Loyalty in Death

"Everybody loved J. C.," Eve murmured, then, shaking her head, began to gather her things. Her communicator beeped before she got to the door. She tugged it out. "Dallas."

"Lieutenant."

"Peabody. I figured you'd have your brother out on the town."

"Try vice versa." On-screen, Peabody rolled her eyes. "I've already been to the top of the Empire State Building, taken the glide around the Silver Palace twice, gawked at skaters in Rockefeller Center – " Not under the tortures of hell would she admit she'd strapped on skates herself. "And I walked my feet off in two museums. He's dying to do the Fly Over Manhattan tour. It leaves in fifteen."

"Tons of fun," Eve commented as she made her way to the elevator that would take her down to her car.

"Zeke's never been to the city before. I've had to stop him from talking to every LC and beggar on the street. Jesus, Dallas, he wanted to play three-card monte."

Eve gri

"You're telling me." Then she sighed. "Look, this probably doesn't mean anything, but it's weird, and I thought I should let you know."

Eve stepped out of the elevator into the garage. "What?"

"You know how Zeke said he came out because he had a commission? Building custom cabinets and stuff? Well, it turns out his commission is from B. Donald Branson."

"Branson?" Eve pulled up short. "Branson hired your brother?"

"Yeah." Peabody studied Eve out of unhappy eyes. "What are the odds?"

"Low," Eve murmured. "Pretty low. How'd Branson hear about Zeke?"

"Mrs. Branson, actually. She was out in Arizona at some spa and was shopping, saw his work in one of the artists' co-ops. Zeke does a lot of custom work, built-ins, furniture. He's really good. She asked about the craftsman, and they put her in touch with Zeke. One thing led to another, and here he is."

"It sounds normal, logical." She slipped into her car. "Has he been in touch with them since he got in?"

"He's calling now. Their name just came up, and I told him. He thought he should call Mrs. Branson and see if she wanted to put off the work."

"Okay. Don't worry about it, Peabody. But let me know how they handle it. And if he hasn't already spilled it about having a cop for a sister, tell him to keep that little bit of data to himself."

"Sure. But it's not like the Bransons are suspects. We've got the killer."

"Right. Let's just be cautious. Go play tour guide. I'll see you tomorrow."

Coincidence, Eve mused as she drove out of the garage. She really hated coincidence. But no matter how she played the information through her mind, she couldn't come up with anything off about the family of her murder victim hiring Peabody's brother to do carpentry work.

J. Clarence had been alive when Zeke had been hired. Neither of the Bransons were involved in his death. There was no way to stretch it into anything shaky.

Sometimes coincidence was just coincidence. But she pushed the information into a corner of her mind and let it stew there.

– =O=-***-=O=-

There was music playing softly when Eve walked in the house. Summerset entertaining himself, she decided as she stripped off her jacket, while he went about doing whatever the hell it was he did all day.

She tossed the jacket over the newel post as she started upstairs. He would know she was home, she thought. The man knew every damn thing. He also hated to have his routine, whatever it was, disturbed. It was unlikely he would bother her.

She turned, walked down the corridor to the tall double doors of Roarke's weapon room. Frowning a little, she hitched her bag on her shoulder more securely. She was aware that only Roarke, Summerset, and she could gain access to this room.

Roarke's collection was legal – at least it was legal now. She had no idea if every piece had been obtained by legal means. She doubted that sincerely.

Eve laid her hand flat on the palm plate, waited while the cool green light shimmered on to take her print, then stated her name, and finally used the key code.

The security computer verified her identification, and the locks snicked open.

She stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and let out a long breath.

Weapons of violence through the ages were displayed, somehow elegantly, in the great room. Encased in glass, showcased in beautiful cabinets, gleaming on the walls were guns, knives, lasers, swords, pikes, maces. All testaments, she thought, to man's continued ambition to destroy man.

And yet, she knew the weapon strapped to her side was as much a part of her as her arm.

She remembered the first time Roarke had showed her this room, when her instinct and her intellect had been waging a battle. One telling her he could be the killer she sought, the other insisting it wasn't possible.

The first time he'd kissed her had been here, in this private museum of war. And another element had been added to her personal battle: her emotions. She'd never quite gotten her emotions back on track when it came to Roarke.

Her gaze skimmed over a case of handguns, all illegal but for collections like this since the Gun Ban implemented decades before. Clumsy, she thought, with their bulk and their weight. Lethal with their propulsion of hot steel into flesh.

Taking such impulsive killing devices off the street saved lives, she was sure. But as Lisbeth Cook had proved, there were always new ways to kill. The human mind never tired of dreaming them up.

She took the rack out of her bag, then studied her choices to find one that would fit.

She'd narrowed it down to three side arm types when the door behind her opened. She turned, intending to scald Summerset for interrupting, and Roarke strolled in.

"I didn't know you were here."

"I'm working at home today," he told her and lifted a brow. She looked a little frazzled, he noted, a bit distracted. And alluring.

"Do I assume the same for you, or are you just playing with guns?"

"I've got a case, sort of." She set the rack down, gestured to it. "Since you're here, you'd be better at this. I need an army-issue blaster, Urban War style, that would fit into this rack."

"U.S. Army?"

"Yeah."

"European style's a bit different," he commented as he walked to a display cabinet. "The U.S. had two hand blasters during that period, the second – toward the end of the war – was lighter, more accurate."

He chose a piece with a long double over-and-under barrel and molded grip in a dull gray. "Infrared sight, heat-seeking directional. The blast can be toned down to stun – which would drop a two-hundred-pound man to his knees and have him drooling for twenty minutes – or tuned up to shoot a fist-sized hole in a charging rhino. It can be pinpointed or scattered to wide range."

He turned the weapon over, showing Eve the controls on either side. She held out her hand, testing the weight when Roarke passed the weapon to her.

"Can't weigh more than five pounds. How does it charge?"

"Battery card in the butt. Same principle as a clip on an old-fashioned automatic."

"Hmm." She turned and tried it in the rack. It slid in, settled snug, like a foot in a comfortable shoe. "Looks like a wi

"That depends on if you choose to believe the U.S. government, which claims that the vast majority were confiscated from its troops and destroyed. But if you believed that, you wouldn't be the cynic I know and love."

She grunted. "I want to test this out. You've got a battery card, right?"

"Of course." He picked up the gun and rack himself, walked to the wall, and opened the panel. Frowning a little, Eve got on the elevator with him.

"Don't you have to go back to work?"

"That's the beauty of being the boss." He smiled as she hooked her thumbs in her pockets. "What's this about?"