Big Jack by J. D. Robb Read Free Book Online

anyone who doesn’t belong? Did you see anyone at the door, or just hanging around the area in the last couple weeks?”
    “Cops asked me the same thing before. I’ve thought and thought about it. I just didn’t. My wife either, because we’ve talked about it since we found out what happened. Haven’t talked about much else.”
    He let out a long breath. “And last Thursday, my wife and I went to bed about ten. Watched some screen in the sack. I locked up right before we headed up. I’d’ve looked out. I always look out, just habit. But I didn’t see anything. Anyone. It’s terrible what happened. You’re not supposed to know people this happens to,” he said as he looked at the house. “Somebody else is supposed to know them.”
    She knew them, Eve thought as she walked back to Roarke. She knew countless dead.
    “See how long it takes,” she said to Roarke, and gestured toward the door.
    “All right then.” He drew a small leather case out of his pocket, selected a tool. “You’ll take into consideration that I’ve not researched nor practiced on this particular system.” He crouched.
    “Yeah, yeah. You get a handicap. I just want to reconstruct a possible scenario. I don’t think anybody casing this house would’ve gotten past Joe Gym across the street. Not if they spent any time in the neighborhood.”
    “While you were talking to him, a half dozen people came to doors or windows and watched.”
    “Yeah, I made that.”
    “Still, if you were casing, you might walk by, take photos.” He straightened, opened the door. “And you might invest in a remote clone, if you could afford one.” While he spoke, he opened the security panel inside the door, interfaced a mini pocket unit to it and manually keyed in a command. “Dress differently, take another walk. You’d just need some patience. There, that’s done.”
    “You said three or four minutes. That was under two.”
    “I said someone with some skill. I didn’t say me. It’s a decent system, but Roarke Industries makes better.”
    “I’ll give you a plug next time I talk to her. He went upstairs first.”
    “Did he?”
    “He went up first because if he wasn’t expecting anyone to come in, he’d have left the lights on after he hit the privacy screens. She’d have noticed that when she came in. She’d have noticed the lights, and the mess in the living area. But she didn’t. Assuming she had a working brain, if she’d walked in on that, she’d have run right out again, called the cops. But she went upstairs.”
    She opened the front door again, let it slam shut. “He heard her. She checks the locks, the alarms. Maybe she checks the ’link down here for messages.” Eve walked through the living area, skirting around the mess, ignoring the chemical smell left behind by the sweepers. “She’s been clubbing, probably had a few drinks. She doesn’t spend much time down here. She’s wearing arch-killing shoes, but she doesn’t take them off until she’s in the bedroom. Can’t see why she’d walk around down here in them for long with nobody around to admire her legs. She starts upstairs.”
    She moved up the steps. “I bet she likes the house. She’s lived in an apartment for nearly a decade. I bet she likes having all this room. She turns into the bedroom, kicks off the fuck-me shoes.”
    “Minor point, but how do you know she didn’t take off the shoes downstairs, walk up barefoot, carrying them?”
    “Hmm? Oh, their position—and hers. If they’d been in her hand when she got sliced, they’d have dropped closer to her body. If she’d carried them up, she’d have turned toward, or at least have tossed them closer to, the closet. Seems to me. See where I’m standing?”
    He saw where she was standing, just as he saw the splotches and splatters of blood on the bed, the floor, the lamp, the wall. The stench of it all was barely hidden under the chemicals. And he wondered how, how in God’s name, anyone could come