In Death 23 - Born in Death

J. D. ROBB
    G. P. P UTNAM’S S ONS
N EW Y ORK
    G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
    Publishers Since 1838
    Published by the Penguin Group
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    Copyright © 2006 by Nora Roberts
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Robb, J. D., date.
    Born in death / J. D. Robb.
    p. cm.
    ISBN 0-7865-7909-9
    1. Dallas, Eve (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 3. Missing persons—Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 5. Pregnant women—Fiction. 6. Policewomen—Fiction. I. Title.
    PS3568 O243B668 2006 2005053485
    813'.54—dc22

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

    While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
    I am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end,
the first and the last.
    —REVELATION
    Love begets love.
    —ROBERT HERRICK

BORN IN DEATH

1
    THE WAYS AND MEANS OF FRIENDSHIP WERE murderous. In order to navigate its twisty maze, a friend could be called upon to perform inconvenient, irritating, or downright horrifying acts at any given time.
    The worst, the very worst requirement of friendship, in Eve Dallas’s opinion, was sitting through an entire evening of childbirth classes.
    What went on there—the sights, the sounds, the assault on all the senses—turned the blood cold.
    She was a cop, a Homicide lieutenant with eleven years on the job protecting and defending the hard, merciless streets of New York. There was little she hadn’t seen, touched, smelled, or waded through. Because people, to her mind, would always and could always find more inventive and despicable ways to kill their fellow man, she knew just what torments could be inflicted on the human body.
    But bloody and brutal murder was nothing compared to giving birth.
    How all those women with their bodies enormous and weirdly deformed by the entity gestating inside them could be so cheerful, sofreaking placid about what was happening—and going to happen—to them was beyond her scope.
    But there was Mavis Freestone, her oldest friend, with her little pixie body engulfed by the bulge of belly, beaming like a mentally defective while images of live birth played out on the wall screen. And she wasn’t alone. The other women had more or less the same God-struck look on their faces.
    Maybe pregnancy stopped certain signals from getting to the brain.
    Personally, Eve felt a little bit sick. And when she glanced over at Roarke, the wince on his angel-kissed faced told her he was right there with her. That, at least, was a big red check in the Pro-Marriage column. You got to drag your spouse into your personal nightmares and into that twisty friendship maze right along with you.
    Eve let the images blur. She’d