Born In Death

When arms came around her, the tension inside her body shifted to a different arena.

“Sorry,” she said with her eyes still closed. “You’ll have to get in line. I’ve already got a guy scheduled for shower sex.”

Hands slid up to cover her breasts; teeth nipped lightly into her shoulder.

“Well, maybe I can squeeze you in.”

She started to turn, but those hands held her in place while his mouth roamed over her neck and shoulders. Little bites while the steam began to rise.

With an arm hooked around her waist, he flipped open the compartment in the glass block and let a river of fragrant soap pool into his hand. He slicked it over her breasts, torso, belly. Slow circles while the water pumped and pulsed.

Everything inside her tightened into delicious knots that released only to snap taut again. The wet heat, the smooth hands teased all of her senses to the edge of nerves, drenching her in sensations.

She lifted her arms, taking them back to wind around his neck, to open herself. Those lazy circles traveled down her again, slid slippery between her legs. Her body bowed, her breath escaping in a moan as he tipped her over the edge.

She shuddered for him, shuddered and bucked against his busy hands, fueling his needs even as he sated hers. His own system began to churn, greed and want and lust and love so twisted together they created one mass of heat that spread from heat to heart to loins.

A unit, he thought. Two lost souls, steeped in shadows, that had found each other. He shouldn’t have forgotten, even in temper, the miracle of that.

When he pulled her around to face him, her eyes were heavy, her face flushed – and her lips slowly curved.

“Oh, it’s you. I thought there was something familiar, but I wasn’t sure.” She reached down, took the hot, hard length of him in her hands. “Yeah, I recognize this.”

She kept those sleepy eyes open and on his when he pushed her back against the wet wall. While the jetting water thundered he took her mouth, took her taste and quivered with the thrill when her lips met his with equal passion.

Then, gripping her hips, he plunged into her, swallowing her cries, her gasps, her moans, as he drove them both.

Her fingers slid down him, dug in for purchase as shock and excitement ripped through her. There was nothing but the heat, the wet, the glorious hard body against her, in her. The pleasure shot her up so high she had to fight for breath to even moan his name.

Then it wrung her out, made her weak, made her woozy. She felt him let go, felt him give himself to her as she went limp.

“Ta cion agam ort.”With his body warm and pressed to hers he murmured it.

I love you, Eve thought, in Gaelic. Knowing he used it when it mattered most to him, she smiled.

Feeling relaxed and accommodating, she let him pick the meal and ended up eating some sort of lightly grilled fish with a side of spicy rice mixed with crispy vegetables. She might have preferred a burger and fries drenched in salt, but she couldn’t complain.

And the chilly glass of Italian white made it all go down smooth as silk.

“Before we go any further,” he began, “I want to say more than feeling kicked, I felt I’d been sucker punched by this. And it bruised.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hardly your fault. The fact is, I was equally furious with myself. I should have seen it coming.”

“Why? How?”

“A prominent accounting firm, with prominent clients.” He moved his shoulders. “There had to be some question that I’d have access to the financial data of some competitors. And the ensuing uproar over it.”

“Hey.” She stabbed out with her fork. “You’re not going to take their side on this one. That’ll just piss me off all over again.”

“I’m not, no. I think it was poorly handled. Still, I should have expected something along those lines, and been better prepared to deal with it.”

“They bitch-slapped both of us. I’m not going to forget it.”

“Nor will I. Why don’t you tell me about the progress of the investigation. If nothing else, it’ll make me feel we’ve given them a good poke in the eye.”

“Sure.”

He listened while she brought him up to date.

“So somebody accessed her files and deleted whatever it was she was looking into. A clean job, according to McNab. They’re going to keep digging.”

“Smarter if they’d taken the units, as they did on the crime scenes.”

“Yeah, in hindsight. I’m guessing the killer couldn’t be sure we’d pin it to an account and start looking there. And until I talk to her supervisor, I don’t know that we will pin it to a specific account. When you take a scan of her office unit, even a hard look, you just see her tidy, organized files and data. The missing pieces only show up if you’re looking for them – those specific times and dates.”

“Foreign accounts,” he mused. “It would be, most likely, a company – or individuals attached to it – that has interests here as well. Most likely directly here in New York. EDD hasn’t yet determined if the access was remote or on site?”

“Not yet. My gut tells me on site. The killer hauled off their home units. If he had solid hacker skills, why not just delete the files from them? Or better, do that by remote before or after the killing? He hauled them away so he could get rid of them, ditch the data and dispose of the units. Not so easy to walk off with office equipment.”

“Good security?”

“Damn good. I don’t think anyone could have wandered in after hours without it showing up on discs. And nothing has. He deleted the files during working hours. Maybe got the passcodes and deleted from another station inside the building, maybe got into her office while her assistant was busy elsewhere. With the delay getting the warrant to confiscate, there was time. The killer or an accessory is inside the firm.”

He sipped a little wine. “Did your first victim gain any new accounts in the last few weeks?”

“Thought of that, and no. Nothing new in the last couple that I can see, so there’s no way to narrow it down from that route. If she flagged anything hinky, that’s gone. Maybe one of the accounts suddenly didn’t jibe, and she took a closer look. Could be the client recently started doing the shadowy stuff. Or she just happened to stumble across something because they’d gotten sloppy. Happens. But she didn’t discuss a problem with an account to any of the higher-ups or with her assistant. Not that any of them is copping to, at any rate.”

“Just the fiancé.” Roarke nodded. “Because she trusted him completely.”

“I get that. But I don’t believe she didn’t at least mention something to one of the partners or her supervisor, her department head. She was meticulous. You’ll see what I mean when you look at her files.”

“I’ll take your word on that for now.”

Eve set down her glass. “I thought we’d squared this, and you’d step onto the team – at least when you had time for it.”

“For now,” he repeated, “I’d rather wait to look at the files. By meticulous, you mean she kept everything in excellent order.”

Eve struggled back her a

“Romantic link?”

“No. It comes off as pals. Good, platonic pals. Grandson has a girlfriend, and the four of them hung. But she doesn’t mention there’s this problem to her pal.”

“Blood’s thicker?”

“Maybe, maybe.” She pushed away from the little table where they’d eaten. “It’s inconsistent with her type, her pathology. She was a team player, and she was a rule keeper. She took this to one of them, Roarke, and the one she took it to was the wrong choice.”