J. Robb - Purity in Death

Trying to screw me over. Everybody's trying to screw me over. I'll kill them first. Kill them. Locked her out, locked the little bitch out. She thinks I don't know. Oh God, oh God, oh God, my head. She put something in my head! Can't let her see. Can't let anybody see. Stay inside. Safe inside. I gotta sleep. I gotta sleep. Make it go away! Lock it up. I have to lock everything up tight. She won't get what's mine. Little whore-bitch.

Eve filed the disc, walked into the kitchen for coffee. Then she just pulled open the terrace doors and breathed.

It was easy to see how Greene's infection had progressed. Paranoia, anger, fear. The symptoms had started shortly after he'd installed Wade in the condo, so he'd believed she was responsible for them.

In his sick way, he'd killed her in self-defense.

She got her coffee, went back to her desk to make notes. Then, though her head was buzzing with a combination of caffeine, fatigue, and stress, she started on the videos.

It was clear how Greene bumped his income up several brackets. The videos were not only technically well-done, but showed a strangely creative sense of theater.

If you liked your entertainment raw and perverse.

"Still at it?" Roarke walked in, headed straight into the kitchen without glancing at the screen. "Will you have some wine now?"

"Oh yeah. I could use a drink."

"I've sent the others on their way. You'll have your little nightcap here, Lieutenant, then I'm going to…"

He trailed off as he came back with two glasses of wine. What was playing on-screen had even his jaded eyes widening. "What is that? A small bear?"

"No, I think it's a really big dog. A St. Bernard."

He took a sip of wine, walked closer. "I believe you're right. Someone should report this activity to the Animal Rights League or whatever it is. Although… hmmm. He certainly seems to be enjoying himself if the size of his… Mother of God."

"Gimme that wine." She grabbed it, drank deep. "There's sick and there's sick. This one goes off the scale. I've got no term for it. You recognize the woman romping with Fido?"

"It's a bit hard to tell, under the circumstances."

"Greene lists her as G.G. I ran an image search on her while she was rubbing butter all over herself to help get Fido in the game. Gretta Gowan, wife of Jonah Gowan. That's Professor Jonah Gowan, of NYU. He's head of the Sociology Department. A staunch Conservative Party member and a Methodist deacon. Want to bet Clarissa Price took some of his classes?"

"Never bet against the house," Roarke declared, fascinated despite himself with the on-screen action.

"She recruited him into Purity, or he did her. I'd bet on that one. Anyway, Gretta there is the mother of two and-whoa, that is just nasty! Gretta chairs several committees, including the garden club, which would no doubt frown on her deep affection for canines."

"There's a log entry on the PPC-it's clean by the way-for G.G. Six thousand paid in six days before the murders."

"Fits with his journal. This vid wasn't done at his place," Eve said. "Some of the others I've viewed were. He used the second bedroom. They're tamer than this. Group sex with costumes, bondage, and role-playing. One used a teenaged girl. I ran her image, too. She popped as another runaway. Greene knew how to sniff them out. Copy disc, log to file."

Roarke let out a long breath. "How about we run a nice classic comedy to cleanse the palate?"

"I want to finish this tonight. At least get the IDs."

"For what purpose, Eve?"

"To know for one thing." She filed the disc, selected another. "And second, to see if I find a link."

"Do you really think terrorists are killing all these people so they can get rid of a blackmailer?"

"No, but I think each one of the victims was carefully selected, and with Greene the blackmail was part of it. Maybe just a bonus, but part of it. Run disc. You don't have to stay for this."

"If you can stomach it, I can."

"Home again," Eve said, recognizing the bedroom in Greene's condo. "My guess is he rigged the cameras before the client came in, ran them by remote until the session was over. Did the editing, made a copy. Gives that to the client with a demand for payments. Probably lost clients that way, but he kept the income. No overhead at all. Just pure profit. Here we go, curtain up."

A woman stepped in from the adjoining bath. A rather elegant woman in a killer black dress with long, lush waves of icy blonde hair spilling over the shoulders. Her legs were sheathed in black hose, her feet tucked into mile-high heels.

She wore a diamond choker, and her lips were bloody-murder red.

"Looks familiar," Eve began. "Which is she? Client or hooker?"

"Want an image search?"

"Let it run awhile first."

A man stepped in from the outer door. He was stripped to the waist, bulging in tight black leather. His chest gleamed with oil. His hair was slicked back from a striking face sharp of bone. There was a tattoo under his left nipple. When Eve froze and enhanced the image, she saw it was a tiny skull.

He ran a slim riding crop through his fingers.

"Roseanna." He spoke the name, and the woman lifted a hand to the diamond choker at her throat.

"How did you get in?"

"Role-playing," Eve said. "We run a search on both of them." She froze the disc again, blocked faces, started the task.

"Eve?"

"Hmm?"

"Take a good look at her."

"I am. I know that face. Continue disc play."

With a half-smile on his face, Roarke leaned against the desk. "Take a better look."

Frowning, Eve watched the scene play out. The man ran the riding crop down the woman's center. She shuddered. She turned as if to run. He dragged her back. Long, sloppy kiss. Lots of hands.

Hands.

Eve straightened with a snap. "That's not a woman."

Distracted, Eve watched the bare-chested man yank the dress down to the blonde's waist. Beneath was a black lace waist cincher. Though the breasts that spilled over it were full and lush, Eve had no doubt they were just another part of the costume.

The man dealt a couple of sharp slaps to the buttocks when his partner struggled.

There was moaning now, breathy protests. The dress spilled to the floor.

"Looks pretty good for a guy," Eve observed. The legs were slim, set off with thigh-high black hose, old-fashioned garters. Too much shoulder though, she mused, and the hands were too big. She could see the hint of an Adam's apple beneath the glittering choker.

In her mind she erased the wig, the red lips, the heavily accented eyes, and tried to see beneath the female artifice. Sheknew that face.

And when it filled the screen, flushed with excitement as the camera zoomed it, she heard the click.

"Oh good God."

"Did you make him? I'm not quite there yet. Give me another minute." But when the bare-chested man pushed his captive down to the knees, exposed himself, Roarke winced. "Never mind, as I'd soon skip this part. It doesn't-ah well."

He blew out a breath as the face filled the screen again, another angle as the eyes, crystal blue, stared up-full of hunger.

"Yes, indeed, I'd as soon skip watching his honor the mayor give leather boy a blow job."

He turned away from the screen, caught Eve's chin in his hand. "That's why you're the cop, all right. You weren't wasting anyone's time. That'll teach me to doubt you."

"I have to watch the rest of it."

"Must you?"

"I take this in tomorrow, I have to know what I'm dealing with. This isn't your average transvestite. This tosses Peachtree right into the middle of a sex scandal, and a major homicide investigation."

"Then I'm getting another drink." He took her glass. "For both of us."

"Smart," she said later. "Greene caters to a small clientele-rich with whacked whims. Out of that exclusive club, he handpicks a smaller group. A handful of people who've used his services, built a certain level of trust in him, who can't afford even a whiff of scandal. The payments are high, but none of them too high for these select few to afford. You got an even dozen paying out an average fee of twenty-five thousand a month, you rake in…"