Rapture in Death

And killed.

Blood on her hands at eight years of age. Is that why she'd become a cop? Was she constantly trying to wash away that blood with rules and law and what some still called justice?

"Sir? Dallas?" Peabody laid a hand on Eve's shoulder and jumped when Eve jolted. "Sorry. Are you all right?"

"No." Eve pressed her fingers to her eyes. The discussion over dessert had troubled her more than she'd realized. "Just a headache."

"I've got some departmental-issue painkillers."

"No." Eve was afraid of drugs, even officially sanctioned doses. "It'll back off. I'm ru

"You still think they're co

"I want them to be co

"Being your permanent aide is the best thing that ever happened to me." Peabody flushed a little. "I'd be grateful if we got stuck shoveling through inactives for the next six months. You'd still be training me."

Eve leaned back in her chair. "You're easily satisfied, Peabody."

Peabody shifted her gaze until her eyes met Eve's. "No, sir, I'm not. When I don't get the best, I get real cranky."

Eve laughed, dragged a hand through her hair. "You sucking up, Officer?"

"No, sir. If I was sucking up, I'd make some personal observation, such as marriage obviously agrees with you, Lieutenant. You've never looked lovelier." Peabody smiled a little when Eve snorted. "That's how you'd know I was sucking up."

"So noted." Eve considered a moment, then cocked her head. "Didn't you tell me your family are Free-Agers?"

Peabody didn't roll her eyes, but she wanted to. "Yes, sir."

"Cops don't usually spring from Free-Agers. Artists, farmers, the occasional scientist, lots of craft workers."

"I didn't like weaving mats."

"Can you?"

"If held at laser point."

"So, what? Your family pissed you off and you decided to break the mold, go into a field dramatically removed from pacifism?"

"No, sir." Puzzled at the line of questioning, Peabody shrugged. "My family's great. We're still pretty tight. They're not going to understand what I do or want to do, but they never tried to block me. I just wanted to be a cop, the same way my brother wanted to be a carpenter and my sister a farmer. One of the strongest tenets of Free-Ageism is self-expression."

"But you don't fit the genetic code," Eve muttered and drummed her fingers on her desk. "You don't fit. Heredity and environment, gene patterns – they all should have influenced you differently."

"The bad guys wished I had been," Peabody said soberly. "But I'm here, keeping our city safe."

"If you get an urge to weave a mat – "

"You'll be the first to know."

Eve's unit beeped twice, signaling incoming data. "Additional autopsy report on the kid." Eve gestured for Peabody to come closer. "List any abnormal brain pattern," she ordered.

Microscopic abnormality, right cerebral hemisphere, frontal lobe, left quadrant. Unexplained. Further research and testing under way.

"Well, well, I think we just caught a break. Display visual of frontal lobe and abnormality." The cross section of the brain popped on screen. "There." A quick surge of excitement churned in her belly as Eve tapped the screen. "That shadow – pinprick. See it?"

"Barely." Peabody leaned closer until she was all but cheek to cheek with Eve. "Looks like a flaw on the display."

"No, a flaw in the brain. Increase quadrant six, twenty percent."

The picture shifted, and the section with the shadow filled the screen. "More of a burn than a hole, isn't it?" Eve said half to herself. "Hardly there, but what kind of damage, what kind of influence would it have on behavior, personality, decision making?"

"I pretty well dumped my required Abnormal Physiology at the Academy." Peabody moved her sturdy shoulders. "I did better in Psych, better yet in Tactics. This is over my head."

"Mine, too," Eve admitted. "But it's a link, our first one. Computer, cross section of brain abnormality, Fitzhugh, file one two eight seven one. Split screen with current display."

The screen jittered, went to fuzzy gray. Eve swore, smacked it with the heel of her hand, and bumped out a shaky image blurred across the center.

"Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. This cheap shit we have to use around here. It's a wonder we can close a case on jaywalking. Download all data, you bastard, on disc."

"Maybe if you sent this unit into Maintenance," Peabody suggested and received a snarl.

"It was supposed to be overhauled while I was away. The fuckers in Maintenance have their fingers up their butts. I'm going to run this through one of Roarke's units." She caught Peabody's lifted brow and tapped her foot as she waited for the wheezy machine to download. "You got a problem with that, Officer?"

"No, sir." Peabody tucked her tongue in her cheek and decided against mentioning the series of codes Eve was about to break. "No problem here."

"Fine. Get to work on the red tape and get me the brain scan of the senator for comparison."

Peabody's smug little smile fell away. "You want me to bump heads with East Washington?"

"Your head's hard enough to handle it." Eve ejected the disc and pocketed it. "Call me when you get it. The minute you get it."

"Yes, sir. If we get a link there, we're going to need an expert analyst."

"Yeah." Eve thought of Reea

"Moving, Lieutenant."

CHAPTER NINE

Eve wasn't one for breaking rules, yet she found herself standing outside the locked door of Roarke's private room. It was disconcerting to realize that after a decade of going by the book, she could find it so easy to circumvent procedure.

Do the ends justify the means? she wondered. And are the means really so out of line? Maybe the equipment in the room beyond was unregistered and undetectable to Compuguard and therefore illegal, but it was also top of the line. The pathetic electronics budgeted to the Police and Security Department had been antiquated nearly before it was installed, and Homicide's slice of the budget pie was stingy and stale.

She tapped her fingers on her pocket where the disc rested and shifted her feet. The hell with it, she decided. She could be a law-abiding cop and walk away or she could be a smart one.

She placed her hand on the security screen. "Dallas, Lieutenant Eve."

The locks disengaged with a quiet snick and opened into Roarke's huge data center. The long curve of windows, which were shielded against sun and flybys, kept the room in shadows. She ordered lights, secured the door, and walked over to face the wide, U-shaped console.

Roarke had programmed her palm and voice print into the system months before, but she'd never used the equipment alone. Even now that they were married, she felt like an intruder.

She made herself sit, snugged the chair into the console. "Unit one, engage." She heard the silky hum of high-level equipment responding and nearly sighed. Her disc slid in smoothly, and within seconds had been decoded and read by the civilian unit. "And so much for our elaborate security at NYPSD," she muttered. "Wall screen on full. Display data, Fitzhugh File H-one two eight seven one. Split screen with Mathias File S-three oh nine one two."

Data flowed like water onto the huge wall screen facing the console. In her admiration, Eve forgot to feel guilty. She leaned forward, sca