In Death 16 - Portrait in Death

I'll just get the hell out of your way."
     
     
She strode for the door, heard the locks whisper open even before she reached it. The instant she was through, it shut and locked tight.
     
     
Inside, Roarke stared into the glass, then simply hurled it against the wall so the crystal showered to the floor like lethal tears.
     
     
***
     
     
She went to work, or tried, started by running all the names she'd been able to get from Hastings. She'd talk to each personally, but she wanted the basic background before she began.
     
     
She had Peabody's very detailed report on her foray into the field. The second pop was tidily alibied for Rachel Howard's murder. Eve expected the alibi to hold, but would have Peabody follow up.
     
     
She ran more probabilities, checked her notes, set up a board on which she pinned the images of Rachel, the class schedule, a blueprint of the parking lot, an overview of Columbia campus.
     
     
And she worried about Roarke.
     
     
At midnight, she walked into the bedroom, found it empty. The house computer told her he was where she'd left him.
     
     
He was still there when she climbed into bed alone just before one a.m.
     
     
She didn't mind a fight. The fact was, sometimes a good fight livened things up. Got the blood moving. And no matter how mad they might get at each other, they were always involved.
     
     
This hadn't been a fight. He'd just cut her off, cut her out, watched her with cold blue eyes, the way he might watch a stranger. Or a slightly annoying acquaintance.
     
     
She shouldn't have walked out. She told herself as she rolled to find some comfort in the big bed. She should've stayed, made him fight until he'd told her what was wrong.
     
     
He'd known exactly the way to get her to go. If he'd fought with her, she'd have waded in. But he'd dismissed her, flicked her away, stunning her so she'd been out the door with her tail between her legs.
     
     
Just wait, she thought. Just wait until she got hold of him again.
     
     
***
     
     
While she lay there, sleepless in the dark, a nineteen-year-old performing arts student named Kenby Sulu was being immortalized.
     
     
He stood tall, slim, forever young, his body carefully posed, his lifeless limbs supported by hair-thin wire so that he might look perfect in the dispassionate lens of the camera.
     
     
Such light! Such strong light. It coats me. It feeds me. He was brilliant, this clever young man with the dancer's build and the artist's soul. Now he is me. What he was lives forever in me.
     
     
I could feel him merge with Rachel, with me. We are more intimate than lovers now. We are one force of life, more than each of us could ever be without the other.
     
     
What a gift they have given me. And so I have given them eternity.
     
     
There will be no shadows in them.
     
     
Only the mad would call this madness. Only the blind will look and not see.
     
     
Soon, very soon, I think I can show the world what I've done. But first, more light. I need two more before I share with the world.
     
     
But, of course, I must give them a peek.
     
     
***
     
     
When all was done that needed to be done, a note and an image were sent to Nadine Furst, at Channel 75.
     
     
Chapter 10
     
     
The beeping of the bedside 'link shot her out of a nightmare. From dark to dark. Shivering, groping through the panic, she dragged at the tangled sheets.
     
     
"Block video. Oh Jesus, lights, ten percent. Damn it, goddamn it."
     
     
Eve scrubbed the heels of her hands over her damp cheeks, sucked at air while her heart continued to thunder, and answered the call.
     
     
"Dallas."
     
     
DISPATCH, DALLAS, LIEUTENANT EVE.
     
     
She dragged at her hair. "Acknowledged."
     
     
REPORT IMMEDIATELY, LINCOLN CENTER, ENTRANCE TO METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE. POSSIBLE HOMICIDE.
     
     
"Is the scene secure?"
     
     
AFFIRMATIVE.
     
     
"Notify Peabody, Officer Delia. My ETA, twenty minutes."
     
     
ACKNOWLEDGED. DISPATCH OUT.
     
     
She rolled out of bed, the empty bed. It was nearly four in the morning, but he hadn't come to bed. Her skin was clammy from the nightmare, so she gave herself two minutes in the shower, another minute in the swirling heat of the drying tube, and felt almost steady again.
     
     
She dressed quickly in the dim light, strapped on her weapon, pocketed her badge, her field restraints, clipped on her recorder. And was halfway out the bedroom door when she cursed, stalked back, and dug a memo cube out of