Table of Contents
A tradition of murder...
On the north side of the house was an arbor of thin, somehow fluid iron. The vines twisting and tumbling over it were smothered with flowers wildly red. She had married him there, in an old traditional ceremony where vows were exchanged and promises made. A ceremony, she thought now. A rite that included music, flowers, witnesses, words that were repeated time after time, place after place, century through century...
So it continued. Science and logic disproved, but the rites continued, incense and chanting, offerings and the drinking of wine that symbolized blood.
And the sacrifice of the innocent.
Annoyed with herself, she rubbed her hands over her face. Philosophizing was foolish and useless. Murder had been done by human force. And it was human force that would dispense justice. That was, after all, the ultimate balance of good and evil.
Praise forNaked in Death:
Danger, romance... a masterpiece of fine writing.
Rendezvous
Superbly suspenseful and strikingly original.
Romantic Times
This book contains a preview of J. D. Robbs next romantic suspense novel
Vengeance in Death
Titles by Nora Roberts
HOT ICE
SACRED SINS
BRAZEN VIRTUE
SWEET REVENGE
PUBLIC SECRETS
GENUINE LIES
CARNAL INNOCENCE
DIVINE EVIL
HONEST ILLUSIONS
PRIVATE SCANDALS
BORN IN FIRE
BORN IN ICE
BORN IN SHAME
HIDDEN RICHES
TRUE BETRAYALS
DARING TO DREAM
HOLDING THE DREAM
FINDING THE DREAM
MONTANA SKY
SEA SWEPT
RISING TIDES
INNER HARBOR
SANCTUARY
HOMEPORT
THE REEF
ONCE UPON A CASTLE
(anthology with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan,
and Marianne Willman)
FROM THE HEART (anthology)
SILENT NIGHT
(anthology with Susan Plunkett, Dee Holmes, and Claire Cross)
Titles written as J. D. Robb
NAKED IN DEATH
GLORY IN DEATH
IMMORTAL IN DEATH
RAPTURE IN DEATH
CEREMONY IN DEATH
VENGENCE IN DEATH
HOLIDAY IN DEATH
CONSPIRACY IN DEATH
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this stripped book.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Shakespeare
We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.
Mark Twain
chapter one
Death surrounded her. She faced it daily, dreamed of it nightly. Lived with it always. She knew its sounds, its scents, even its texture. She could look it in its dark and clever eye without a flinch. Death was a tricky foe, she knew. One flinch, one blink, and it could shift, it could change. It could win.
Ten years as a cop hadnt hardened her toward it. A decade on the force hadnt made her accept it. When she looked death in the eye, it was with the cold steel of the warrior.
Eve Dallas looked at death now. And she looked at one of her own.
Frank Wojinski had been a good cop, solid. Some would have said plodding. Hed been affable, she remembered. A man who hadnt complained about the bilge disguised as food at the NYPSD Eatery, or the eye-searing paperwork the job generated. Or, Eve thought, about the fact that hed been sixty-two and had never made it past the rank of detective sergeant.
Hed been on the pudgy side and had let his hair gray and thin naturally. It was a rare thing in 2058 for a man to bypass body sculpting and enhancements. Now, in his clear-sided view casket with its single spray of mournful lilies, he resembled a peacefully sleeping monk from an earlier time.
Hed been born in an earlier time, Eve mused, coming into the world at the end of one millennium and living his life in the next. Hed been through the Urban Wars, but hadnt talked of them as so many of the older cops did. Frank hadnt been one for war stories, she recalled. He was more likely to pass around the latest snapshot or hologram of his children and grandchildren.
He liked to tell bad jokes, talk sports, and had a weakness for soydogs with spiced pickle relish.
A family man, she thought, one who left behind great grief. Indeed, she could think of no one who had known Frank Wojinski who hadnt loved him.
He had died with half his life still ahead of him, died alone, when the heart everyone had thought so huge and so strong had just stopped.
Goddamn it.
Eve turned, laid a hand on the arm of the man who stepped up beside her. Im sorry, Feeney.
He shook his head, his droopy camels eyes filled with misery. With one hand he raked through his wiry red hair. On the job would have been easier. I could handle line of duty. But to just stop. To just check out in his easy chair watching arena ball on the screen. Its not right, Dallas. A mans not supposed to stop living at his age.
I know. Not knowing what else to do, Eve draped an arm over his shoulder and steered him away.
He trained me. Looked after me when I was a rookie. Never let me down. Pain radiated through him and glinted dully in his eyes, wavered in his voice. Frank never let anyone down in his life.
I know, she said again, because there was nothing else that could be said. She was accustomed to Feeney being tough and strong. The delicacy of his grief worried her.
She led him through the mourners. The viewing room was packed with cops as well as family. And where there were cops and death, there was coffee. Or what passed for it at such places. She poured a cup, handed it to him.
I cant get around it. I cant get a hold of it. He let out a long, uneven breath. He was a sturdy, compact man who wore his grief as openly as he wore his rumpled coat. I havent talked to Sally yet. My wifes with her. I just cant do it.
Its all right. I havent talked to her, either. Since she had nothing to do with her hands, Eve poured a cup for herself that she didnt intend to drink. Everybodys shook up by this. I didnt know he had a heart problem.
Nobody did, Feeney said quietly. Nobody knew.
She kept a hand on his shoulder as she scanned the overcrowded, overwarm room. When a fellow officer went down in the line of duty, cops could be angry, they could be focused, fix their target. But when death snuck in and crooked a capricious finger, there was no one to blame. And no one to punish.
It was helplessness she felt in the room and that she felt in herself. You couldnt raise your weapon to fate, or your fist.
The funeral director, spiffy in his traditional black suit and as waxy-faced as one of his own clients, worked the room with patting hands and sober eyes. Eve thought shed rather have a corpse sit up and grin at her than listen to his platitudes.
Why dont we go talk to the family together?
It was hard for him, but Feeney nodded, set the untouched coffee aside. He liked you, Dallas. That kids got balls of steel and a mind to match, he used to tell me. He always said if he was ever jammed, youd be the one hed want guarding his back.
