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Plot Summary[]

Dante had been courting his victim in cyberspace for weeks before meeting her in person. A few sips of wine and a few hours later, she was dead. The murder weapon: a rare, usually undetectable date-rape drug with a street value of a quarter million dollars.

Detective Eve Dallas is playing and replaying the clues in her mind. The candlelight, the music, the rose petals strewn across the bed - a seduction meant for his benefit, not hers. He hadn't intended to kill her. But now that he has, he is left with only two choices: to either hole up in fear and guilt or start hunting again...

--Penguin Group

Map[]

Please reference the Seduction in Death Map for locations or approximate locations of sites listed here.

Timeline[]

Story Date: June 4-7, 2059*

**These dates were already in the partial timeline – I don’t know where they came from, but there were only four days total

Day 1 – Tuesday, June 4, 2059[]

Chapter 1[]

  • 1:15 am: Eve wakes from a nightmare (Roarke is in Ireland for business and for Michael Connelly's wake/funeral), takes a shower, puts on Roarke's shirt for comfort and gets a call from Dispatch
  • Eve arrives at the scene, a woman is lying face down on the sidewalk, has Peabody get and run her prints and get TOD
  • Peabody tells her the first officer in scene has a potential witness waiting with Officer Young in a squad car, the witness is Dr. Louise Dimatto, who lives in the building (apartment 1005), where the body jumped or fell from
  • Victim is Bryna Bankhead, 23 years old, mixed race, single and lived in the building behind them, with TOD at 1:15 a.m.
  • Louise saw her fall about 1:30 a.m. (and the 911 call was made about 1:36 a.m.), so Eve rechecks TOD but it is correct
  • Eve & Peabody enter the apartment building, ride up to the victim's apartment, 1207, see an open wine bottle, two glasses, hear romantic music, see that the bed is strewn with pink rose petals, and assume seduction
  • They find a 'link transmission between Bryna and her friend CeeCee, which supports their previous assumption and also find out that Bryna had arranged a cyber-date

Chapter 2[]

  • Eve & Peabody review the security discs at Cop Central, see Bryna enter the building with her date at 2338: "[Eve] judged the man to be about six one, running to about one-ninety. His dark hair was swept back in a tightly curled mane that spilled over his shoulders..."
  • Bryna looks like she drank a lot of alcohol and took some chemicals, date was “stone sober," so Eve requests a priority on her toxicology screen
  • Date leaves apartment at 0136 (the same time the 911 call was made), leaves building from basement delivery port shaking, sweating, and not as controlled as he walked in
  • Eve does an ID-search on his face but no matches and falls asleep on her office floor
  • Eve checks in with Feeney just after eight, asks him to speak to McNab about toning it down around Peabody, Feeney is as uncomfortable with this as she is and suggests locking them in a room together to "let them hash it out"
  • Peabody identifies Bryna’s friend as CeeCee Plunkett, they go to her work (Saks Fifth Avenue, lingerie department), CeeCee tells Eve about Dante, including that they met in a poetry chat room and that Dante knew where Bryna worked because he sent her pink roses at work
  • At the morgue, Morris reveals that Bryna had two ounces of a drug named Whore in her system, which would have been worth more than a quarter million dollars on the street, and another drug called Wild Rabbit; the combination of the two date rape drugs killed her, sperm was found in her body

Chapter 3[]

  • McNab traces transmission from Dante to Bryna but it shows a bogus address
  • Visit to the Canal Street Clinic for follow-up with Louise, Eve asks her to put out feelers for people using pure Rabbit and Whore, finds out that Roarke upped her half million dollar bribe to $3 million if Dr. Dimatto contracted to donate her services to Roarke’s new abuse shelter Dochas (Gaelic for hope)
  • Peabody and McNab head out to cyber cafes to try to track the killer

Chapter 4[]

  • Eve visits Dickhead, who tells her the killer was wearing a wig, face putty, and makeup so they don’t know what he looks like, but he did leave a couple of pubic hairs and his fingerprints
  • Eve thinks he didn’t plan to kill her, just to seduce her, but panicked after she died, and that he will do this again because he’s a predator
  • Eve goes home, heads for the roof garden to think, Roarke surprises her by being home from Ireland early, they have sex, they discuss the case, Roarke tells her about the shelter he created for women and children, they agree neither of them would have gone to such a shelter when they were children, but are glad it’s available to others, they go to work to look for the killer’s umbrella account

Chapter 5[]

  • Killer is Kevin Morano, 22, the kill was accidental, but as much the girl’s fault as his because maybe she shouldn’t have ingested as much illegals, although Kevin wasn’t supposed to have mixed the two illegals
  • He paces in front of his best friend Lucias Dunwood – they are taking turns seducing women for points, but Bryna was lethargic before Kevin finished with her so he added a few drops of Rabbit on her tongue
  • Now Lucias (as Dorian) has to up the ante to include murder during his turn tonight with Grace, 23, library page, virgin (both of them as it turns out), which he does

Day 2 – Wednesday, June 5, 2059[]

  • Eve is rested, Peabody is not since she’s fighting with McNab, they visit Charles to get his take on the illegals, he says he will try to track down a source, Dallas is tagged with Grace’s death

Chapter 6[]

  • Grace’s murder scene is similar to Bryna’s but the murder is more violent, Eve and Peabody go to the suburbs to notify her parents
  • Eve reports to Whitney, Grace found by across-the-hall neighbor, Alicanne Hargrove, who had coffee with her every morning, security discs show a different disguise than Bryna’s killer, and a different attitude
  • Eve contacts Nadine from home to give her info to air (as a warning to other women) – the two murders are linked, both victims met with individuals they had corresponded with via e-mail and online chat rooms
  • Roarke comes home, they discuss the murders, Eve suspects two different killers, and a game to both of them

Chapter 7[]

  • Roarke and Eve work together to monitor poetry chat rooms, they get a hit on OberonNYC at Cyber Perks, which Roarke conveniently owns, so they head over there as Eve calls it in, but they are too late since the killer uploaded a virus, corrupting all of the units and creating chaos, including a stampede where Eve 'took a wayward elbow on the chin that rapped her head back against the kiosk and exploded a fountain of white, sizzling stars in front of her eyes'
  • After Eve restores order, she has the injured people treated, and dismisses anybody under 20, over 50, from out of town, or female, and takes names
  • She and Roarke determine the unit where the killer was, Eve gets fingerprints from the coffee cup, Roarke takes apart the PC since he suspects the killer had a scanner to alert him if anybody searched on his account, they find the alias used was R. W. Emerson, keeping with the dead male poets theme
  • They watch the security disc and see what he looked like, how he acted, what the scanner looked like (compact, which impresses Roarke), the exact moment he was made, and how long it took him to unleash the virus and leave the café, heading uptown

Chapter 8[]

  • Kevin is home and complaining to Lucias about almost being caught, Lucias calms him down, they discuss the next night’s date with Moniqua Cline (Kevin’s turn)
  • Peabody and McNab run into each other on the way to Dallas’s home office, they make out until Summerset’s voice interrupts them, McNab talks Peabody into a pizza date after work
  • Eve tells Peabody to run the guy’s image, facial structure, shape of eyes, body type and Roarke offers to trace the suits, wigs, and enhancements
  • Louise drops by to tell Eve about a research project at J. Forrester, a private clinic specializing in sexual dysfunctions and fertility issues; they formed a partnership with a pharmaceutical company that Roarke bought ten months ago, but the partnership was dissolved about twenty years ago due to costs and unfortunate side effects
  • The project was led by Dr. Theodore McNamara, there were unsubstantiated rumors of abuse and pilfering, including experimentation outside of the lab, sexual molestation, and impregnation without the women’s knowledge or consent
  • Charles walks in. Louise is smitten, McNab snipes at Charles, Charles gives Eve the name of the illegals dealer he knows about, Carlo, Eve wants to contact the woman who gave Charles the info, but Charles tells Eve he will set up an account with him instead
  • Charles tells Peabody she will see her later, Louise and Charles share a cab, Eve threatens McNab into not saying anything else about Charles

Chapter 9[]

  • Eve has a consult with Mira in the library, Mira agrees with Eve’s assessment that it’s two killers, probably taking turns, although she can’t rule out Multiple Personality Syndrome (MPS, now called Dissociative Identity Disorder), the first killer is fanciful, wants to enthrall the woman, the second is the dominant one and is more calculating, more deliberate, and more violent, they are both brilliant with young spoiled boys’ egos, came from money and privilege, are entitled, and grew up getting whatever they wanted
  • Eve goes back to Bryna’s apartment and discovers that there is a cyber café called Coffee and a Byte, within view of her balcony
  • Eve is able to get info about one of the killers from the droids at Coffee and a Byte – he came in two Tuesdays in a row, sat at the same table (the one with the best view of Bryna’s apartment)
  • Feeney takes the unit the killer used, and the droids worked with an image tech, Eve thinks his eyes are sharp and cold, but he is otherwise ordinary looking
  • Peabody fills Eve in on Roarke’s searches and then tells Eve about her and McNab, Eve gets a tic in her eye or possibly a brain embolism, an illegals deal goes bad, Eve stops it but [cut] in the process

Chapter 10[]

  • They begin to run down the list of ten men who bought bespoke suits recently, Peabody talks to Eve about McNab, while Roarke is giving McNab dating advice at his house, tells McNab he (McNab) is in love with Peabody, he goes to Peabody’s apartment with pizza and wine
  • Meanwhile, Charles and Louise are having dinner out at the Royal Bar in the Roarke Palace, they dance and admit to each other that they both broke prior engagements to be free that evening, they both agree that they are too busy for a relationship but want to pursue one
  • Louise heads for the women’s lounge to freshen up and runs into Moniqua, who is jittery and tells Louise she is about to get lucky, Moniqua goes back to her booth and whispers to Kevin/Byron what she’s ready for, Charles overhears some of it and thinks he is an LC on the job since he seems detached from her
  • At Moniqua’s apartment, she is all over ‘Byron’ but he wants to make the room more romantic so she goes to the bathroom to freshen up
  • Kevin/Byron uses less drugs this time so he can have longer with her before she dies, and has her scream out ‘Kevin’ before he leaves her to die… but wait, she doesn’t die!
  • Monique calls 911

Day 3 – Thursday, June 6, 2059[]

  • Roarke wakes Eve up at 1 am to carry her to bed (she fell asleep at her office desk), Roarke and Eve are about to have sex but Eve is tagged and heads to the ICU, where Moniqua is
  • Eve gets info about Moniqua’s condition and tells the doctor nobody aside from authorized staff and cops are allowed in her room unless they clear it with her, not even family, and she posts a guard at the door

Chapter 11[]

  • Eve goes to Central to update the case files, drives home in auto, has sex with Roarke
  • In the morning Roarke forces a blocker and a soother down Eve’s throat before she eats breakfast, Roarke offers to research Allegany Pharmaceuticals since he owns the company, Eve heads to work
  • The team meets in a conference room at Central, reviews the security disc from Moniqua’s building, Moniqua has a similar body type/look as Bryna, killer has a new look but same routine, Feeney confirms transmissions between ‘Byron’ and Moniqua began two weeks ago, Trueheart comes in to thank Eve for putting him on guard duty at the hospital and tells her there’s no change in Moniqua’s condition, Eve requests data on J. Forrester and Theodore McNamara, Feeney has a lead on another known dealer, Otis Gunn, but he’s at Rikers
  • Louise comes in to tell the gang about her date and seeing Moniqua there, kicks herself for not realizing that it wasn’t just champagne making Moniqua loopy, it was drugs, thinks maybe Charles noticed the couple more than she did… wait, what? Charles? Awkwardness ensues…
  • Charles has mostly the same info plus the speculation that the killer was an LC, Eve asks him to check with his associates for clients who like classical music, pink roses, and candlelight, he breaks his date with Peabody for that night, she tells him she likes Louise, he says he likes her too

Chapter 12[]

  • Meanwhile, we learn that Roarke is an awesome and generous boss who keeps his comfortable, loyal, and productive employees on their toes, he visits Dr. Stiles at Allegany, who tells him about Theodore McNamara, who Stiles does not like at all (interested in profit and glory and being petty to employees), Roarke asks him to keep his ear to the ground about labs that could produce the chemicals used in the women’s deaths
  • Eve gets nothing from the guy at Rikers, Peabody confirms no change in Moniqua’s condition, Eve and Peabody interview Moniqua’s server, Jamal, from the previous evening, with Roarke present because he’s everywhere
  • Jamal confirms the couple from photos, tells Eve he has been in before with another man, but looked different – he recognized his ring, a distinctive ruby with a dragon’s head carved into it, and the man he was with before had the same ring design but with a sapphire, Eve requests that Jamal work with an imaging tech
  • Since Roarke can access the security video from the previous night, Eve gets a good look at the ruby ring, sends Peabody to call jewelers, watches the rest of the date, i.e., Kevin doctoring Moniqua’s drink, plus Louise and Charles (which is why she sent Peabody away), Eve concludes that Moniqua vomited up enough of the drug to keep from dying, and he didn’t make sure she was dead before leaving her apartment
  • Kevin is complaining to Lucias about Moniqua not dying, and Lucias decides to up their game by adding daytime dates, before moving the game to France

Chapter 13[]

  • No luck with identifying the rings yet, but Feeney finds correspondence from user name Wordsworth to actual person Stefanie Finch
  • Peabody is at vending machine, McNab is trying to comfort her about Charles dating Louise but Peabody thinks he’s telling her that their pizza and sex night didn’t mean anything to him
  • Eve and Peabody visit Finch to see if she can be used as bait or needs to be moved to protective custody, she isn’t there, the neighbor thinks her date with Wordsworth is supposed to be in two days, Trueheart tags Eve from the hospital, Moniqua has regained consciousness, although she’s disoriented and not out of the woods yet, Moniqua is able to give Eve some info about her date and about Kevin/Byron, including that he sent her pink roses at work a few days prior to their date and that she threw up in her bathroom before she was raped, he had her call him Kevin before he left her apartment
  • Eve asks Roarke to block all transmissions to and from Finch so Eve can talk to her before she corresponds with Wordsworth again

Chapter 14[]

  • Eve speaks with the mighty McNamara, who is a misogynistic jerk and is hiding something, she goes home to look up data on him, finds a daughter and a grandson
  • Lucias Dunwood, is stressing out about his grandfather unexpectedly visiting, McNamara requests that Kevin joins them as well, Lucias won’t let McNamara see his lab, Kevin spills the beans about the women, Lucias beats McNamara with the base of a lamp, they put his (still alive) body in the trunk to finish him off away from their townhouse
  • Eve checks Lucias’s record, which is clean, Roarke offers to unseal the records McNamara was hiding, they have sex, then dinner

Chapter 15[]

  • The fourth woman is Melissa Kotter, 21, an actress/waitress, she nearly has her purse stolen in the subway, strikes up a conversation with the man who prevented the theft, somebody else tries to steal her purse as she runs towards the restaurant from the subway exit, knocking her down, breaking her arm, her new friend gets her purse back for her and calls the MTs
  • Stefanie calls Eve, she and Peabody interview Finch at her apartment, Finch reveals that she is supposed to meet ‘Wordsworth’ at Greenpeace Park for a picnic, Eve explains what he plans to do, Peabody dumps the pink roses he sent her in London the day before at Stefani's request, Eve gives Stefanie the choice of going to a safe house or having cops stay with her for the night
  • Louise is at Charles’s apartment, discussing their future (she wants to go slow, he’s fine with that), McNab goes to the apartment to beat Charles up, Louise dumps a bucket of ice water on both men, tells McNab she wants to try to make it work with Charles, that it just happened, Charles tells McNab he (McNab) is in love with Peabody and graciously steps aside for him

Chapter 16[]

  • Eve reviews the list of employees Dr. Stiles gave to Roarke, culled down to males under 30 without drone jobs, and finds Kevin Morano in the list, Trina comes over to make her look like Stefanie even though it’s for the next day (practice run)
  • Peabody is home eating fake ice cream with fake chocolate syrup when McNab shows up with a black eye and swollen lip, tells Peabody he wants to be exclusive with her, she agrees, a news bulletin shows that Theodore McNamara’s dead body was found floating in the East River

Chapter 17[]

  • Eve goes to the East River, body has already been sent to the morgue, Nadine is there and has her camera person keep close to Eve, initial report from Officer Lewis includes a car fire about a half mile away so she figures the river is the dumping point for the body
  • Primary is Detective Renfrew, an insecure a-hole who resents Eve for shutting down the crooked cops at the 128th precinct, gives her grief, loses the pissing contest, Eve sends McNab to the torched car and Peabody to interview on-scene uniforms, Eve wakes up Morris to do the autopsy, we learn he has a tattoo of the Grim Reaper just under his left nipple, McNab reports back that the torched car belonged to McNamara, witness saw the flash and got the vehicle ID before it evaporated
  • Eve goes to pay a condolence call on Lucias Dunwood after Roarke provides the address (it was listed as Times Square and Kevin’s was Yankee Stadium, those pranksters), Eve gets a good look at his dragon ring, Lucias whines to Kevin about the car being identified and his date not showing up, comes back to Eve with a receipt and the re-programmed droid
  • Peabody thinks they didn’t get anything from Lucias, but Eve points out that he didn’t ask which grandfather and he didn’t mention being out with his friend/house-mate Kevin because he didn’t want to share the spotlight

Chapter 18[]

  • Eve brings McNab and Peabody back to the house to put them up for the night, Roarke settles them in, Eve gets her operation set up for the next day, Morris calls to let Eve know McNamara was bashed in the head, then revived with a stimulant so he could be killed at a dumping site
  • Roarke and Eve fall asleep watching his favorite Magda Lane movie

Day 4 – Friday, June 7, 2059[]

  • Eve wakes up sick, Summerset gives her a booster shot, Eve offers a few days in Mexico to Roarke after she closes this case, Eve sets up the operation with the rest of the team:
    • Feeney, McNab, and Roarke are on surveillance
    • Baxter is a sidewalk sleeper
    • Peabody and Roarke will stroll through the park as a couple
    • Trueheart is park maintenance staff
    • No weapons unless there is extreme need
    • Nobody approaches the suspect(s)
    • If anybody spots the second suspect they relay the info to Feeney

Chapter 19[]

  • Eve tells Roarke not to bring a weapon, like that’s gonna happen, Trina makes Eve look like Stefanie, Roarke tells her to saunter rather than stride
  • Surveillance on the park shows Kevin arriving 30 minutes early, extra ID’d by his ruby dragon ring, Trueheart gets into position to record him setting up the picnic, Eve has the lone male sunbather roll to his side to give her a new angle on Kevin, Roarke sets up a blanket for his picnic with Peabody, Eve hears Kevin’s side of the call to Lucias confirming that it’s just a game to them
  • Roarke gets a good shot of Kevin putting a few drops of illegals into one of the wine glasses, Eve makes her way to Kevin after fending off several propositions, Kevin quotes poetry to her, Roarke feeds her the next lines, Kevin hands her the doctored wine, and after she takes it she sets it aside to put him in restraints and formally arrest him
  • Eve and Roarke drive to Central, Trina makes Eve back into herself, and Roarke gives her another dose of medicine

Chapter 20[]

  • Eve and Peabody interview Kevin, who admits everything and rolls over on Lucias as the ringleader
  • Whitney calls Eve into his office so Renfrew can file a complaint, Eve demonstrates her supercop abilities, shutting Renfrew down, and Renfrew’s superior, Captain Hayes, retracts the complaint, offers Eve the opportunity to file a complaint against Renfrew (she declines), they leave, Whitney tells Eve ‘I’ve never been a witness to you dressing down an officer – heard rumors. Now I can safely say you’ve earned your rep,’ Whitney notices how fatigued she is, orders her to sleep eight hours once she has finished with Dunwood
  • Eve arrests Lucias, he shoved at her, missing, Eve punched him in the guts twice, Lucias retches and cries for a lawyer

Chapter 21[]

  • Eve gets home, thanks Roarke for the help, they have sex, Eve recaps the day, they eat, they are about to embark on round 2 when Whitney arrives at the house to let Eve know that Dunwood is out on bail since there’s no physical evidence tying him to any of the murders, Roarke feeds Whitney while Eve updates her team

Chapter 22[]

  • Lucias dresses up as Kevin’s attorney of record, Terrance Blackburn, poisons Kevin, thus winning the game
  • Eve, Roarke, and Whitney go to Mrs. Dunwood’s house to re-arrest Lucias since his bail has been revoked, but of course he is gone and his mother gives them nothing; Roarke pulls up the ‘SEDUCE AND CONQUER’ game information and the last thing Lucias accessed on his computer, which was Blackburn’s image
  • Whitney drives them to Lucias’s townhouse while Roarke pulls up the blueprints and Eve plans the strategy
  • Lucias stuns Eve, numbing her left arm, then swallows the same poison he gave Kevin, except double dose so his death is almost instant

Epilogue[]

  • Eve needs to write up the report but wants to leave for Mexico with Roarke as soon as she files it

Character List[]

List of Main Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Secondary Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Recurring Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Minor Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Peripheral Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book[]

Deaths[]

Victim Cause of Death Weapon Perpetrator
Bryna Bankhead rape & drug overdose rape drugs Whore & Rabbit Kevin Morano
Grace Lutz Lucias Dunwood
Dr. Theodore McNamara bludgeoning, drowning lamp Kevin Morano & Lucias Dunwood
Kevin Morano poisoned unidentified drug Lucias Dunwood
Lucias Dunwood suicide


Trivia[]

Charles Monroe and Louise Dimatto meet (page 126).

Eve's vehicle authorization code for her pea green car is 05061C (page 246).


Other Covers[]

Additional covers here

UK edition cover German 1st edition cover German Book Club edition cover French edition cover Hungarian edition cover Brilliance Audio unabridged cover
UK edition cover German 1st edition cover German Book Club edition cover French edition cover Hungarian edition cover Brilliance Audio unabridged cover

YANNI[]

  • Two pure ounces (of Hormonibital-six/'whore') has a street value of more than a quarter million ($125,000 per ounce)... or... it has a street value sixty-five thousand USD per fluid ounce.[1]

Footnotes[]

  1. Seduction in Death (ISBN 0-425-18146-4), pp. 32, 131

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