Immortal in Death

He fumbled there and scowled down at his meal. A man wanted meat, damn it. Good red meat. And these pussy health centers treated it like poison.

"Could she have gotten a master code somewhere?" Peabody speculated. She was sticking to green leaf salad, undressed, with the idea of shaving off a couple of pounds. "Or a code breaker."

"Then where is it?" Eve shot back. "She was stone dead when they found her. The sweepers didn't find any master code in the room."

"Maybe the frigging door was open when she got there." Disgusted, Casto shoved his plate aside. "That's the kind of luck we've been having."

"That's a little too serendipitous for me. Okay, she hears a discussion about Immortality, how it's being kept in the drug hold for research. She's in acute withdrawal, with whatever they've plugged into her smoothing out the worst of the raw edges. But she needs it. Then, like a gift from God, there's a commotion outside. I don't like gifts from God," Eve muttered. "But we'll run with it for now. She gets up, the guard's gone, and she's out of there. She gets down to the drug hold, though I can't see a couple of orderlies discussing directions to it. Still, she got there, we've established that. But getting in…"

"What are you thinking, Eve?"

She lifted her gaze to Casto's. "That she had help. That somebody wanted her to get to it."

"You think one of the staff led her down there so she could help herself?"

"It's a possibility." Eve shrugged off the doubt in Casto's voice. "A bribe, a promise, a fan. And when we go through everyone's records, we might hit on something that indicates a weak link. In the meantime – " She broke off as her communicator sounded. "Dallas."

"Lobar, sweeper. We found something interesting in the disposal hold down here, Lieutenant. It's a master code, and its got Fitzgerald's prints all over it."

"Bag it, Lobar. I'll be down shortly."

"That explains a lot," Casto began. The transmission perked up his appetite enough for him to dig into the pasta again. "Somebody helped her, like you said. Or she copped it from one of the nurses' stations during the confusion."

"Clever girl," Eve murmured. "Very clever girl. Times it all like clockwork, goes down, unkeys what she wants, then takes the additional time to ditch the master. She sure was thinking clearly, wasn't she?"

Peabody drummed her fingers on the table. "If she took a hit of the Immortality first – and it seems likely she would, it probably jolted her back on full. She probably realized she could be caught there, with the master. If she ditched it, she could claim she'd wandered off, that she was confused."

"Yeah." Casto flashed her a smile. "That works for me."

"Then why stay?" Eve demanded. "She'd had her fix. Why didn't she make a run for it?"

"Eve." Casto's voice was quiet, sober, as were his eyes. "There's a possibility we haven't touched on here. Maybe she wanted to die."

"A deliberate OD?" She had thought of it, didn't like what it did to her stomach muscles. Guilt descended like a clammy mist. "Why?"

Understanding her reaction, he laid a hand briefly over hers. "She was trapped. You had her. She had to know she was going to spend the rest of her life in a cage – in a cage," he added, "with no access to the drug. She'd have gotten old, lost her looks, lost everything that mattered most to her. It was a way out, a way to die young and beautiful."

"Suicide." Peabody picked up the threads and wove them. "The combination she took was lethal. If she was clearheaded enough to get into the hold, she would have been clear-headed enough to know that. Why face the scandal, imprisonment, another withdrawal if you could go out quick and clean?"

"I've seen it happen," Casto added. "In my line, it's not unusual. People can't live with the drug, can't live without it. So they take themselves out with it."

"No note," Eve said stubbornly. "No message."

"She was despondent, Eve. And like you said, desperate." Casto toyed with his coffee. "If it was an impulse, something she felt she had to do and do quick, she might not have wanted to think long enough to leave a message. Eve, nobody forced her. There's no sign of violence or struggle on the body. It was self-induced. It may have been an accident, it may have been deliberate. You're not likely to fully determine which."

"It doesn't close the homicides. No way she acted alone."

Casto exchanged a look with Peabody. "Maybe not. But the fact is that the influence of the drug may explain that she did just that. You can hammer away at Redford and Young for a while. Christ knows, neither one of them should get off clean in this. But you're going to have to close this thing sooner or later. It's done." He set his cup down. "Give yourself a break."

"Well, this is cozy." Justin Young stepped up to the table. His eyes, hollow and red-rimmed, fastened on Eve. "Nothing spoils your appetite, does it, you bitch?"

As Casto started to rise, Eve lifted a finger, signaling him down. She shoved pity aside. "Your lawyers manage to spring you, Justin?"

"That's right, all it took was Jerry dying to push them into granting bail. My lawyer tells me that with these latest developments – that's just how the fucker phrased it – with these latest developments, the case is all but closed. Jerry's a multiple murderer, a drug addict, a dead woman, and I'm all but in the clear. Handy, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Eve said evenly.

"You killed her." He leaned forward on the table, the slap of his hands rattling cutlery. "You might as well have rammed a knife in her throat. She needed help, understanding, a little compassion. But you kept hacking away at her until she fell to pieces. Now she's dead. Do you understand that?" Tears began to swim in his eyes. "She's dead and you get a nice big star next to your name. Bagged yourself a mad killer. But I've got news for you, Lieutenant. Jerry never killed anyone. But you did. This isn't over." He swept an arm across the table, sending dishes to the floor in a mess of broken crockery and spilled food. "No way in hell is this over."

She let out a long breath as he walked away. "No, I guess it's not."

CHAPTER TWENTY

She'd never known a week to move so fast. And she felt brutally alone. Everyone considered the case closed, including the PA's office and her own commander. Jerry Fitzgerald's body was reduced to ashes, her final interview logged.

The media went into its usual frenzy. Top level model's secret life. The killer beneath the perfect face. Quest for immortality leaves a trail of death.

She had other cases, certainly had other obligations, but she spent every free minute reviewing the case, picking through evidence, and trying out new theories until even Peabody told her to give it up.

She tried to juggle the few little details on the wedding Roarke had asked her to see to. But what the hell did she know about caterers, wine selections, and seating charts? In the end, she swallowed her pride and dumped the whole mess on a sneering Summerset.

And was told, in didactic tones, that a wife of a man in Roarke's position would have to learn basic social skills.

She told him to shove it, and they both went off, well satisfied to do what they did best. Under it all, Eve was almost afraid they were begi

Roarke wandered from his office into Eve's. And shook his head. They would be married the next day. In less than twenty hours. Was the bride-to-be fussing with her wedding gown, bathing herself in fragrant oils and perfumes, daydreaming about her life to come?

No, she was hunched over her computer, muttering at it, her hair tousled from constant raking with her fingers. There was a stain on her shirt where she'd spilled coffee. A plate holding what might have once been a sandwich had been set on the floor. Even the cat avoided it.