J. Robb - Seduction In Death

"I'll never know how you do this. Day after day." Roarke spoke from behind her now, laying his hands on her shoulders to rub at the knots of tension.

"Because I know, in my mind, I'll get him. Them. Both of them. They think they've covered all the angles, but you never hit them all. There are always mistakes. Little mistakes. He thinks he's safe, think's he's smart. Anybody looking at them would see she's the one making the moves here. She's the one sliding closer in the booth, touching his arm, his hair, leaning in. Who'd look at that pretty scene and see rape?"

"It hurts you. Don't tell me it doesn't," he said, and there was an edge in his voice. "You bandage it, but it hurts you."

"It only makes me work harder to stop him. Oh jeez, there's Charles and Louise."

"Is that why you sent Peabody out?"

"I don't need her distracted, and I'mnot thinking about her weird-ass platonic thing with Charles and her weirder-ass sexual one with McNab because it distractsme. What is it, standard seduction plan A: Champagne and caviar?"

"You preferred coffee and red meat as I recall."

"I'll take real cow over a bunch of fish eggs any – There! He's given her a booster. Same little palm deal, new vial. Two doses in her before they get to her place. That's off. Lab found traces of Whore in the living room glass, Rabbit in the bedroom. But her tox screen didn't put that much Whore in her system. That's why she's not dead."

"She's drinking it," Roarke pointed out.

"Yeah, giving him a little hand job under the table and swilling it back. He gives her the third dose at her place. How does her system absorb that much? Because it didn't. She purged. Sicked it up. She's slim, but not skinny," Eve mused. "Doesn't look like the eating disorder type. Probably just got queasy. When she was in the lounge here, or at home. Tossed up some of the wine and fish eggs, and enough of the drug to keep her system from fully overloading.

"Mistake," she said. "He didn't think of that. When he left her she was out cold and he took her for dead. Tells me he's not a doctor or any sort of med-tech. It's the other guy who knows that end. This one's just the computer freak. Run the disc from the second murder. I want to see if I can get a good image of that ring, too."

"Kevin, you really are becoming tedious." There was a mechanicalwhoosh and a fog of cold air as Lucias unsealed the cryo-unit and selected the desired solution in its freezer pack. "The first time you're nearly hysterical because the girl died. Now you're biting your nails because this one didn't."

"I didn't mean to kill the first one."

"And did the second." With tongs, Lucias set the pack in a slot in a treated glass tray. "I'd say, as far as the game goes, old friend, you're in the minus column."

"You're the one doing the cooking." Suspicion, mixed with anger and fear, made Kevin's voice ugly. "What's to stop you from playing around with the mix for my bag?"

"A sense of fair play, of course. Cheating would lessen the satisfaction of winning. We agreed on the honor system, Kev."

"She's very likely to die, so don't mark your score card quite yet."

"That's the spirit. And again in the interest of fair play, I suggest we consider her hospitalization as five points, as we put death at a full ten. If your little playmate dies before I get home from my date tonight, you'll actually be in the lead again. Can't get fairer than that. And if she doesn't…" He shrugged, then slid the tray with its various packs into a thin compartment, programmed time and temperature. "I go ahead. We can increase the stakes with some double booking."

"Two in one day?" The horror, and the thrill, of the idea struck Kevin simultaneously.

"If you're man enough."

"We haven't prepared. The schedule calls for three nights off after this evening's round. None of the targets are in line until next week."

"Schedules are for amateurs and drones." Lucias prepared them both a little cocktail. Unblended scotch with a dash of Zoner. "Let's rack them up, Kev. We'll both have impressive American scores before we move the game to France."

"A picnic in the park," Kevin considered. "An afternoon rendezvous. Yes, that might be fun. And, it would be best to start mixing up our methods. Toss the police a sudden curve to screw up their probabilities and profiles."

"Day games. They have their own special panache, don't you think?"

"No pops on the rings," Eve told her team.

She'd had to pull rank, step on toes, and bribe the scheduling clerk with a block of Swiss chocolate, but she'd managed to hook a conference room.

Roarke was good for the chocolate and would only smirk a little at the bribery angle.

"Best we've got is they're not heirlooms. The jewelers Peabody tapped agree that they're not antiques. If the stones and settings are genuine, the value's estimated at two hundred fifty k each."

"Any guy wears a quarter mil on his finger's a putz" was Feeney's opinion. "And a showoff."

"Agreed. Putz and showoff percentages are high. I want to take the search on them global, so I'm passing that ball to EDD." And she'd tap her own personal source on showoff items. Roarke might not wear baubles himself, but he was sure an expert at buying them and draping them all over her.

"Imaging's working with the waiter, but it's slow. He's a lot clearer on the rings than the guys wearing them. We can access security discs for the last week or two weeks from the Palace, but it'll take time to pick through them, and luck to home in on our men. I'll be doing that run personally, but meanwhile, if nothing jumps by morning, I'm going to request our witness agrees to hypnotherapy."

"There's no guarantee they weren't wearing enhancements when they met for drinks," McNab pointed out and earned a rare nod of approval from Eve.

"That's right, but we detail the image anyway. We keep building the box until we lock them inside. Progress on the rental unit?" She glanced at Feeney. "And don't crawl up my ass."

"Funny you should ask. We cleaned out most of the chatter. You wouldn't believe the shit people send through rentals. Porn sites win ten to one."

"It's so good to have my view of the general citizenship reinforced."

"After that you got your entertainment and amusement sites, then your financials. Personal e-mail comes after. Most promising user name is Wordsworth. All his transmissions are cloaked. You get through one layer of the cloak and the sucker bounces you to another locale. He shot the goods from the cyber-joint to Madrid. Start picking there and it bounces to Delta Colony. Then – "

"I get the picture. What did you find?"

Feeney sulked a little, crunched on nuts. "I uncloaked one transmission so far. Looks like he did three, maybe four more. The one I stripped down went to an account registered to Stefanie Finch. A lot of mushy stuff."

"Shoot the mushy stuff and her address to my units. You're a cyber-wizard, Feeney."

That soothed his ruffles. "Yeah, don't I know it. I gotta take a couple hour's medical, get a quick eye fix. Detective Cyber-Wiz here'll keep on it."

"I'm in the field. Peabody, with me. Peel off," she ordered as she strode out and toward a glide. "Snag me an energy bar or something, meet me in the garage in ten. I need to stop by my office first."

"There's vending right outside the bullpen."

"The vending machines around here hate me. They steal my credits and laugh in my face."

"You've had your vending privileges suspended again for kicking the equipment, haven't you?"

"I didn't kick it, I punched it. And just get me the damn bar." Without waiting for a response, Eve hopped the glide and flipped out her communicator to check in with the imaging tech.