In Death 04 - Rapture in Death

self-termination. She sends Rabbit out," Eve continued, pacing the office. Annoyed by the constant hum, she glanced up, scowled at the air van still hovering. "See if you can find the privacy shields. I'm tired of those jerks."
    "A pleasure." Peabody hunted up the control panel. "I thought I saw Nadine Furst in one of them. The way she was leaning out, it was a good thing she was wearing a harness. She might have ended up as the lead on her own newscast."
    "At least she'll get it right," Eve said half to herself and nodded when the privacy shields slid into place and closed off the glass. "Good. Lights," she ordered, and brought the brightness back up. "She wanted to relax, level herself off for the rest of the day."
    Eve poked into a cold box, found soft drinks, fruit, wine. One of the wine bottles had been opened and resealed, but there was no glass to indicate Cerise had started drinking early. And it wasn't a couple of belts that had put that look in her eyes, Eve mused.
    In the adjoining bath, complete with whirlpool, personal sauna, and mood enhancer tube, she found a cupboard filled with soothers and tranqs and legalized lifters. "A big believer in chemical assistance, our Cerise," she commented. "Take them in for testing."
    "Jesus, she's got her own pharmacy. The mood tube's set on concentration mode, and the last use was yesterday morning. She didn't take a spin this morning."
    "So what does she do to relax?" Eve stepped into an adjoining room, which was a small sitting room, she noted, complete with full entertainment unit, sleep chair, serving droid.
    A lovely, sage-green suit was neatly folded on a small table. Matching shoes stood on the floor under it. Jewelry -- a heavy linked gold chain, complicated twists of earrings, a slim bracelet watch-recorder -- had been slipped tidily in a glass bowl.
    "She undressed in here. Why? What was the point?"
    "Some people relax better without the confines of clothes," Peabody said, then flushed when Eve cast a considering glance over her shoulder. "I've heard."
    "Yeah. Maybe. But it doesn't suit her. She was a real put-together woman. Her assistant told me he'd never even seen her without shoes, and suddenly she's a closet nudist. I don't think so."
    Her gaze landed on the VR goggles on the arm of the sleep chair. "Maybe she took a trip after all," Eve murmured. "She's frazzled, wants to smooth the edges. So she comes in here, stretches out, programs something, and takes a little ride."
    Eve sat, picked up the goggles. VR goggles, she mused. Fitzhugh and Mathias had taken trips before death as well. "I'm going to see where she went and when. Ah, if I appear to have any suicidal urges after I'm done -- or decide I can relax better without the confines of my clothes -- you're ordered to knock me cold."
    "Without hesitation, sir."
    Eve cocked a brow. "But you're not expected to enjoy it."
    "I'll hate every minute of it," Peabody promised, and folded her hands.
    With a weak laugh, Eve slipped the goggles on. "Display log," she ordered. "Bull's-eye. She went VR at 8:17 this morning."
    "Dallas, if that's the case, maybe you shouldn't do this. We can take it in and test it under controlled conditions."
    "You're my control, Peabody. If I look too happy to live shortly, zap me. Replay last run program," Eve ordered and settled back. "Jesus." She hissed it out as two young studs walked toward her. Dressed only in strips of glossy black leather studded with silver, they were oiled, muscled, and fully aroused.
    Her environment was now a white room, mostly bed, and there was satin under her naked body, gauze draped overhead to filter the candlelight from a soaring chandelier of glittery crystal.
    Music, something low and pagan, throbbed on the air. She was draped over a mountain of feather pillows, and as she started to shift, the first young god straddled her.
    "Hey, listen, pal -- "
    "For your pleasure only, mistress," he crooned and rubbed her breasts with scented oil.
    This is a bad idea, she thought as little involuntary shivers of pleasure centered in her gut. Oil was slicked over her stomach, her thighs, down her legs to her toes.
    She could understand how the current situation could make a woman strip and smile, but not how it could drive her to suicide.
    Stick it out, she ordered herself and turned her mind to something else. She thought of the report she needed to give her commander. Of unexplained shadows on the brain.
    Teeth closed delicately over her nipple, a tongue