In Death 31 - Indulgence in Death

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    Copyright © 2010 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.
Indulgence in death / J. D. Robb.
p. cm.
    eISBN : 978-1-101-44501-3
    1. Dallas, Eve (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Policewomen—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 3. Serial murderers—Fiction. 4. Rich people—Fiction. 5. Contests—Fiction. 6. Successful people—Crimes against—Fiction. 7. Service industries workers—Crimes against—Fiction. 8. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
    PS3568.
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.
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Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.
    —ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
     
     
     
     
It is the wretchedness of being rich
that you have to live with rich people.
    —LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH

1
    THE ROAD WAS A KILLER, HARDLY WIDER THAN a decent stream of spit and snaking like a cobra between giant bushes loaded with strange flowers that resembled drops of blood.
    She had to remind herself that the trip had been her idea—love was another killer—but how could she have known driving in western Ireland meant risking life and limb at every curve?
    Rural Ireland, she thought, holding her breath as they zipped around the next turn on the Journey of Death. Where the towns were barely a hiccup on the landscape, and where she was pretty damn sure the cows outnumbered the people. And the sheep outnumbered the cows.
    And why didn’t that cause anyone concern? she wondered. Didn’t people consider what could happen if armies of farm animals united in revolt?
    When Murder Road finally carved its way out of the blood-drop bushes, the world opened up into fields and hills, green, green, eerily green against a sky stacked with clouds that couldn’t decide if they wanted to rain or just sit there ominously. And she knew those dots all over the green were sheep and cows.
    Probably discussing war strategy.
    She’d actually seen them hanging around those weird—and okay, a little bit fascinating—stone ruins. Towering, tumbling places that had maybe been castles or forts. A good place for armies of farm animals to plot their revolt.
    Maybe it was beautiful in a hang-the-painting-on-your-wall kind of way, but it just wasn’t natural. No, it was too natural, she corrected. That was the deal, too much nature, too much open. Even the houses scattered over the endless landscape insisted on decking themselves out with flowers. Everything blooming, colors smashed against colors, shapes against shapes.
    She’d even seen