Possession in Death by J. D. Robb Page B

autopsy suite. “I was
there
. Lopez was there, hours later. She fell off the curb, we administered first
aid. She—”
    “Eve,” Roarke interrupted, “you just spoke with a woman killed more than
two hours ago, and you’re questioning the possible?”
    “I know the difference between dead and alive.” She stepped up to the body.
“Why can’t I see
her
? Why can’t I talk to
her
? I look at her, and I
feel… rage and frustration. And… obligation.”
    “I spoke with Chale,” Morris told her. At the sink he ran cold water over a
cloth, wrung it out. Then he came to her and smoothed it over her face himself
to cool it.
    “He said the same, but he also said that she took your hand, spoke to you,
and there was a light—a blast of light and energy. And for a moment after it, you
seemed to be blank. Just blank. He said something seemed to pass between you.”
    She took the cloth, mildly embarrassed he’d tended to her—that she’d let
him. “You don’t believe that kind of thing.”
    “The science says this woman died at one this afternoon—irrefutably—but
there’s more in the world than science.”
    Maybe, she thought—hard to argue about it right at the moment. But it had
been routine and order that had gotten her through the experience with Janna.
So she’d stay there as long as she could.
    “Let’s stick with science for the moment. What can you tell me about the
weapon?”
    “All right. A thin, double-edged blade. Seven and a quarter inches in
length.” He turned to a screen to bring up the image he’d reconstructed from the
wounds, then turned back to the body. “You see here where the killer thrust it
fully into her, the bruising from the bolster.”
    She leaned in, studying the gouges, the slices. “A dagger.”
    “Yes. He hit bone. The tip will be chipped.” Morris showed her a tiny piece
of steel, sealed in a tray. “I recovered this.”
    “Okay, that’s good. He stabbed her in the back first—back of the shoulder.”
She remembered the shocking, tearing pain. “Because he’s a coward, and because
he feared her. She didn’t see his face—he wore a mask or makeup. A kind of
costume, because he’s theatrical. A devil,” she murmured, “because it’s a role he
plays, or wants to. Because it’s powerful, because it instills fear, because he
wanted that image to be the last she saw.”
    “Why?” Morris asked.
    “He has something she wanted, and she wouldn’t have stopped until she got
it back. Exposed him. Punished him. Deprived him.”
    “Now you’ll get it back.”
    She turned to Roarke, nodded. “Yeah. I will. I need to go home. You could
drive while I talk to some cops.”
    “Dallas,” Morris said, “I’d like to talk about this at some point.”
    “Yeah. At some point.” She hesitated, handed him back the cloth, then
closed her hand over his for just a moment. “Thanks.”
    Cooler, steadier, she walked down the tunnel with Roarke.
    “Is she there?”
    Eve paused, looked down at the floor where she’d sat with Jenna. “No. I
guess she’s gone wherever she had to go. Jesus, Roarke.”
    He took her hand firmly. “Let’s get to the bottom of this, because right now
I don’t know if you need a doctor or a bloody priest.”
    “A priest?”
    “For an exorcism.”
    “That’s not funny,” she muttered.
    “It’s not, no.”

Chapter Seven
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    Roarke gave her the time she needed while he drove. He said nothing,
listening to her talk with a handful of cops about someone named Alexi Barin.
Since her color was back, and her skin no longer felt as though it might burn off
her bones, he checked the impulse to take her straight to a health center.
    He considered his wife, among other things, cynical, stable, and often
annoyingly rooted in reality and logic.
    When she told him, straight-faced and clear-eyed, she’d had a conversation
with the dead, he leaned toward believing her. Particularly adding in her
unhesitating response to his