Purity in Death

"Fits with his journal. This vid wasn't done at his place," Eve said. "Some of the others I've viewed were. He used the second bedroom. They're tamer than this. Group sex with costumes, bondage, and role-playing. One used a teenaged girl. I ran her image, too. She popped as another runaway. Greene knew how to sniff them out. Copy disc, log to file."

Roarke let out a long breath. "How about we run a nice classic comedy to cleanse the palate?"

"I want to finish this tonight. At least get the IDs."

"For what purpose, Eve?"

"To know for one thing." She filed the disc, selected another. "And second, to see if I find a link."

"Do you really think terrorists are killing all these people so they can get rid of a blackmailer?"

"No, but I think each one of the victims was carefully selected, and with Greene the blackmail was part of it. Maybe just a bonus, but part of it. Run disc. You don't have to stay for this."

"If you can stomach it, I can."

"Home again," Eve said, recognizing the bedroom in Greene's condo. "My guess is he rigged the cameras before the client came in, ran them by remote until the session was over. Did the editing, made a copy. Gives that to the client with a demand for payments. Probably lost clients that way, but he kept the income. No overhead at all. Just pure profit. Here we go, curtain up."

A woman stepped in from the adjoining bath. A rather elegant woman in a killer black dress with long, lush waves of icy blonde hair spilling over the shoulders. Her legs were sheathed in black hose, her feet tucked into mile-high heels.

She wore a diamond choker, and her lips were bloody-murder red.

"Looks familiar," Eve began. "Which is she? Client or hooker?"

"Want an image search?"

"Let it run awhile first."

A man stepped in from the outer door. He was stripped to the waist, bulging in tight black leather. His chest gleamed with oil. His hair was slicked back from a striking face sharp of bone. There was a tattoo under his left nipple. When Eve froze and enhanced the image, she saw it was a tiny skull.

He ran a slim riding crop through his fingers.

"Rosea

"How did you get in?"

"Role-playing," Eve said. "We run a search on both of them." She froze the disc again, blocked faces, started the task.

"Eve?"

"Hmm?"

"Take a good look at her."

"I am. I know that face. Continue disc play."

With a half-smile on his face, Roarke leaned against the desk. "Take a better look."

Frowning, Eve watched the scene play out. The man ran the riding crop down the woman's center. She shuddered. She turned as if to run. He dragged her back. Long, sloppy kiss. Lots of hands.

Hands.

Eve straightened with a snap. "That's not a woman."

Distracted, Eve watched the bare-chested man yank the dress down to the blonde's waist. Beneath was a black lace waist cincher. Though the breasts that spilled over it were full and lush, Eve had no doubt they were just another part of the costume.

The man dealt a couple of sharp slaps to the buttocks when his partner struggled.

There was moaning now, breathy protests. The dress spilled to the floor.

"Looks pretty good for a guy," Eve observed. The legs were slim, set off with thigh-high black hose, old-fashioned garters. Too much shoulder though, she mused, and the hands were too big. She could see the hint of an Adam's apple beneath the glittering choker.

In her mind she erased the wig, the red lips, the heavily accented eyes, and tried to see beneath the female artifice. Sheknew that face.

And when it filled the screen, flushed with excitement as the camera zoomed it, she heard the click.

"Oh good God."

"Did you make him? I'm not quite there yet. Give me another minute." But when the bare-chested man pushed his captive down to the knees, exposed himself, Roarke winced. "Never mind, as I'd soon skip this part. It doesn't-ah well."

He blew out a breath as the face filled the screen again, another angle as the eyes, crystal blue, stared up-full of hunger.

"Yes, indeed, I'd as soon skip watching his honor the mayor give leather boy a blow job."

He turned away from the screen, caught Eve's chin in his hand. "That's why you're the cop, all right. You weren't wasting anyone's time. That'll teach me to doubt you."

"I have to watch the rest of it."

"Must you?"

"I take this in tomorrow, I have to know what I'm dealing with. This isn't your average transvestite. This tosses Peachtree right into the middle of a sex scandal, and a major homicide investigation."

"Then I'm getting another drink." He took her glass. "For both of us."

"Smart," she said later. "Greene caters to a small clientele-rich with whacked whims. Out of that exclusive club, he handpicks a smaller group. A handful of people who've used his services, built a certain level of trust in him, who can't afford even a whiff of scandal. The payments are high, but none of them too high for these select few to afford. You got an even dozen paying out an average fee of twenty-five thousand a month, you rake in…"

"An extra three million six a

"And from what I can tell from his records, most he was blackmailing continued as clients."

"The devil you know," Roarke decided. "Are you putting the mayor in Purity?"

"I don't know. But I've sure got enough to ask him about it, don't I?"

"You'll be putting your hand in the fire, Lieutenant."

"Yeah, I got that, too." She pinched the bridge of her nose to relieve the pressure of a building headache. "Has to be on a need-to-know. Media gets a whiff of the scent, it's a disaster. Shit, I voted for the guy."

"He might've gotten more votes yet if he'd campaigned in that little black dress. Very attractive." Roarke only gri

"You start talking about guys in black dresses looking pretty, you're more than tired, pal."

"I said attractive," he corrected. "And I meant the dress. I wouldn't mind seeing you in one of those corsets, with spiked heels and little garters."

"Yeah." She yawned as they rode to the bedroom. "You hold your breath on that one."

She was in bed in five minutes, asleep in ten.

When the dream started, she didn't know.

A white room, washed with blood. She could see herself walking through it, her boots splashed with red as she stepped in grisly puddles.

Even in sleep she could smell it.

The girl was facedown on white carpet thick with red blood. Her arm was stretched out, fingers spread as if she reached for something.

But nothing was there.

The knife was there.

In the dream she crouched down, picked up the knife by the hilt.

She felt the slick warm wetness that ran from it onto her hand.

When she looked, it wasn't the girl now, but a baby. Hardly more than a baby. Cut to pieces, curled up tight. Her eyes were like a doll's, staring.

She remembered. She remembered. Such a little thing. So much blood for such a little body. And the man who'd done it, the father, mad on Zeus. The baby screaming, screaming, as Eve had charged up the stairs.

Too late. She'd been too late to save the baby. Killed the father, but lost the child.

She hadn't saved them, the baby, the girl. And their blood was on her hands.

The knife gleamed over her fingers.

The room wasn't white any longer. It was small and duty and cold. So cold. The red washed in from the light through the window. Over her hands. Little hands now on the hilt of a knife.

When he walked in the door, the red light bounced off his face like a shadow of the blood yet to be spilled.