Page 10 of Fury In Death

Blood, she thought. Humans sure had a hell of a lot of blood. And this human had spilled a great deal of his.

The second time today, she thought.

She sealed up, stepped inside.

She scanned the room first, a spacious office with a pair of windows facing what looked like a small courtyard where security lights showed a bird feeder, a bench, a wide bowl on a pedestal she decided was a bathtub for birds.

Since the workstation sat facing the door rather than the windows, she figured the dead guy hadn’t entertained himself watching birds eat and wash up.

The computer she assumed had sat on the desk now lay smashed on the floor. Blood striped it, as it did the wall where a table and lamp also lay broken.

More blood was spattered on the cream-colored leather sofa.

There’d been what she thought of as an ego gallery on another wall. Photos of the victim with important people, at galas, at what looked like state dinners, awards, plaques.

Using the blood as a guide, she saw the victim’s head slamming against that wall so the photos and awards fell, scattered their broken glass or clung crookedly to the wall.

Another frame lay facedown on the workstation. With her sealed fingers, she tipped up what she took to be a family photo taken at the beach.

Frowning, she set it down again.

She saw from the smears and trail on the floor how the broken and bloodied victim had tried to crawl away from his attacker.

“What did you do?” she murmured. “What did you do to boil up this kind of rage?”

Skirting the body, avoiding blood, she tested both windows.

Locked.

“Locked windows, locked door. All from inside.” She studied the walls. “We’ll ask the widow if there’s a hidden door, search for one.”

She looked down at the body. “You sure didn’t do this to yourself.”

“Well, Christ.”

She glanced toward the open door at Roarke.

He’d changed from the ruler-of-the-business-universe suit he’d worn that morning. He’d dressed that tall, leanly muscled frame in black trousers, a black leather jacket, and a shirt that matched the wild, bold blue of his eyes.

She often imagined the gods, having a particularly good day, decided to create something sublime, something that would set hearts fluttering, and so had sculpted that face with its perfect cheekbones, sharply defined mouth, then added a mass of black silk for hair.

That face rarely looked shocked, but it did now.

“He had a really bad day,” she said.

Roarke’s gaze shifted to hers. “And yours just got longer and more complicated.”

“Looks like.”

“I’ll seal up.”

“Do that, but I could more use a McNab than a Peabody, so you can take the role of e-man. Doors and windows locked from inside. We’ll see if there’s another way in and out, but I can’t see it.”

“I’ll check the security.”

“It’s one of your systems.”

“I noticed, yes. I’ll see to that.”