Obsession in Death (In Death 40)

“Criminal?”

“No, nothing. A light tap for illegals possession a few years back. I’ve got a couple of DD calls. Neighbors complaining about shouting, crashing around. Fights with boyfriend, but no charges. I can’t find a connection to Bastwick. Can’t find a trigger, but . . . She comes off smart, has an unhealthy and completely fictional relationship with me, sees our work as similar, and is often frustrated by the rules of law not fully serving justice. She sounds weird but harmless, and yet—”

He leaned down, kissed the top of her head. “You’re upset because whether or not any of these apply to your investigation, you now understand you’re a central point in the lives of people you don’t know—and don’t really want to know. You dislike the center stage at the best of times. For you, it’s the victim, the perpetrator, the survivors, the job. Your life, our life.”

“Is that wrong?”

“It’s absolutely not wrong. But it’s a fact you’ll need to deal with to do your job this time.”

“It’s not just the book, the book and the vid. I wanted to blame it all on that—this weird attention—but some of it started before that. It’s fucking creepy.”

He made a sound of agreement, kissed the top of her head again. “You’ll deal with it because you are who you are, you do what you do. What you haven’t said, and we both know, is some of it springs from me—from the media and attention you get being mine.”

“I am what I am, do what I do, and a big part of that is being yours.”

“All right.” He came around, sat on the edge of her desk so they were face-to-face. “My people will also start looking at correspondence. I get quite a bit myself, so we’ll coordinate there, see if there’s any cross. Meanwhile, the finances I’ve looked at so far don’t lead to hiring a hit man. Stern does indeed have a couple of tucked-away accounts, as one might expect. But I haven’t found any withdrawals or transfers of funds that apply here.”

“Are they illegal enough I could use them as leverage?”

“Weak.” With a shake of his head, Roarke took a pull of her water. “Leverage for what?”

“Letting me see all of Bastwick’s client correspondence. He’s citing privilege. Reo’s on it,” she added, “and hell, if there was anything, Bastwick would’ve pulled it for the threat file. But it pisses me off getting blocked out.”

“That’s for tomorrow, as is all the rest.”

She would’ve argued, but the simple fact was she’d done all she could until morning.

Roarke waited until she’d shut down, took her hand. As he walked out of the room with her, he glanced at her board.

Seeing her face there brought him a quick and violent anger, and a cold, clammy fear.

She knew it for a dream, had been resigned to dreaming even before Roarke wrapped her close, before she’d shut her eyes.

She’d floated through them, dream to dream, a voice, an image, a memory.

In the car with Roarke, stopped in the driveway, falling on each other, tearing clothes, desperate, insane to feel, needing him inside her, pounding, pounding, as if her life depended on it.

And neither of them aware Barrow had planted that subliminal command, that life-or-death desperation to mate.

In the closet, at the party, and she injured and bruised. Roarke pushing her against the wall, tearing into her with no care, driven to the wild and feral by that same planted seed.

“Ssh, just a dream.”

Somewhere outside that dream she heard him, felt him soothing her, stroking all that hurt and insult away again.

That’s what Barrow had done, to both of them. That’s what Bastwick had defended.

And worse. Worse.

Mathias, hanged by his own hand, Fitzhugh bathed in his own blood. Devane, throwing her arms out, embracing death as she threw herself off the ledge of the Tattler Building.

He hadn’t used what had done that to them—someone else had—but he’d created it. For money, for profit, for power.

And Roarke, Roarke had very nearly been next. The trap had been laid, the seed waiting to be planted for him to take his own life.

And Bastwick had defended.

“I do my job, you do yours, correct, Lieutenant?”