Salvation in death

His wife, his lover, his sweetheart groping with him in the front seat of a car while the music played and the night shimmered.

His hand bumped her weapon, and he laughed. Wasn’t that part of it, too? His dangerous and dedicated cop, yielding to him, lost in her own needs. Demanding he give and he take.

Her mouth was like fury on his, burning away at his control until he was as desperate as she. Until there was only one need, one thought. To mate.

“I can’t-how do we…” Her breath tangled, her body ached as she struggled to shift, to angle, to somehow defeat the confines so that he could fill her.

“Just move… let me-bloody hell.” He rapped his knuckles on the wheel fighting to shift her hips, banged his knees on the dash and was fairly certain she cursed because her head struck the edge of the open skyroof.

Well, they’d get over it.

She was laughing like a mad thing when they finally managed to insert tab B into slot A.

“Oh, thank Christ,” he whispered, and held her, just held her as her body rocked with laughter. “Well, when you’ve finished your laughfest, get to work. I’m pi

“Really?” She could barely get her breath between the laughter and the… why was this ridiculous situation so damn sexy? she wondered. “You’re stuck?”

“Shagging poor design on your police issue.”

“More like poor design for shagging.” Watching him, she rocked-just a little. Lifted her hips-a fraction. Lowered again. “How’s that?”

“You’re killing me.”

“You started it.” She rocked again, a little more, torturing him, torturing herself. Then more, and more still, letting her need set the pace, thrilling to the control until the control was an illusion.

She felt his body tense, coil, shudder on his release, saw those amazing eyes go dark, go blind as she took him. And she rode him, chasing that peak of pleasure until she streaked over it.

She collapsed on him, as much as she was able. Her breath chugged in and out of her laboring lungs; her body quivered, trembled, then stilled. “I better not have any cause to strip tomorrow,” she told him. “Because I’m going to have steering wheel bruises on my ass.”

“You seem obsessed recently with the possibility of stripping on the job. Is there something I should know?”

“You just can’t be too careful.”

“Speaking of, how’s your head?”

“Glancing blow.” She rubbed it absently. “How do we uncouple? Or are we stuck like this until somebody finds us in the morning?”

“Give us a minute.” He nudged her back. “That was worlds better, and entirely more challenging, than any previous experience in vehicle sex.”

Look at him, she thought, his hair all messed up from her hands, buttons popped off his shirt, and his eyes all sleepy and smug. “Did you really steal rides so you could have sex in them?”

“There were all ma

“Pass on that.” She glanced down at herself. “You ripped my underwear.”

“I did.” He gri

“You know, Summerset knew when we drove through the gate. And even with the narrowness of his mind, he knows what we just did out here.”

“Yes, I believe Summerset’s fully aware we have sex.”

Eve rolled her eyes as she got out. “Now he knows how long and what kind of sex.”

Shaking his head, Roarke hike walked with her to the door. “You’re the most fascinating prude.”

She only muttered to herself as they went inside. And if being hugely relieved Summerset wasn’t hovering in the foyer made her a prude, so be it.

Still, she made a beeline upstairs, and for the bedroom. “I’m going to go ahead and run that search, one looking for media-worthy crime or events here at the time Lino left New York.”

“Do you want help?”

“I can run a search.”

“Good. I want a shower, and an hour or two for some work of my own.”

She narrowed her eyes. She wanted a shower, too-but the man was sneaky. “Hands off in the jets,” she ordered.

He held his up, then started to undress. He was down to trousers when he frowned and crossed to her.

“Hands off out here, too,” she began.

“Quiet. You weren’t kidding about the bite on your shoulder.” She tipped her chin down, turned her head. Grimaced at the marks and bruising. “Bitch had a jaw like a rottweiler.”

“It needs to be cleaned and treated, and a cold patch would help.”

“It’s fine, Nurse Nancy,” she began, then yelped when he poked his finger on the mark.

“It will be, unless you insist on acting like a baby. Shower, disinfectant, medication, cold patch.”

She might have rolled her eyes again, but she didn’t trust him not to make his point a second time. And now the damn shoulder ached.

She let him deal with it, even to the point of adding a chaste kiss. And was forced to admit, at least to herself, that it felt better for the care.

In cotton pants and a T-shirt, she sat at her desk, coffee at her elbow, and ordered the search. While the computer worked, she leaned back to juggle the various players in her mind.

Steve Chávez. He and Lino left New York together-according to Teresa-and that was corroborated by Inez. Chávez does time here and there; Lino bobs and weaves. No convictions on record. But comparing McNab’s search with Chávez’s sheet, she noted that there were a number of times both men had been in the same area.

Old friends, hanging out?

And to the best of her knowledge, they dropped off the grid at about the same time in September of ’53. No way she’d buy coincidence.

Had Chávez come back to New York with Lino? Had he, too, assumed a new identity? Could he be somewhere else, waiting for whatever Lino had waited for? Had he eliminated Lino-and if so, why? Or was he-as she believed Flores was-dead and buried?

Pe

She’d go see Soto before she headed downtown to meet Teresa at the morgue.

And maybe she’d missed a step with Teresa. She believed the woman had told her all she was capable of telling her at the time. But another round there might jiggle something else loose.

When her computer a

Murders, rapes, burglaries, robberies, assaults, one kidnapping, assorted muggings, illegals busts, suspicious deaths, and two explosions.

None of the names listed in the reports crossed her list, but she’d run them as a matter of course. Still, it was the explosions that caught her interest. They’d occurred exactly a week apart, each in rival gang territory and both had cost lives. The first, on Soldado turf, at a school auditorium during a dance, had killed one, injured twenty-three minors, two adults-names listed-and caused several thousand in damages.

The second, on Skull turf, at a sandwich joint known as a hangout, a homemade boomer-on timer as the first, but more powerful-had killed four minors, one adult, and injured six.

The police suspected retaliation for that explosion, blah blah, Eve read. Known members of Soldados were being sought for questioning.

She used her authorization to request the case files on both explosions. And hit a block. Files sealed.