Page 116 of Random in Death
But no, he’d gotten the needle through. He’d felt it go into her. She’d screamed so loud! So fast!
As if he’d hacked her with a machete.
Neither of the others had reacted that way. A sting, yes, a quick prick. He wanted them to feel it or he’d have used a numbing agent. But she’d screamed, started to spin around the instant the needle went in.
He’d had to pull it out and run. No choice there.
It didn’t matter, couldn’t matter. For the next he’d make sure she had bare arms, like the first two sluts.
Maybe take a little more time picking her out. There’d be plenty of time. He’d already planned it so meticulously. The next step. How and where.
He knew just what he’d do to her, do with her, before he finished her.
So exciting, the anticipation, so fulfilling.
It would be his first time. Not hers, of course. They were all whores.
But it would be her last.
Chapter Sixteen
The next time Eve opened her eyes, Roarke sat, the cat sprawled across the lap of his perfect slate-gray suit, scanning something on a tablet.
On-screen, the usual indecipherable stock reports scrolled by on mute.
Light streamed in the sky window overhead and showed her a happy blue sky.
“How did it get to be morning again?”
“There you have that pesky rotation of the Earth. You didn’t sleep long, but you slept well.”
“I slept like a… I was going to say rock because people say that, but it’s stupid. Rocks don’t sleep.”
“But they’re usually very still and quiet.”
Mostly, she thought as she got up. Except for earthquakes, avalanches, mudslides, volcanos.
She hit the coffee first, then the shower.
When she came out, breakfast waited under warming domes, and Roarke had banished the cat.
Galahad stretched out in a sunny patch on the floor and eyed the warming domes with avarice.
“So what was it this morning? Buy, sell? Sell, buy?”
“Neither, as it happens, but a very satisfying progress report on a project in Kyoto, then some details on the beginnings of one in Sydney.”
“And they’re on opposite time because of the pesky rotation.”
“See there, you’re getting it.”
He removed the domes on what turned out to be frittatas. Colorful ones, she noted, sure to contain lots of healthy things.
“What’s the deal you’ve got with spinach? Do you own the world’s supply of it?”
He poured her another cup of coffee. “You’re a slender woman who all too often works herself into the ground and neglects eating during her workday. Iron matters. There’s bacon in there as well.”
She swore she saw Galahad’s ears twitch at the word bacon.