Salvation in Death (18 page)
Read Salvation in Death Online
Authors: J. D. Robb
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths
“I’m not here about my sins.”
“Sins are the weight holding us down, keeping us from reaching up for the hand of God!”
“Want some absolution?” Lino offered. “I give it out daily, twice on Saturday. Can’t buy that ticket into heaven without paying for salvation.”
“Neither of you are who you pretend to be.”
“Are any of us?” Jenkins demanded. “Let’s see the playback.”
The screen behind them flashed on. Dull red light blinking, blinking. Through the small window, SEX! LIVE SEX! beat that red light into the room where Eve, the child she’d been, shivered with the cold as she cut a tiny slice of a molding piece of cheese.
In the dream her heart began to thud. Her throat began to burn.
He was coming.
“I’ve seen this before.” Eve forced herself to keep her eyes on the screen, willed herself not to turn and run from what was coming.
He was coming.
“I know what he did. I know what I did. It doesn’t apply.”
“Judge not,” Lino advised as he shoved up the sleeve of his robes. As the tattoo on his arm began to bleed. “Lest you be judged.”
On-screen, her father—drunk but not drunk enough—struck her. And he fell on her. And he snapped the bone in her arm as he raped her. On the screen, she screamed, and on the stage, she felt it all. The pain, the shock, the fear, and at last, she felt the hilt of the knife in her hand.
She killed him, driving that knife into him, again and again, feeling the blood coat her hands, splatter on her face while her broken arm wept in agony. She stood on the stage and watched. Her stomach turned, but she watched until the child she’d been crawled into a corner, huddled like a wild animal.
“Confess,” Lino ordered her.
“Repent your sins,” Jenkins shouted.
“If that was a sin, I’ll take my lumps with God—if and when.”
“Penance,” Lino demanded.
“Rebirth,” Jenkins preached.
Together they shoved at the table of the altar so that it crashed to the stage, broke into jagged pieces of stone. From the coffin beneath, the bloody ghost of her father rose. And smiled.
“Hell’s waiting, little girl. It’s time you joined me there.”
Without hesitation, Eve drew her weapon, flipped it to full. And killed him again.
Wake up now, wake up, Eve. That’s enough now. You need to come back.”
She felt the warmth, the arms strong around her, the heart beating quick against hers. “Okay. Okay.” She could breathe here. She could rest here. “It’s done.”
“You’re cold. You get so cold.” Roarke pressed his lips to her temples, to her cheeks even as he rubbed the frigid skin of her arms, her back.
“She wasn’t there.”
“Who?”
“My mother. I thought, if I dreamed of any of it, if I went back or it came, she’d be there. Because of Solas, because of that. But it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about her. I’m okay.”
“Let me get you some water.”
“No.” She tightened her arms around him. “Just stay.”
“Then tell me what it was about.”
He held her as she did, and the chill left her skin, left her bones, left her heart. “I killed him again. I didn’t feel all that fear or the rage or the desperation. I didn’t feel pleasure. It was just what I had to do. I could stand there, and I could watch it all happen on the screen,
even feel it happening. Like I was in both places. But . . .”
“But?”
“It didn’t hurt as much, or scare me as much. I could watch and think: That’s over. It’s going to be all right. However long it takes, it’s going to be all right, because I’m going to do what I have to do. However many times I have to do it, he’ll still be dead. And I’m okay.”
“Lights on,” he ordered, “fifteen percent.” He needed to see, to see her clearly enough to be sure. And when he did, he cupped her face in his hands, kissed her brow. “Can you sleep again?”
“I don’t know. What time is it?”
“Nearly six now.”
She shook her head. “It’s nearly time anyway. I’ll get up, get started.”
“All right then, I’ll get that energy shake.”
She winced. “I knew you were going to say that.”
“And because you’re the love of my bloody life, I’ll drink one, too.”
10
SHE’D HAVE PREFERRED COFFEE, BUT SHE DOWNED the shake, which wasn’t as disgusting as it should’ve been.
“It tastes like a fruit bowl,” she decided. “On Zeus.”
“That’s rather the idea.” He studied what remained in his own glass, sighed just a little, then drank it. “Well then, that chore’s down.”
“Why don’t they make coffee-flavored ones?”
“There are all manner of coffee-flavored drinks, aren’t there? The point of a protein shake is drinking some-thing healthy. Something good for you, easily and quickly done.”
“Maybe more people would drink it if it tasted like something that wasn’t healthy that they actually liked. Then people who only drink them under duress might start going, mmm-mmm, I love me those fudgy, whipped protein shakes.”
He started to speak, then angled his head. “Hmm.”
“Just saying. Anyway. I’ve got to grab a shower before I get started.”
“So do I.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Is that grabbing a shower, or grabbing me?”
“Let’s find out.”
Eve stripped off her nightshirt as she walked from bedroom to bathroom. She stepped into the shower first. “All jets on full, one-oh-one degrees.”
“Christ, it’s like being boiled for breakfast.”
The crisscrossing streams shot on, a shock to the skin that took the heat straight down to the bones. As they soaked her, she turned. And grabbed him.
“I feel energized.” She took his mouth in a hard, hungry kiss, with just a hint of bite, then laughed when her back hit the drenched glass wall. And his body pinned hers. “Hey, you too. What a coincidence.”
He ran his hands down her first, wet against wet, so that every inch of her body craved.
“Fast,” she said and wrapped herself around him. She bit him again, and those golden brown eyes lit with challenge. “Fast, hard, hot. Now.”
He gripped her hips, jerking her up to her toes, and gave her what she wanted.
Pleasure was dark, and had teeth. His eyes, a wild and burning blue, trapped her even as his body plunged and pumped, to propel her over that first barbed peak.
She cried out from the thrill, from the knowledge that here, here, here, she understood the power of finding, accepting, merging with a mate. Here she knew the fire that forged them, and with him—only him—the absolute trust that tempered strength into love.
Whatever had come before, whatever dreams came haunting, she knew who she was, and reveled in the world she’d made with her lover.
She wrapped tighter, only tighter while her system shuddered. Her mouth raced, all speed, all greed, over his hot, wet skin while her heart quaked.
“More. More.”
Steam curled; water thundered on glass. Her nails bit into his shoulders as she erupted around him. But she didn’t let go. She wouldn’t, he knew. She would hold, they’d found that. They would hold, whatever came.
Through the consuming, outrageous lust she incited in him, wove the consuming, outrageous love until they knotted together so truly there was no end or beginning to either.
He drove her up again, drove them both. When he felt her flying over, saw that dazzled shock glaze in her eyes, he went with her.
Still she held. As her body went limp with release, her arms stayed around him. Dazzled, he nuzzled her—the curve of cheek, the line of throat. Then his mouth met hers in a kiss, long and sweet.
“God,” she managed. “Jesus. Wow.”
“A personal holy trinity?” He tapped a glass block, cupping his hand for the creamy liquid it dispensed. “I feel an urge to stock a lifetime supply of that energy drink.”
She smiled as he stroked the fragrant soap over her shoulders, her back, her breasts. “I don’t think we need it.”
Whether it was the energy boost, the good, strong sex, or coming out of a nightmare, Eve sat down to write her report on the Jenkins investigation with a clear head.
She went back through witness statements, started a time line. And because it was routine, ran a probability on her two active cases.
As she’d suspected, the computer determined both victims had fallen to the same killer at 86.3 percent.
Though she didn’t buy it, she rearranged her murder board into two sections, one for Flores/Lino, one for Jenkins.
Sipping coffee, she studied the results.
“On the surface, sure. On the surface,” she muttered. But it didn’t go deep enough; it ignored the subtleties.
The simple priest—who wasn’t a priest—in a predominantly Latino parish, and the big-time, wealthy, media-savvy evangelist. Different faiths, different cultures, different doctrines.
Considering, she circled the board. If the computer was right, and she was wrong, the media itself might be part of the motive. The first murder got plenty of coverage, and with this one, that was going to explode. Both murders had been executed in front of witnesses, both during what could be termed a well-staged, rehearsed performance, and both weapons had been planted backstage. Where, even with the security for Jenkins, people could and did move fairly freely.
Both victims had secrets, and neither was as good and pure as he professed. Or his image professed.
She turned as Roarke came in. “Probability hits mid-eighties I’ve got one killer, two vics.”
“So you predicted.”
“Here’s a thought: If it’s one killer, could that killer have discovered the duplicity of each vic? Flores’s fakery, Jenkins with his liquor and his sidepiece.”
“Killed for hypocrisy?” Roarke studied her revised murder board. “Then many thousands of religious leaders best mind what they drink.”
“Yeah, and more than that. Why these two, in this city? Because, the killer lives here. Jenkins didn’t. Multiple homes, but none in
“But was killed here, and now. Only a couple of days after Flores.”
“Yeah. After. Fanatic psycho-killer? Then why start with the obscure priest, and not the biggest target? And where’s the killer’s claim for credit?”
Eve shook her head as she circled the board. “Sure, a lot of serials and signatures manage to keep their mouths shut, at least for a while. But it follows, for me, that if you’re going to target religious leaders, you’re the fanatic. You
believe.
And when you’re a fanatical believer, you, by God, just have to spread the word.”
“Or what’s the fun of being a fanatic?” Roarke agreed.
“Oh yeah. But there’s no word. And you kill the fake priest hoping, trusting the cops will discover he’s not who he says he is? You, the fanatic, don’t make damn sure he’s exposed? I don’t think so. You leave a sign, or you rent a goddamn ad blimp to denounce him.”
Roarke held up a finger, then moved to her kitchen to get his own coffee. “We’ve substantiated you don’t agree with your computer.”
“I think the computer’s full of shit.” She sent it an annoyed glance. “There was ritual in the first killing. It felt personal as well as hinging on the ceremony. The second? It feels . . .”
“Expedient,” Roarke suggested, and Eve shot a finger at him.
“Exactly. An opportunity seized. I sent the report to Mira, asked to be scheduled in for a consult.”
“Want to hear my opinion?”
“Yes, I do.”
“The probability doesn’t hold for me, not once you scrape away the thinnest top layer. Both victims were, ostensively, men of God. But, with the first, there’s no gain—nothing known, in any case.”
Roarke tapped a finger to Lino’s photo. “As Flores,” he continued, “while he was liked by those he worked with, and popular among the members of the church, a parish priest can and will be replaced. With the second, there’s considerable gain—monetarily, and the potential for some loss. At least potential for some loss in the short run. A replacement there will need to be cultivated. But, Jenkins ran what was, under it all, a business. Moves will be made to protect that business. If steps aren’t already being taken to do so, I’d be very surprised. In both cases, I’d say the murders were personal, in that they were target specific. The killer, or killers, accomplished precisely what they’d set out to do.”
