Glory in Death

"Nothing." He cleared his throat, patted her shoulder. "Nothing," he repeated. "Go on in, I'll be right along."

"What?" She stood her ground, sca

"It's nothing, really. I just… I neglected to disengage the security camera. It's, ah, activated by motion or voice." Naked, he strode over toward a low stone wall, flicked a switch and palmed a disc.

"Camera." Eve held up a finger. "There was a recording on the entire time we've been out here?" She flicked a narrow-eyed stare at the lagoon. "The entire time."

"Which is why I generally prefer people to automations."

"We're on there? All on there?"

"I'll take care of it."

She started to speak again, then got a good look at his face. The devil took over. "I'll be damned, Roarke. You're embarrassed."

"Certainly not." If he'd been wearing anything but skin, he would have pushed his hands into his pockets. "It was simply an oversight. I said I'd take care of it."

"Let's play it back."

He stopped short, and gave Eve the rare pleasure of seeing him goggle. "I beg your pardon?"

"You are embarrassed." She leaned over to kiss him, and while he was distracted, snatched the disc. "That's cute. Really cute."

"Shut up. Give me that."

"I don't think so." Delighted, she danced back a step and held the disc out of reach. "I bet this is very hot. Aren't you curious?"

"No." He made a grab, but she was very quick. "Eve, give me the damn thing."

"This is fascinating." She edged back toward the open patio doors. "The sophisticated, seen-it-all Roarke is blushing."

"I am not." He hoped to Christ he wasn't. That would top it. "I simply see no reason to document lovemaking. It's private."

"I'm not going to pass it on to Nadine Furst for broadcast. I'm just going to review it. Right now." She dashed inside while he swore and ran after her.

She walked into her office at nine A. M. sharp with a spring to her step. Her eyes were clear and unshadowed, her system toned and her shoulders free of tension. She was all but humming.

"Somebody got lucky," Feeney said mournfully and kept his feet planted on her desk. "Roarke's back on planet, I take it."

"I got a good night's sleep," she retorted and shoved his feet aside.

He grunted. "Be grateful, 'cause you're not going to find much peace today. Lab report's in. The fucking knife doesn't match."

Her su

"The blade's too thick. A centimeter. Might as well be a meter, goddamn it."

"That could be the angle of the wounds, the thrust of the blow." Mexico vanished like a bubble of air. Thinking fast, she began to pace. "What about the blood?"

"They managed to scrape off enough to get type, DNA." His already gloomy face sagged. "It matches our boy. It's David Angelini's blood, Dallas. Lab says it's old, six months minimum. From the fibers they got, it looks like he used it to open packages, probably nicked himself somewhere along the line. It's not our weapon."

"Screw it." She heaved a breath, refused to be discouraged. "If he had one knife, he could have had two. We'll wait to hear from the other sweepers." Taking a moment, she scrubbed her face with her hands. "Listen to me, Feeney, if we go with Marco's confession as bogus, we have to ask why. He's not a crank or a loony calling in trying to take credit. He's saving his son's ass is what he's doing. So we work on him, and we work hard. I'll bring him in to interview, try to crack him."

"I'm with you there."

"I've got a session with Mira in a couple hours. We'll just let our main boy stew for awhile."

"While we pray one of the teams turns up something."

"Praying can't hurt. Here's the big one, Feeney, our boy's lawyers get a hold of Marco's confession, it's going to corrupt the hearing on the minor charges. We'll whistle for an indictment."

"With that, and without physical evidence, he's going back out, Dallas. "

"Yeah. Son of a bitch."

Marco Angelini was like a boulder cemented to concrete. He wasn't going to budge. Two hours of intense interrogation didn't shake his story. Though, Eve consoled herself, he hadn't shored up any of the holes in it, either. At the moment, she had little choice but to pin her hopes on Mira's report.

"I can tell you," Mira said in her usual unruffled fashion, "that David Angelini is a troubled young man with a highly developed sense of self-indulgence and protection."

"Tell me he's capable of slicing his mother's throat."

"Ah." Mira sat back and folded her neat hands. "What I can tell you is, in my opinion, he is more capable of ru

"Can we skip over the psych buzz, Doctor? I can read that in the report. "

"All right." Mira shifted away from the screen where she had been about to bring up the evaluations. "We'll keep this in simple terms for the time being. Your man is a liar, one who convinces himself with little effort that his lies are truth in order to maintain his self-esteem. He requires good opinion, even praise, and is accustomed to having it. And having his own way."

"And if he doesn't get his own way?"

"He casts blame elsewhere. It is not his fault, nor his responsibility. His world is insular, Lieutenant, comprised for the most part of himself alone. He considers himself successful and talented, and when he fails, it's because someone else made a mistake. He gambles because he doesn't believe he can lose, and he enjoys the thrill of risk. He loses because he believes himself above the game."

"How would he react at the risk of having his bones snapped over gambling debts?"

"He would run and he would hide, and being abnormally dependent on his parents, he would expect them to clean up the mess."

"And if they refused?"

Mira was silent for a moment. "You want me to tell you that he would strike out, react violently, even murderously. I can't do that. It is, of course, a possibility that can't be ruled out in any of us. No test, no evaluation can absolutely conclude the reaction of an individual under certain circumstances. But in those tests and those evaluations, the subject reacted consistently by covering, by ru

"And he could be covering his reaction, to skew the evaluation."

"It's possible, but unlikely. I'm sorry."

Eve stopped pacing and sank into a chair. "You're saying that in your opinion, the murderer may still be out there."

"I'm afraid so. It makes your job more difficult."

"If I'm looking in the wrong place," Eve said to herself, "where's the right place? And who's next?"

"Unfortunately, neither science nor technology is yet able to forecast the future. You can program possibilities, even probabilities, but they can't take into account impulse or emotion. Do you have Nadine Furst under protection?"

"As much as possible." Eve tapped a finger on her knee. "She's difficult, and she's torn up about Louise Kirski."

"And so are you."

Eve slid her gaze over, nodded stiffly. "Yeah, you could say that."

"Yet you look uncommonly rested this morning."

"I got a good night's sleep."

"Untroubled?"

Eve moved a shoulder, tucked Angelini and the case into a corner of her mind where she hoped it would simmer into something fresh. "What would you say about a woman who can't seem to sleep well unless this man's in bed with her?"

"I'd say she may be in love with him, is certainly growing used to him. "