When she left her little apartment to ride the subway uptown, she felt very daring, very adult. Imagine having drinks at the Starview Lounge with the man she was convinced she would marry.

She was certain he'd be handsome. He just had to be. She knew he was rich and articulate and a great traveler, a man who loved books and poetry as she did.

They were soul mates.

She was too happy to be nervous, too sure of the outcome of the evening to have a single doubt.

She would be dead before midnight.

Her name had been Grace, and she had been his first. Not just his first kill, but his first woman. Even Kevin didn't know that he had never been able to complete the sexual act. Until tonight.

He had been a god in that narrow bed in the pathetic little apartment. A god who had made the woman beneath him cry out and weep and beg for more. She had babbled her love for him, had agreed to every demand. And her glassy, drugged eyes had clung adoringly to his face no matter what he'd done to her.

He'd been so surprised she'd been a virgin he'd come too quickly the first time. But she'd said it had been wonderful, she said she'd been waiting for him all her life. She had saved herself for him.

And his very disgust with her aroused him.

When he took the last vial out of his bag, he showed it to her so that the glass and liquid glinted in the candlelight. When he told her to open her mouth, she did so, like a little bird waiting for a worm.

Pounding himself into her, he felt her heart gallop. He felt it burst. And he knew Kevin had been right. It was like being born.

He studied her after she was used up, when her body grew colder on the tangled sheets and rose petals. And knew one thing more. This had been his right. She was every girl who had ever ignored his needs, or turned away when he was unable to perform. Everyone who'd ever refused him, denied him, smirked at him.

She was, in essence, nothing.

He dressed, brushed at the sleeves of his suit jacket, shot his cuffs. Leaving the candles burning, he strolled out. He couldn't wait to get home and tell Kevin.

Eve felt fabulous. Sex and sleep, she decided. It was hard to beat the combo. Then when you started the day with a quick swim, a monster cup of real coffee strong enough to break bricks, you were in fat city.

The way she was feeling, she figured the bad guys had best take a day off.

"You look rested, Lieutenant." Roarke leaned on the jamb of the doorway between their home offices.

"Ready to rock," she said, watching him over the rim of her coffee cup. "I guess you've got a lot of catching up to do."

"I made a pretty good start on that."

She snorted. "Yeah, not bad, but I was thinking of work."

"Ah. I've made a start on that as well." He crossed over, caged her in between his body and the desk. Leaning over, he stroked the cat who'd draped himself over the 'link like a rag.

"You're crowding me, pal, and I'm on the clock here."

"Not for five minutes yet."

She angled her head to look at her wrist unit. "You're right. Five minutes." She slid her arms around his waist. "We ought to be able to…" Just as she caught his bottom lip between her teeth, she heard the approaching footsteps, the unmistakable clomp of cop shoes. " Peabody 's early."

"Let's pretend we didn't hear her." Roarke nibbled at her mouth. "That we can't see her." Traced it with his tongue. "That we don't even know her name."

"That's a good plan except – " When he put sincere effort into the kiss, she was pretty sure she could feel her heart melting. "Down boy," she murmured just as Peabody strode into the room.

"Oh. Um. Ahem."

Roarke turned, picked up Galahad to scratch his ears. "Hello, Peabody."

"Hi. Welcome home. Maybe I'll just go in the kitchen there and get some coffee… and stuff."

But when she started by, Roarke reached out, lifted her chin with a finger, and studied her face. It was pale, the eyes heavy and chased by shadows. "You look tired."

"Guess I didn't sleep very well." She muttered, "Need that coffee." Then she hurried away.

"Eve."

"Don't." She held up a finger at Roarke's quiet tone. "I don't want to talk about that now. I don't ever want to talk about it, but I especially don't want to talk about it now. And if anybody had listened to me when I said she and McNab getting tangled was going to screw things up, we wouldn'thave to talk about it, would we?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're talking about it."

"Oh, shut up. All I know is she's going to suck it in and do the job, and so is he." She gave the desk one bad-tempered little kick before walking around behind it. "Now go away."

"You're worried about her."

"Damn it, you think I can't see she's hurt? That it doesn't get to me?"

"I know you can, and I know it does."

She opened her mouth, then heard more footsteps in the hallway. "Let it go," she muttered. " Peabody." She lifted her voice. "Feeney's here. Coffee light and sweet."

"How'd you know it was me?" Feeney demanded as he came inside.

"You shuffle."

"Hell I do."

"Hell you don't. You shuffle, Peabody clomps, McNab prances."

"If I wore some of the shoes he does, I'd prance, too. Hey, Roarke, didn't know you were back."

"Just. I'll be working at home for another hour or so," he told Eve. "Then I'll be in the midtown offices. The book stays here," he added. "You're welcome to take it on disc if you need it."

"What book?" Feeney asked.

"Poetry. Seems our guy took his umbrella name from a poem some guy named Keats wrote a couple hundred years ago."

"Bet it doesn't even rhyme. You take Springsteen, McCartney, Lennon. Those boys knew how to rhyme. Classic shit."

"Not only doesn't it rhyme, but it's weird and depressing and mostly stupid."

"With that canny analysis, I'll leave you to work." Carrying the cat, Roarke started toward his office. "I believe I hear McNab's prance."

He might have been wearing candy-apple red airboots, but he didn't look any perkier than Peabody. Doing her best to ignore it, Eve sat on the edge of her desk and updated them.

"That explains why we didn't have any luck at the cyber-joints either," McNab put in. "It didn't make sense that nobody'd seen this dude."

"We can do some morphing probabilities," Feeney mused. "Most possible face structures, colorings, combos. But basically we'll be working without a visual ID."

"I ran some probabilities myself. It's most likely we're looking for a single male between twenty-five and forty. Upper income bracket, advanced education, with some sort of sexual dysfunction or perversion. It's most probable he lives in the city. Feeney, where'd he get the high-priced illegals?"

"Dealers with Rabbit cater to a small, exclusive clientele. Aren't that many of them. Only one in the city I know of, but I can check with Illegals to see if there's more. Nobody deals in Whore that I know of. Just isn't cost effective."

"But at one time it was used in sex therapy, and for LC training?"

"Yeah, but the price tag was too high, and the substance too unpredictable."

"Okay." But it gave her more threads to pull. "We'll back off the cyber-joints for now. McNab, start on the morphings. Feeney, see what you can find out from Illegals. Once I hammer Dickhead into identifying brands of the putty and enhancers, the wig, we'll have that trail to follow. I got a tag on the wine. My source tells me there were three thousand and fifty bottles of that label and vintage sold in this borough. Peabody and I will run that down, and we'll see if we can nail down the pink roses. The guy spends money – wine, flowers, enhancements, illegals – then he's left a trail. We're going to find it. Peabody, you're with me."