In Death 12 - Betrayal in Death

each other into meat in her home office.
    "We've got enough on record from this angle. Let's turn him."
    She sat back on her heels as Peabody bent down to help with the job. As they turned him, Eve felt the jags and swelling of broken ribs.
    "He waited awhile to kill him," she said when she lifted the shirt and examined the vicious discolorations over the torso. "And he fights dirty, the son of a bitch. Goggles."
    Peabody handed over the microgoggles. Through their powerful lenses, Eve studied the body. "Just here, just under the left armpit. Pressure syringe. He pulled a tranq when he got too much resistance. When Talbot went down, he wailed on him awhile. Did he wait until he was coming out of it to rape him? I bet he did. What's the point in rape if the victim doesn't know the violation, the humiliation?"
    Her father had done that, she remembered. If he'd hit her just a little too hard and knocked her out, he'd waited. He'd always waited until she knew, until she could feel, until she broke enough to beg.
    "Yeah, wake up," she whispered. "Wake up. How's a guy supposed to get off if you just lie there, little bitch?"
    "Sir?"
    "He waited," she said, shaking it off. "Kept him alive long enough for the blood to gather into bruises, long enough for him to struggle with whatever energy he had left. Then he slips the wire over the head, finishes the job."
    She pushed the goggles back. "I'll take over the record. Check with Feeney and McNab. See what they've got off the security cameras."
    "Yes, sir."
    "You got some hits in," she murmured, carefully sealing the injured hand.
    So had Darlene French, she remembered. And the others? Was that cut or bruise Yost took away from the job another kind of souvenir? A war wound? Something to admire later?
    What little trinket did he take from Jonah Talbot?
    With the microgoggles back in place, she examined the body for any sign of piercing. She found what she was looking for on the left scrotum.
    She shuddered, remembering the quick shocking sting of her recent ear piercing. "Jesus, what's up with people? For the record, piercing mark in left scrotum indicates victim wore or had worn some body ornamentation in this area."
    She took off the goggles, rose, and standing over the dead began to slowly scan the room.
    When she heard the footsteps, she spoke with her back to the door. "Peabody, tell the sweepers to keep an eye out for a small body ornament. The kind guys hook on their balls, for reasons I don't care to explore. Our guy likes souvenirs, and the victim's missing his genital bauble."
    "I can't help you with that, Lieutenant."
    She turned, looked at Roarke. Instinctively she moved forward, stepping between him and the body. "I don't want you in here."
    "You can't always have what you want."
    They both stepped forward, and she lifted a hand, pressed it firmly to his chest. "This is my crime scene."
    "I'm fully aware of what it is. Move aside, I won't go any farther."
    The tone of his voice answered the question she'd yet to ask. With a little jerk around her heart she stepped to the side. "You knew him."
    "Yes." Anger stirred with pity as he studied the body. "You have his data by now, but I'll tell you he was a smart, ambitious man who moved up the publishing ranks quickly. He liked books. Real books. The kind you hold in your hand so you can turn the pages."
    She said nothing, but knew Roarke also liked real books. That would have been a link between him and the dead. That enjoyment of turning the page.
    "He would have been editing today," Roarke told her, and now guilt, sneaky and slick, slid in with the anger and pity. "He took one day a week at home for editing, though he could easily have passed that job on to his admin or any number of editors. As I recall, he liked to sail, and kept a small boat in a marina on Long Island. He talked of buying a weekend place there. He was seeing someone recently."
    "The girlfriend found him. I have her in another room with a uniform."
    "None of the things I've just told you have anything to do with why he's dead. He's dead because he worked for me."
    His eyes shifted back to Eve's, and the heat in them was brutal. "That's a line of inquiry I intend to pursue." Below the range of the recorder, she put a hand on his. And under her fingers she could feel the vibration of violence, ruthlessly restrained.
    "I need you to wait outside. I need you to let me take care of him."
    There was a moment, a bad one, where she feared he would do