Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood 19)

After she went through a room full of hunks of rock, and then one that had some pretty gruesome-looking old instruments in it, she rounded a corner—and took a memory snapshot: Nothing but shelves and books in this space, but that was not what was going to stick with her.

Over in the far corner, a very dead body appeared to have been used as a projectile against a section of shelving, all kinds of broken pieces of wood and disrupted leather covers and cracked spines around the remains.

Which were in a very bad state.

Delorean broke away from the uniforms and came over. “This has to be your boy. There’s no . . . it’s just like the scene at the club and the other places, as if someone waved a goddamn wand and tore him in half.”

Erika went over and knelt down. Maybe it was the exhaustion . . . maybe it was the fact that her nerves were shot . . . but she was having trouble processing the victim’s injuries. It was as if he had been pulled apart at the legs, the torso raggedly torn in half from crotch to throat.

A sense that she was being watched made her jerk her head back over her shoulder. But there was no one there—

Erika frowned and straightened. Inside a Lucite presentation stand with a lid, like it was something special, a book was set apart from the others and it captured her attention for no good reason: Even though she couldn’t see its cover or its spine properly, and didn’t have any clue about how fancy or expensive it was, there was just something . . .

Well, captivating about it—

“You okay?” Delorean asked.

“Is the wife in the other room?” she asked as she shook herself back to attention.

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to go talk to her.” Erika put her hand up to the special agent. “Just give me a minute with her alone.”

Without waiting for a response, she followed the sounds of sniffling through a couple more rooms, and found herself emerging into some kind of sitting area that seemed big enough to be in a hotel. Over on a set of sofas, by a curving staircase, a woman with really good hair and a puffy face was wearing a bathrobe-and-nightgown set that was quite possibly worth more than a month or two of Erika’s rent.

As she approached, she didn’t have to ask the officer to get up and go. He took one look Erika’s way and murmured something to the victim’s wife before excusing himself.

“Hi, I’m Detective Saunders,” she said as she came over. “I’m with homicide.”

The wife patted her red nose with a Kleenex and looked up. “I just told him everything I know.”

“I’m sure it will be helpful. You okay if I sit down with you?”

“I don’t have anything else to tell. Herb went down when the alarm registered motion and he didn’t come back. I waited about twenty minutes and then . . . I left our bedroom and found him . . .”

Erika lowered herself onto a white velvet couch that was part of an overall neutral color scheme—so that the masterpieces on the walls would show, no doubt. Jeez, the place was like a modern art museum.

“Why would someone do that?” the wife said as she stared at the wad of tissue she was holding. “Why?”

When those bloodshot eyes shifted over, Erika’s heart stopped.

“I am so sorry.” Leaning forward, she put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I promise you, I’m going to find the person responsible. I will bring them to justice if it’s the last thing I do.”

Maybe it was the female-to-female thing, maybe it was the honest-to-God communion Erika felt with the pain the woman was feeling, but the wife’s eyes watered anew.

“Do you think this has anything to do with the watches?”

Erika blinked. “The watches?”

“That were stolen.” The wife sniffed and took another tissue from a white box. “We called the police as soon as my husband got home from Idaho and discovered they were missing. He went into the safe in our closet and saw they were gone. They were part of his collection. He always told me how much they were, but I don’t . . . I can’t remember now. But several hundred thousand dollars.”

Erika glanced around at the ceiling, taking note of the pods that were mounted in the corners of the gallery space. “You have a security system here, correct?”

“There was no footage from that night . . . something went wrong.”

“So you have cameras, too.” When the wife nodded, Erika frowned. “The alarm was engaged when you think the theft occurred?”

“I was here alone. I swear I put it on, but I maybe did something wrong. Maybe I turned the cameras off—oh, God, what did they do to him?” Those eyes lifted again. “There’s so much blood . . . and his body . . .”