J Robb - Imitation in Death

“My life,” Roarke said after a moment, “was gray before you walked into it.”

“Yeah, I’m a rainbow.” She wiggled her jaw. “My face anyway. You up for some drone work?”

“I might be persuaded. After we put something on that bruise.”

“It’s not so bad. You know, the transit cop told me that guy’s a regular on that line. They call himWilly the Wanker.”

“That’s a fascinating bit ofNew York trivia.” He pulled her toward the elevator. “It makes me yearn to ride the subway.”

InPeabody ’s cramped apartment, McNab ran her through a series of intense computer simulations. He’d proven himself,Peabody had discovered in the last few weeks, a strict and fairly irritating instructor.

With her shoulders hunched, she carefully picked her way through a murder scene, selecting her choices and options in a field investigation of a double homicide.

And cursed when her selection resulted in a blasting buzz-McNab’s personal addition to the sim-and a stern-faced figure of a robed judge shaking his finger at her.

Ah-ah-ah-improper procedure, scene contamination. Evidence suppressed. Suspect gets a free walk due to detective investigator’s screw-up.

“Does he have to say that?”

“Cuts through the legal mumbo,” McNab pointed out, and stuffed potato chips in his face. “Digs down to the point.”

“I don’t want to do any moresims.” Her face fell into a pout that had McNab’s libido jiggling. “My brain’s going to leak out of my ears in a minute.”

He loved her, enough to mostly ignore the image of peeling her out of her clothes and doing her on the rug. “Look, you’re aces on the written. You’ve got a memory for details and points of law, blah blah. You get thumbs-up on the oral, once your voice settles down from a squeak.”

“It does not squeak.”

“Sort of like how it does when I bite your toes.” He grinned toothily when she scowled at him. “And while I like how it sounds myself, the test team’s going to be less romantically inclined. So you’re going to want to oil the squeaks.”

She continued to pout, then her mouth dropped open in shock when he slapped her hand away from the bag of chips. “None for you until you get through a sim.”

“Jesus, McNab, I’m not a puppy performing for a biscuit.”

“No, you’re a cop who wants to make detective.” He moved the bag out of her reach. “And you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared; I’m understandably anxious about the testing process and proving myself ready to…” She hissed out a breath as he merely studied her with patient green eyes. “I’m terrified.” Because his arm came around her, she snuggled into his bony shoulder. “I’m terrified I’ll blow it, and I’ll letDallas down. And you, and Feeney, the commander, my family.Jesus.”

“You’re not going to blow it, and you won’t let anyone down. This isn’t aboutDallas, or anybody else. It’s all about you.”

“She trained me, she put me up for it.”

“So she must figure you’re ready. It ain’t no snap, She-Body.” He gave her cheek a quick nuzzle. “It’s not supposed to be. But you’ve got the training, you’ve got the field time, the instincts, the brains. And, honey, you’ve got the guts and heart, too.”

She turned her head to look up at him. “That’s so damn sweet.”

“It’s a fact, and here’s another one, here’s what you don’t have right now. You don’t have the balls.”

Her gooey affection toward him transformed into brittle insult. “Hey.”

“And because you don’t have the balls,” he continued calmly, “you’re not trusting your gut, or your training. You’re second-guessing yourself. Instead of going with what you know, you keep wondering what you don’t know, and that’s why you keep messing up on thesims.”

She’d pulled away from him. Her breath hissed out. “I hate you for being right.”

“Nah. You love me because I’m so damn good-looking.”

“Asshole.”

“‘Fraidy cat.”

“‘Fraidy cat.” Her lips twitched into a reluctant smile. “Jeez. Okay, set up another one. Make it tough. And when I nail it, I not only get the chips, but…” Her smile widened. “You wear the hat.”

“You’re on.”

She rose to pace and clear out her head while he programmed the sim. She’d been afraid, she admitted. Afraid she wanted it too much. So she hadn’t used the hunger, but had let it eat away at her confidence. That had to stop. Even if her palms were damp and her stomach in knots it had to stop.

Dallasnever let nerves get in the way, she thought. And she had them, nerves and something deeper, darker. It had peeked through on theGregg scene, for just a moment that afternoon. Now and again on a sexual homicide, it peeked through. It turned her lieutenant’s cheeks pale. Took her back,Peabody was sure, to something horrible. Something personal.

Rape,Peabody was sure, just as she was sure it had to have been brutal. And she’d have been young. Before the job.Peabody had studiedEve ’s career with the NYPSD like a template, but there’d been no report of a sexual assault onDallas.

So it had been before, before the Academy. When she was a teenager, or possibly younger. In automatic sympathy,Peabody ’s stomach roiled. It would take guts, and balls, to face that, to revisit whatever had happened every time you walked into a scene that reverberated with sexual violence.

But to use it, instead of being used by it, that took more,Peabody determined. It took what she could only define as valor.

“Ready here,” McNab told her. “And it’s a doozy.”

She sucked in a breath, squared her shoulders. “I’m ready, too. Go in the bedroom or something, okay? I want to do it on my own.”

He looked at her face, saw what he’d hoped to see, and nodded. “Sure. Nail the bad guy, She-Body.”

“Damn right.”

She sweated through it, but stayed focused. She stopped asking herself whatDallas would want her to do, even after a point whatDallas would do, and just concentrated on what needed to be done. Preserve and observe, collect and identify. Question, report, investigate. It began to click for her, the pattern emerging. She waded her way through conflicting witness statements, shaky memories, facts and lies, forensics and procedure.

She built, she realized with rising excitement, a case.

Though she wanted to hesitate on the final stage, the arrest, she bore down and selected. And was rewarded with the graphic of a prosecuting attorney.

Pick him up. Murder One.

“Yes!” She popped up from the chair, did her little victory dance. “I got an arrest. Nailed the murdering bastard. Hey, McNab, bring me those damn potato chips.”

“Sure.” He stepped out, grinning. He carried the bag in one hand, and was naked but for her summer straw hat. Since it was perched jauntily at his crotch, she assumed her success made him as happy as it made her.

She laughed until she thought her ribs would crack. “You’re such a moron,” she managed, and jumped him.

– -«»--«»--«»--

ForEve it was a matter of merging bare facts with educated speculation. “He had to know their routines, which means he knew them. Doesn’t mean they knew him, doesn’t connect them, but he knew. He’s too cocky for them to have been random. He trolled first.”

“That’s the usual pattern, isn’t it?” Roarke cocked his head at her look. “If my one true love was a dentist, I’d study up a bit on the latest thoughts on dental hygiene and treatments.”

“Don’t say dentist,”Eve warned, automatically running her tongue warily over her teeth.

“By all means let’s stick with bloody murder.” And knowing there was no talking her out of another cup of coffee atmidnight, had another himself. “The trolling, the selecting, the stalking, the planning. They are all essential parts of the whole for the typical, if the word can be used, serial killer.”