In Death Collection: Books 30-32 by J.D. Robb

with one blow, with a broad, sharp blade.” Morris used the flat of his hand to demonstrate.
    â€œLike an axe?”
    â€œI don’t think so. An axe is generally thicker on the backside. A wedge shape. I’d say a sword—a very large, very strong sword used with considerable force, and from slightly above. A clean stroke.” Again he demonstrated, fisting his hands as if on a hilt, then swinging like a batter at the plate, and cleaving forward. “The anomaly—”
    â€œOther than some guy getting his head cut off with a sword?”
    â€œYes, other than. There are slight burns in all the wounds. I’m still working on it, but my feeling is electrical. Even the bruising shows them.”
    â€œAn electrified sword?”
    Humor warmed his eyes. “Our jobs are never tedious, are they? I’ll be with him for a while yet. He’s a very interesting young man.”
    â€œYeah. I’ll get back to you.”
    She pocketed her ’link and began to pace.
    A victim secured, alone, in his own holo-room, beheaded by a sword, potentially with electric properties.
    Which made no sense.
    He couldn’t have been alone because it took two—murderer and victim. So there’d been a breach in his security. Or he’d paused the game, opened up, and let his killer inside. It would have to be someone he trusted with his big secret project.
    Which meant his three best pals were top of the suspect list. All alibied, she mused, but how hard was it for an e-geek to slip through building security, head over a few blocks, slip through apartment security, and ask their good pal Bart to open up and play?
    Which didn’t explain how they’d managed to get the weapon inside, but again, it could be done.
    It had been done.
    Reset everything, go back to work.
    Less than an hour, even with cleanup time.
    Someone at U-Play or someone outside who’d earned the vic’s trust.
    Possibly a side dish. Someone he snuck in himself, after he’d told his droid to shut down. He liked to show off. Guys tended to show off for sex, especially illicit sex.
    The murder wasn’t about sex, but part of the means might be.
    She shuffled the thoughts back at the timid knock on the glass door. Overall Girl, she thought as she came in, who’d added red, weepy eyes to her ensemble.
    â€œThey said I had to come up and talk with you ’cause somebody killed Bart. I wanna go home.”
    â€œYeah, me, too. Sit down.”
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    H alfway through her complement of interviews, Eve got her first buzz
    Twenty-three-year-old Roland Chadwick couldn’t keep still—but e-jocks were notoriously jittery. His wet hazel eyes kept skittering away from hers. But it was a hard day, and some in the e-game had very limited social skills.
    Still, most of them didn’t have guilt rolling off their skin in thick, smelly waves.
    â€œHow long have you worked here, Roland?”
    He scratched the long blade of his noise, bounced his knees. “Like I said, I interned for two summers in college, then I came on the roll when I graduated. So, like, a year on the roll, then the two summers before that. Altogether.”
    â€œAnd what do you do, exactly?”
    â€œMostly research, like Benny. Like what’s out there, how can we twist it, jump it up. Or, like, if somebody’s got a zip on something, I cruise before we step so, like, we’re not hitting somebody else’s deal.”
    â€œSo you see everything in development, or on the slate for development.”
    â€œMostly, yeah.” He jiggled his shoulders, tapped both feet. “Bits and bytes anyhow, or, like, outlines. And you gotta check the titles, the character and place names and that jazz ‘cause you don’t want repeats or crossovers. Unless you do, ’cause you’re, like, homage or sequel or series.”
    â€œAnd yesterday? Where were you?”
    â€œI was, like, here. Clocked at