an added caress. The long nails were an irritant, but her fingertips found their way from his wide shoulders to his soft hair, tangling lightly. She released him reluctantly, murmured “Oh, Roarke, I’ve missed you.” Silly to feel so loving. But Eve wouldn’t change it for any other feeling in the world. She’d been so jittery, so scared since her dream two weeks ago. And now here she was in the middle of a crowd of people, reassured that his soul had been secured, just wanting him. She drew in a shaky breath, “I love you, my Roarke.”
Then her lips trembled with amusement, the moment passed, as Mavis’ voice piped, “Get a room, you two” alerting whoever hadn’t already noticed them standing on the periphery of the room lost in each other.
“I believe we have one,” Roarke told her, then scooped up his blushing wife and carried her out of the ballroom to the raucous cheers of his contemporaries.
+++++++++++++++++
Peabody reached to the ceiling, balanced on the flimsy cot, feeling for the latch the sweeper had reported there. “I don’t feel it, Dallas. You’re taller than me. You try.” She jumped down, steadied the cot for Dallas to climb on to. This was her fourth visit to this crime scene. It still gave her the willies. The door locking devices had been disabled, but even now with the door closed, she felt a sense of dread and thought of the people here, where she and Dallas stood now, trying to get out, failing, dying, eating each other. Her heart rate rose.
Eve felt along the grooves of the tile, fingertips feeling for the latch. “I –“ she saw the mist fill the air. Stopped breathing. “Get out” she growled the warning to Peabody, leaping to the floor. But she kept going down, her legs refusing to hold her. She felt Peabody’s collapse on top of her.
Her last thought, like a flash of lightening across her conscious mind, was that Roarke had better find her before a week was up. She didn’t trust that Peabody could go hungry any longer than that.
End. TBC
And now here comes the climax!
Just noticed that this is the END? I'm guessing a 'new' story taking off from this one? Right?