Rapture in Death by J. D. Robb Read Free Book Online Page A

Peabody?”
    Peabody nodded solemnly as she opened the back door of the unit, helped him inside. “Blue’s my favorite color.” She shut the door of the vehicle, met Eve’s laughing eyes. “Welcome back, Lieutenant.”
    “It’s good to be back, Peabody. All in all, it’s good to be back.”
    It was also good to be home. Eve drove through the high, iron gates that guarded the towering fortress. It was less of a shock now, to glide along the curving drive through those well-tended lawns and flowering trees toward the elegant stone and glass house where she now lived.
    The contrast of where she worked and where she lived no longer seemed quite so jarring. It was quiet here — the kind of quiet in a massive city only the very rich could afford. She could hear birdsong, see the sky, smell the sweet aroma of freshly shorn grass. Minutes away, only minutes, was the teeming, noisy, sweating mass of New York.
    Here, she supposed, was sanctuary. As much for Roarke as for herself.
    Two lost souls. He’d once called them that. She wondered if they’d stopped being lost when they’d found each other.
    She left her car at the front entrance, knowing its battered body and tasteless shape would offend Summerset, Roarke’s poker-backed butler. It was a simple matter to switch it to automatic, send it around the house and into the slot reserved for her unit in the garage, but she enjoyed her petty needling when it came to Summerset.
    She opened the door and found him standing in the grand foyer with a sniff in his nose and a sneer on his lips.
    “Lieutenant, your vehicle is unsightly.”
    “Hey, it’s city property.” She reached down to pick up the fat, odd-eyed cat who’d come to greet her. “You don’t want it there, move it yourself.”
    She heard a trill of laughter float down the hall, lifted a brow. “Company?”
    “Indeed.” With his disapproving eye, Summerset scanned her wilted shirt and slacks, skimmed over the weapon harness still strapped to her side. “I suggest you bathe and change before meeting your guests.”
    “I suggest you kiss my ass,” she said cheerfully and strolled by him.
    In the main salon, filled with treasures Roarke had collected from around the known universe, an elegant, intimate party was happening. Glossy canapes sat elegantly on silver trays, pale gold wine filled sparkling crystal. Roarke was a dark angel in what he would have seen as casual attire. The black silk shirt open at the collar, the perfectly draped black trousers cinched with a belt gleaming silver at the buckle suited him perfectly, made him look exactly as he was: rich, gorgeous, dangerous.
    Only one couple joined him in the spacious room. The man was as bright as Roarke was dark. Long golden hair flowed over the shoulders of a snug blue jacket. The face was square and handsome with lips just slightly too thin, but the contrast of his dark brown eyes kept the observer from noticing.
    The woman was stunning. A sweep of deep red hair the color of rich wine was scooped up into curls that tumbled flirtatiously down the nape of her neck. Her eyes were green, sharp as a cat’s, and over them were shapely brows as black as ink. She had skin like alabaster creamed over high cheekbones and a sensually generous mouth.
    Her body matched it and was currently poured into a clinging column of emerald that left strong shoulders bare and dipped between her staggering breasts to the waist.
    “Roarke.” She let out that fluid laugh again, slid one slim white hand into Roarke’s mane of hair and kissed him silkily. “I have missed you dreadfully.”
    Eve thought about the weapon strapped to her side and how, on even its lowest setting, it would send the bombshell redhead into a jittery dance. Just a passing thought, Eve assured herself, and set Galahad the cat down before she squeezed through the layers of fat and cracked one of his ribs.
    “You didn’t miss him that time,” Eve said casually as she stepped inside. Roarke, damn