Indulgence in Death (In Death 31)

And this kind got his kicks in the torture chamber of an amusement park.

The light fluttered, a dozen guttering candles with the red glow of a fire where a hooded man, stripped to the waist, heated an iron spike.

The air stank, she thought. They’d made it just a little too real, so it reeked of sweat and piss and what she thought was blood. The scream and prayers of the tortured and the damned crowded the room where stones dripped and the eyes of rats glowed in the corners.

A woman begged for mercy as her body stretched horribly on the rack. A man shrieked at the lash of a barbed whip.

And her date for the evening watched her with avid eyes.

Okay, she thought, she got the drift.

“You want to hurt me? Do you want me to like it?”

He smiled a little shyly as he came toward her. But the pace of his breathing had increased. “Don’t fight.”

“You’re stronger. I’d never win.” Playing the game, she let him back her into a shadowy corner behind a figure moaning as it turned on a spit. “I’ll do anything you want.” She worked some fear into her voice. “Anything. I’m your prisoner.”

“I paid for you.”

“And your slave.” She watched pleasure darken his eyes, kept her voice low, throaty. “What do you want me to do?” Let her breath catch. “What are you going to do to me?”

“What I brought you here to do. Now be very still.”

He pressed against her as he reached in his pocket, into the sheath hugging his thigh.

He kissed her once, squeezed his free hand on her breast to feel her heart pump against his palm.

She heard something, a slide, a click. “What’s that?”

“Death,” he said, and stepping back drove the blade into that pumping heart.

7

WITH HER MIND CROWDED WITH DATA AND theories, Eve crawled into bed. Her body clock yearned to be wound down, turned off, and rebooted after a solid downtime. She curved into Roarke as his arm came around her, felt everything in her give in, relax.

She closed her eyes.

Her ’link signaled.

“Hell. Lights on, ten percent. Block video.” She shoved herself up, answered. “Dallas.”

Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. See the officer, Coney Island, House of Horrors, main entrance. Possible homicide.

“Acknowledged. Contact Peabody, Detective Delia. Probability of connection with Houston investigation?”

Unclear, but flagged.

“On my way. Shit,” she said as she cut transmission.

“I’ll drive.” Roarke stood, shook his head when she frowned. “I’ve a business interest in the park, as you know. I’ll be contacted—” He broke off when his ’link signaled. “Now, I’d say.”

She didn’t argue. He’d probably be handy.

She dressed, programmed a couple of coffees to go.

And said nothing when he chose one of his topless toys to zing them through the warm summer night. The wind and the caffeine would clear her brain and reboot the body clock a few hours ahead of schedule.

“What kind of security’s on that place?” she asked him.