In Death 13 - Seduction in Death

herself with the cat as a child might a teddy bear.
    Nausea coated her stomach, and she continued to rock, to pray she wouldn't be sick and add one more misery to the night.
    "Time display," she ordered, and the dial of the bedside clock blinked on. One-fifteen, she noted. Perfect. She'd barely made it an hour before she'd screamed herself awake.
    She set the cat aside, got to her feet. As carefully as an old woman she stepped down from the platform, crossed the room, and walked into the bathroom.
    She ran the water cold, as cold as she could stand, then sluiced it onto her face while Galahad wound himself like a plump ribbon between her legs.
    While he purred into the silence, she lifted her head, examined her face in the mirror. It was nearly as colorless as the water that dripped from it. Her eyes were dark, looked bruised, looked exhausted. Her hair was a matted brown cap, and her facial bones seemed too sharp, too close to the surface. Her mouth was too big, her nose ordinary.
    What the hell did Roarke see when he looked at her? she wondered.
    She could call him now. It was after six in the morning in Ireland, and he was an early riser. Even if he were still asleep, it wouldn't matter. She could pick up the 'link and call, and his face would slide on-screen.
    And he'd see the nightmare in her eyes. What good would that do either of them?
    When a man owned the majority of the known universe, he had to be able to travel on business without being hounded by his wife. In this case, it was more than business that kept him away. He was attending a memorial to a dead friend, and didn't need more stress and worry heaped on him from her end.
    She knew, though they'd never really discussed it, that he'd cut his overnight trips down to the bone. The nightmares rarely came so violently when he was in bed beside her.
    She'd never had one like this, one where her father had spoken to her after she'd killed him. Said things to her she thought -- was nearly sure -- he'd said to her when he'd been alive.
    Eve imagined Dr. Mira, NYPSD's star psychologist and profiler, would have a field day with the meanings and symbolism and Christ-all.
    That wouldn't do any good either, she decided. So she'd just keep this little gem to herself. She'd take a shower, grab the cat, and go upstairs to her office. She and Galahad would stretch out in her sleep chair and conk out for the rest of the night.
    The dream would have faded away by morning.
    You remember what I told you.
    She couldn't, Eve thought as she stepped into the shower and ordered all jets on full at a hundred and one degrees. She couldn't remember.
    And she didn't want to.
    She was steadier when she stepped out of the shower, and however pathetic it was, dragged on one of Roarke's shirts for comfort. She'd just scooped up the cat when the bedside 'link beeped.
    Roarke, she thought and her spirits lifted considerably.
    She rubbed her cheek against Galahad's head as she answered. "Dallas."
    Dispatch. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve...
    Death didn't only come in dreams.
    Eve stood over it now, in the balmy early morning air of a Tuesday in June. The New York City sidewalk was cordoned off, the sensors and blocks squaring around the pavement and the cheerful tubs of petunias used to spruce up the building's entrance.
    She had a particular fondness for petunias, but she didn't think they were going to do the job this time. And not for some time to come.
    The woman was facedown on the sidewalk. From the angle of the body, the splatter and pools of blood, there wasn't going to be a lot of that face left. Eve looked up at the dignified gray tower with its semicircle balconies, its silver ribbon of people glides. Until they identified the body, they'd have a hard time pinning down the area from which she'd fallen. Or jumped. Or been pushed.
    The one thing Eve was sure of: It had been a very long drop.
    "Get her prints and run them," she ordered.
    She glanced down at her aide as Peabody squatted, opened a field kit. Peabody's uniform cap sat squarely on her ruler-straight dark hair. She had steady hands, Eve thought, and a good eye. "Why don't you do time of death."
    "Me?" Peabody asked in surprise.
    "Get me an ID, establish time of death. Log in description of scene and body."
    Now, despite the grisly circumstance, it was excitement that moved over Peabody's face. "Yes, sir. Sir, first officer on-scene has a potential witness."
    "A witness from up there, or down here?"
    "Down here."
    "I'll take