In Death 12 - Betrayal in Death

you really want a tour, I can arrange one while I'm taking the meeting, give you a lift home after."
    "I wouldn't mind, but I have to say you look more like you could use a couple pints in a pub. You've got trouble on you."
    "I lost a friend today. He was killed this afternoon."
    "I'm sorry to hear that. It's a violent city. A violent world come to that. Why don't you cancel your meeting, and we'll find a pub and wake him proper."
    "I can't. But thanks for the thought."
    Mick nodded, and sensing it wasn't the time for old stories, drained his glass. "Tell you what, I'll have that tour if you don't mind. Then I've business of me own I've been neglecting. I'm going to try to swing it into a dinner meeting, if that doesn't inconvenience you any."
    "Whatever works for you."
    "Then I'll plan on that, and likely not be back to your place till late. Will that be a problem with your security?"
    "Summerset will see to it."
    "The man's a wonder." Mick got to his feet. "I'll stop by St. Pat's in my travels today, and light a candle for your friend."

CHAPTER NINE
    Eve sat in the conference room and watched Jonah Talbot die. She watched, and she listened, to every detail again and again.
    The concentration of an attractive young man at his desk, reading a story on his screen, making notes with the quick fingers of one hand on a spiffy little PC unit while something classical played on the speakers.
    He'd played the music loud. He'd never heard his killer come in the house, walk through it, step into the home office.
    She watched yet again, saw yet again the instant Talbot had sensed something, someone. That instinctive brace of the body, that quick whip of the head. His eyes had widened. There had been fear in them. Not full panic, but alarm, shock.
    Nothing on Yost's face. His eyes were dead as a doll's, his movements precise as a droid's as he'd set his briefcase aside.
    "Who the hell are you? What do you want?"
    Knee-jerk, Eve thought as she listened to Talbot's angry demand. People so often asked the name and business of an attacker, when the first hardly mattered and the second was all too obvious.
    Yost hadn't bothered to respond. He'd simply started across the room. Graceful for a man with his bulk. As if, she thought, he'd had dancing lessons along the way.
    Talbot had come around the desk, and come around fast. Not to flee, but to fight. And there, in that little blip of time, Eve saw those dead eyes light. The dawn of pleasure in the job.
    He'd let Talbot strike the first blow, spill first blood. And with the corner of his lip spurting, Yost moved in.
    Grunts, the crunch of bone on bone played under the soaring music. But only briefly. Yost was too efficient to toy with his target for long, to indulge himself by taking more time than he'd allowed. He'd let Talbot take him down, knocking over the table, letting him think, just for one heady instant, that he might win.
    Then the pressure syringe was out of Yost's pocket, into his hand, and its rounded tip pressed just under Talbot's armpit.
    Still Talbot had struggled, even with his eyes rolling back he'd tried to land a disabling blow. The drug would have blurred his vision, clouded his brain, slowed his reflexes until he was limp, helpless, then unconscious.
    That's when Yost had beaten him. Slowly, methodically. No wasted motions or energy. His mouth moved a bit as he worked. After the music was cleaned out of the disc, she would know that he'd been humming.
    When he finished with the face, he stood and began to kick in the ribs. The sound was vile.
    "He's not even winded," Eve murmured. "But he's excited. He enjoyed it. He likes his work."
    Now, leaving Talbot broken and bleeding on the floor, he wandered over, ordered a glass of mineral water from the AutoChef. He checked his wrist unit before sitting down and sipping the glass dry. Checked it again when he rose to go to his briefcase. He took the silver wire out of it, tested its strength by snapping it between his hands, once, twice.
    When he smiled, as now he smiled, she understood why the clerk in the jewelry store had trembled. He looped the wire around his own throat, crossed the ends to hold it in place, snugly. She could see that while it wasn't tight enough to bring blood, it was secure enough to cut down on the flow of oxygen.
    On the floor, Talbot stirred, moaned.
    On his feet, Yost removed his suit jacket, folded it neatly on a chair. Removed his shoes, then tucked his socks into them. He stepped out of