In Death 22 - Memory in Death

her trousers.
    She came down to him again, bracing on her elbows. Mouth-to-mouthlong, sumptuous kisses punctuated by quick bites as her heart beat, beat, beat against his. When she offered her breast, he took it, and her breath caught, then released on a shudder.
    His now, as much as he was hers. Her body was fueled for him. He rolled her over, pinned her hands to either side of her head. Her eyes were heavy with passion, dark with challenge.
    “I want you naked. Lie still while I undress you.”
    He touched his lips to hers, then to the dent in her chin, lining little opened-mouth kisses down her throat, over her breasts, down to her belly.
    He rolled her pants down her hips, exposing more flesh, then traced his tongue over the tender dip where legs met her center. She arched, shivered.
    “Ssh.” A soothing murmur even as he used his mouth to drive her to the edge, finally to push her over it. When she went limp, he continued down her thighs.
    He tugged off her boots, let her trousers fall in a heap on top of them. Then began to work his way up, slowly, tortuously.
    “Roarke.”
    “Look at this flesh and muscle,” he said, echoing her earlier words. “All mine.”
    Again, her body began to churn, that outrageous and breathless pressure building and building until everything inside her burst open. She could only reach for him.
    He was inside her, deep and strong. His mouth on hers, his fingers linked with hers. Tasting, feeling, holding, they flashed together.
    She thought, blind with love, that, yes, she could go home.
    * * *
    They lay quiet for a moment, settling. He’d rolled again so her head could rest on his shoulder, her hand on his heart that was still drumming.
    “I should scold you more often.”
    “Wouldn’t make a habit of it. Might tick me off next time. I felt off all day. I was doing the job, like you said, but I felt off. Almost like I was watching myself do the job. Passive or something. That’s not my
    rhythm. I need to tune it up.”
    He gave her belly a light rub. “You felt tuned to me.”
    “Sex’ll do that. With you, anyway.” She pushed herself up. “I need to start at the beginning of this, in
    my head. Rub off this film that’s been clouding my brain, and start over.”
    He stretched out to reach the wine. “Then that’s what you’ll do.” She took a sip of the one he handed her. “What I’m going to do is take a shower and get dressed. Go over my own notes and reports from the scene, the statements. Take an hour and just line it up in my head.”
    “All right. I’ll go back to the account, see what I can chisel out.”
    “Can I bounce some things off you after I line them up?”
    “I’d be disappointed otherwise. Why don’t we rendezvous in an hour, do that bouncing over dinner?”
    “That’ll work.” She took his hand, squeezed. “This works.” He kissed her knuckles. “It certainly does.”
    [“13”]13
    SHE TOOK HER HOURANDWENT BACK TO THE beginning. She walked back through it, step
    by step, using the crime scene record, her own notes, the reports from the sweepers, the ME, the lab.
    She listened to statements, judging inflection, expression, as much as the words themselves.
    She stood in front of her board and studied each photograph, every angle.
    When Roarke came in from his office, she turned to him. He acknowledged the light in her eyes with a grin and cocked brow. “Lieutenant.”
    “Goddamn right. I was acting like a cop, doing the cop walk, but I wasn’tfeelinglike a cop. I’m back now.”
    “Welcome.”
    “Let’s eat. What do you want?”
    “Since you’re feeling like a cop, I suppose it best be pizza.”
    “Hot damn. If I hadn’t already rolled you, I’d probably jump you just for that.”
    “Put it on my account.”
    They sat at her desk, one on either side, with pizza and wine between them. He’d even put a tree in here, she thought. A small one, by his standards, but, by God, she liked looking at it over by the window, sprinkling light out into the dark.
    “See, here’s the thing,” she began, “it doesn’t make any sense.”
    “Ah.” He gestured with his glass, sipped. “Glad that’s cleared up.”
    “Seriously. Here’s what you’ve got on the surface, when you walk cold into the scene: Dead woman, killed by multiple blows of a blunt instrument, head shots from behind. Previous bodily injuries indicating she’d been attacked and/or beaten the day before. Door locked from the inside, window not.”
    With a