J. Robb - Kindred In Death

“Let’s eat by the windows,” she said and nodded to the wine as she pushed the table toward them. “I could use a glass of that.”

He poured a second glass, then went to her, tapped the shallow dent in her chin, kissed her. “Hello, Lieutenant.”

“Hi, Civilian. Let’s take a breather.”

“I could use one nearly as much as I can use that red meat.”

“Okay.” She sat, stabbed her fork into one of the salads she’d programmed with him in mind. “I went by to see Louise at her new place.”

Now his brows winged up. “Aren’t you full of surprises?”

“I was almost there anyway, and… Okay, I figured she wouldn’t be there so I could just leave a note and get, you know, friend credit.”

Looking at her, listening to her, he laughed for the first time in hours. “Never change.”

“Well, it should’ve worked, but she was there. Planting flowers, which who would expect?”

“Astonishing.”

“I don’t have to eat sarcasm to recognize the flavor. Anyway, I had to go in and go through the place. Have to say it looks like them. Smooth and sophisticated and now. She’s whacked with happy, which kind of infects anyone within a ten-foot radius.” She stuffed salad in her mouth to get it over with. “Like an airborne virus.”

“God, you romantic fool. No wonder I adore you.”

She offered a smirk. “So, while I was infected, she’s talking about how she’s going to stay in a hotel the night before the wedding because she doesn’t want Charles to see her on the day of, and she’s got to get rubbed and polished and painted. I said she should stay here.”

“She should, of course.”

“And then I said how she’d probably want her women friends with her. I don’t know where that came from. It just came out of the whacky-happy infection. It wasn’t until I had some distance, and it was too damn late, that I realized one of those women will be Trina. Has to be. So now I’ve opened it all up to a bunch of women with wedding mania, one of whom will come at me-oh yes, she will-with gunk and goo.”

Her heart, Roarke thought, would always win out over her sense of self-preservation when it came to those who mattered to her.

“But think of the friend credit you’ll accumulate.”

“I don’t know if it’s worth it. Plus…”

“Murder,” he said when she trailed off. “You’ve already given me a breather, and red meat. You don’t have to stop yourself from talking about it.”

“You looked tired and irritable, and you almost never do. That’s my job.”

He thought of Summerset’s “annoyed and tired” and felt the scowl take hold before he could stop it. “I was both.”

“I’m better at it.”

He laughed again. “Got me there. I enjoy e-work as a rule, particularly when there’s a challenge involved. But this is like trying to unravel a ball of string one thread at a time.”

“Maybe we won’t need it. I have other threads, and I’m tying them together. Yancy’s working on his face. I’ve got various contact points, and when I pin him on one, there’ll be others. I think he may be in the e-business, or he can afford a lot of toys. Including the same security system involved. It’s your system. You update it regularly.”

“As technology emerges, refinements, options, yes. A customer would be given the option to add any or all of the new features or refinements.”

“Which MacMasters did, in March. The timing’s too damn good. A couple of weeks later, Deena meets her killer. I can’t connect the killer or MacMasters to the tech who did the updates, but there’s going to be one, to him or to the company. Security Plus.”

“It’s not mine. We bid out service and maintenance to companies, and customers have the option of choosing from them, or at their risk, using an independent. Security Plus is a solid organization, and a service center for most top-of-the-line systems.”

“But you upgraded the system in March.”

“I can check.”

“While you’re at it, can you find out who bought the same system as MacMasters within the last six months? Year,” she corrected. “A year, and had the same upgrades done in March. He’s spent a lot of time on this project. He’d get the upgrades, too. He’d get every one of them.”

“I’ll warn you it sells very well to a certain level of clientele, and most will spring for the upgrades.”

“Something’s going to cross eventually. The system, his employment, his education, his face, his motive. It’s going to cross.” It damn well had to cross. “Then it’s going to cross again and again. Then we’re going to take that ball of string and shove it down his throat.”

“I look forward to helping with that. For the girl, her parents, for you. And for the very selfish reason the fucker compromised my system.”

“All good reasons.”

“I’ll get the data for you. It might take a bit.”

She indulged in another sip of wine. “Why don’t you set up a run and search, and we’ll finish the breather with a swim.”

He angled his head. “A swim? Would that be a euphemism?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll set it up.”

She wanted the water, a good, strong swim-both literally and euphemistically. She needed the physical to offset the hours and hours of thinking. Maybe if she stopped thinking for just a little while, she’d go back to it with more clarity.

Too many threads, she decided. She needed to find one, get a good grip on it. When she pulled, the rest would unravel.

And, she admitted, she was still thinking.

She didn’t bother with a suit, and instead stripped down in the moist, fragrant heat, and dived into the deep blue water. She felt him spear in beside her, and as she surfaced began to cut through the water. She knew him, and his competitive nature. He’d match her pace, push himself-as they were matched in speed and ability in the water.

They hit the wall at the same time, flipped, and raced back. The rhythm, fast, hard-beat striking beat-did its job. Impossible to think when every muscle worked to its full potential, when the heart began to pound from the exertion.

At five laps they were still stroke for stroke, kick for kick.

She pushed, a little more, and a little more yet, slicing through the deep, dreamy blue, stretching for another inch while the water flew up from the power of scissoring legs. A little faster, a little harder, digging down for the speed and the power, she caught the blur of his face as she tipped hers up to grab air.

Again, she thought, again, and curled her body, pumped her legs to drive herself off the wall. Beside him, true as a shadow, she struck out through the clear, the cool, the blue.

She lost track of the number of laps, of time, of everything but the motion, the pace, the sheer physical push and pleasure of spurring herself, and him.

Challenge and motion, skin and water, speed and need.

And when he caught her, slick, wet body to slick, wet body, in midstroke, she was ready for him.

Searching, their mouths came together, cool from the water, hot from hunger. With quick, frantic bites she answered the urgency of the kiss while her racing heart pressed to his. She wrapped her legs around his waist, too desperate to care if they sank like stones.

“Now.” She’d go mad if it wasn’t now.

She captured him even as he gripped her hips, and those hips plunged, demanding more, taking more. When he gave her more, shoving her back to the wall, bracing her, her head fell back on a single choked cry.

Strong, sleek, he thought as he ravaged her neck. And always so much his. Love and lust, need and pleasure swirled inside him as water fumed up in the storm of their mating.

With him, again with him, beat for beat, demand for demand, in this last frantic lap of the race. She chained herself to him, arms and legs locked like shackles as her mouth fused to his once more.