“Damn right you did.”
He said it with such a combination of pride and anger, she heard herself laugh. “Bloodied one of the social workers’ noses.” And that memory, she realized, wasn’t so bad. “Ended up in juvie for a while, but it was better than her. I put it away, Roarke. I put it aside. Then there she was, sitting in my office, and I was back to being scared.”
He wished she’d bloodied goddamn Trudy Lombard’s nose, gotten some little bit of her own back. She’d have been better for that. “She’ll never hurt you again.”
Eve faced him now, eye to eye. “I fell apart. Disintegrated. I’m feeling just steady enough now for that to piss me off. The Icove case.”
“What?”
She lowered her head to her hands, rubbed them hard over her face before she lifted it again. “She said she’d seen me giving an interview about the Icove murders, the Quiet Birth fiasco. I asked how she’d found me, and she said she’d heard about the case.”
He rolled his healing shoulder out of habit. “I doubt there’s anyone in the known universe who hasn’t by now. She came here, specifically, to see you?”
“Said she wanted to catch up, see how I’d turned out. Wanted a nice reunion.” She was recovered enough that her tone was sour and cynical. It was music to Roarke’s ears.
“She’s got her son and his wife with her, apparently. I kicked her out. At least I had enough left to do that. She gave me that look, that puzzled disappointment—with the nasty edge just under it.”
“You’ll want to make sure she goes away, stays away. I can—”
“No, I don’t.” She shoved back, stood up. “No, I don’t, and I don’t want you touching it. I want to forget this, forget her. Whatever jollies she thought she might get by taking me down some memory lane she’s swept and polished, she won’t get them. If Peabody had kept her nose out, I’d‘ve been straightened out when you got home. We wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
He waited a long minute, then rose as well. “And that’s how you’d have handled this? By telling me nothing?”
“This one, yeah. It’s done, it’s over. It’s my problem. I let it twist me around. Now I’m untwisted. It doesn’t apply to us. I don’t want it to apply to us. If you want to help me out here, you’ll let it fade.”
He started to speak, thought better of it, then shrugged. “All right, then.”
But he took her shoulders, rubbed. He drew her in, and felt her body relax against his.
She was more twisted up than she realized, he thought, if she believed the woman had tracked her across the country, across the years, for no real purpose.
It was only a matter of time before that purpose became clear.
“It’s going dark,” he murmured. “Holiday lights, on.”
She turned her head on his shoulder, and together they studied the huge live pine in the window as the festive lights flashed on.
“You always go overboard,” she said quietly.
“I don’t think you can with Christmas, especially if you’re us, and had so many thin ones. Besides, it’s tradition for us now, isn’t it? A tree in the bedroom at Christmas.”
“You’ve got a tree in nearly every room in the house.”
He grinned at that. “I do, don’t I? I’m a slave to sentiment.” He kissed her, softly, then circled his arms around her again. “What do you say to a quiet meal up here? With no work for either of us. We’ll watch some screen, drink some wine. Make love.”
She tightened her arms around him. She’d needed home, she thought, and here it was. “I’d say, ‘Thanks.’”
* * *
And when she was asleep, he left her, briefly, for his private office. He crossed the tiles, laid his hand on the palm print. “Roarke,” he said. “Power up.”
As the console hummed, flickered with light, he used the house link to contact Summerset.
“If anyone by the name of Lombard attempts to reach Eve here, put them through to me. Wherever I might be.”
“Of course. Is the lieutenant all right?”
“She is, yes. Thanks.” He clicked off, then ordered a search. It would take a bit of time to pinpoint where this Lombard was staying while in New York. But it was best, always best, to know the location of an adversary.
He doubted it would be much longer before he knew just what the woman wanted—though he was dead certain he already knew.
* * *
Chapter 3
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NORMAL, EVE THOUGHT, WHEN SHE STRAPPED on her weapon harness. She felt normal again. Maybe those whiners who were forever talking about expressing your feelings were onto something.
God, she hoped not. If they were, she’d end up neck deep in mangled bodies.
Regardless, she felt steady—steady enough to scowl at the nasty weather whirling outside the bedroom window.
“What exactly do they call that business? ” Roarke asked as he stepped beside her. “It’s not snow, not rain, not even really sleet. It must be—”
“Crap,” she said. “It’s cold, wet, crap.”
“Ah.” He nodded, rubbed the back of his knuckles absently up and down her spine. “Of course. Maybe it’ll keep people indoors and you’ll have a quiet day.”
“People kill each other inside, too,” she reminded him. “Especially when they get fed up looking out the window at crap.” Because she sounded just like the woman he adored, he gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder.
“Well, it’s off to work for you, then. I’ll be handling link conferences here for another hour or so before I have to go out in this.” He turned her, gripped the lapels of her jacket, kissed her quick and hard. “Be safe.”
She reached for her coat, started to swing it on, and felt the slight bulge in the pocket. “Oh, I picked this up for Dennis Mira. Just a, you know, Christmas token thing.”
“Looks like him.” Roarke nodded at the scarf she held, even as his eyes laughed at her. “Aren’t you the clever shopper?”
“I didn’t shop. I picked it up. Do you think there’s any way it could get wrapped?”
With a half smile, Roarke held out his hand for it. “I’ll notify the elves. And I’ll have it put with the antique teapot you bought for Mira—which you didn’t shop for either, but, as I recall, came across.”
“That’d be good, smart ass. See you later.”
“Lieutenant? You haven’t forgotten our Christmas party?”
She spun around. “Christmas party? That’s not tonight. Is it? It’s not.”
It was small of him, he could admit it. But he loved seeing that quick panic on her face as she tried to remember which day was which. “Tomorrow. So if you’ve anything you need or want to come across to pick up beforehand, it should be today.”
“Sure. Right. No problem.” Shit, she thought as she headed downstairs. Was there anything else? Why were there all these people who had to be crossed off her pick-up-something list? Was she actually going to have to start making a list?
If it came to that it might be best to move away altogether and start over.
She could dump the whole business on Roarke, of course. He actually liked to come across stuff to pick up. The man shopped—something she avoided at all possible costs. But if you were going to end up with all these people in your life, it seemed you should at least spend a half a minute picking something up, personally. Plus, she thought it was another kind of rule.
Relationships were lousy with rules, that much she’d learned. It was just her bad luck that she usually tried to play by them.
One of the rules she enjoyed was verbally bitch-slapping Summerset on her way in or out the door. He was there—of course he was there, the skeleton in a black suit—in the foyer.
“My vehicle better be right where I left it, Nancy.”
His lips thinned. “You’ll find the object you call a vehicle currently embarrassing the front of this house. I require any and all additions or adjustments to your personal guest list for to
morrow’s gathering by two this afternoon.”
“Yeah? Well, check with my social secretary. I’ll be a little busy serving and protecting the city for lists.”
She strolled out, then hissed. List? She was supposed to have a list for this, too? What was wrong with just running into someone and telling them to come on by?
She hunched against the nasty, freezing rain, slid into her car. The heater was already running. Summerset’s work, probably, which would have to go on the list of reasons not to strangle him in his sleep.
At least that was a short one.
She started down the drive, engaged the dash ‘link and tagged Roarke.
“Miss me already?”
“Every second without you is a personal hell. Listen, am I supposed to have a list? Like a guest list for this deal tomorrow?”
“Do you want one?”
“No. No, I don’t want a damn list, but—”
“It’s taken care of, Eve.”
“Okay, good then. Fine.” Another thought wandered into her brain. “I probably have an entire outfit, down to the underwear, all picked out, too, don’t I?”
“Showing exquisite taste—with underwear optional.”
It made her laugh. “I never miss a trick. Later.”
* * *
Peabody was already at her desk when Eve walked into Central. It added another little pinch of guilt. She crossed over, waited until Peabody glanced up from her paperwork.
“Would you mind coming into my office for a minute?”
There was a blink of surprise. “Sure. Right behind you.”
With a nod, Eve headed into her office, programmed two coffees— one light and sweet for Peabody. That got her another blink of surprise when Peabody stepped in.
“Shut the door, will you?”
“Sure. Um, I have the report on… thanks,” she added when Eve handed her the coffee. “On Zero. The PA went in hard, Second Degree, two counts, using the illegals sale as a deadly weapon in the act of committing, with—”
“Sit down.”
“Jeez, am I being transferred to Long Island or something?”
“No.” Eve sat herself, waiting, watched Peabody warily take a seat. “I’m going to apologize for walking out on you yesterday, for not doing my job, and leaving you to deal with it.”
“We were all but wrapped, and you were sick.”
“It wasn’t wrapped, and if I was sick, it was my problem. I made it yours. You called Roarke.”
Eve waited a beat while Peabody got busy looking at the wall and drinking coffee. “I was going to slap you good for that,” she said when Peabody opened her mouth. “But it was probably the sort of thing a partner should do.”
“You were in bad shape. I didn’t know what else to do. Okay now?”
“Fine.” She studied her coffee a moment. Partnership was another thing with rules. “There was a woman in my office when we got back yesterday. Someone I knew a long time ago. It gave me a knock. A big one. She was my first foster mother—loose term on the mother. It was a rough patch, and having her come in like that, after all this time, it… I couldn’t—”
No, Eve thought, you always could.
“I didn’t handle it,” she corrected. “So I ditched. You handled the case, Peabody, and largely alone. You did a good job.”
“What did she want?”
“I don’t know, don’t care. I got her out. Door’s closed. If she wheedles her way through it again, she won’t be taking me by surprise. And I will handle it.”
Rising, she went to her window, shoved it up. Cold and wet spilled in as she leaned out and tore free the evidence bag she’d fixed to the outside wall. In it were four unopened candy bars.
“You have chocolate bars sealed and taped outside the window,” Peabody said with a mixture of awe and puzzlement.
“I did have,” Eve corrected. She was giving up the best hiding place she’d devised from the nefarious candy thief. She unsealed the bag, handed the speechless Peabody a bar. “They’ll be somewhere else after you leave and I lock the door and find a new spot for my cache.”
“Okay. I’m putting it in my pocket before I tell you we didn’t get Murder Two.”
“Didn’t figure you did.”
Not one to take chances with chocolate, Peabody shoved the bar into her pocket anyway. “PA told me we wouldn’t before we went in to pitch the deal. He wanted Zero bad, more than me, I think. Zero’s slipped through his fingers plenty, and the PA wanted to nail him.”
Eve leaned against her desk. “I like a PA with an agenda.”
“It helps,” Peabody agreed. “We spooked them with talk of two consecutive life sentences, off planet penal colony, made noises about eye witnesses.”
Peabody tapped her fingers on her pocket as if to reassure herself the candy was still there. “We got ourselves a search and seize, and popped some illegals from the club and Zero’s residence. Petty stuff, really, and the claim they were for personal use might have been true, but we just kept piling it up. By the time we’d finished, Zero and his lawyer were looking at Man Two as a gift from the Higher Powers. Five to ten, and he probably won’t serve the full minimum, but—”
“You got him in a cage, and that’s a check in the win column. He loses his license, he pays out the butt in fees and fines, his club will likely go tits up. You keep the chocolate.”
“It was great.” And since the candy in her pocket was currently screaming her name, Peabody gave in, took it out, and unwrapped enough to break off a knuckle’s worth. “It was a rush to push it through,” she said with her happy mouth full. “I’m sorry you missed it.”
“So am I. Thanks for covering.”
“No problem. You can put the bag back outside. It’ll be safe from me.” At the narrowed, speculative look in Eve’s eye, she rushed on. “Ah, not that it wouldn’t be safe from me anywhere you put it. I’m not saying that I’ve ever had any part in taking any candy of any sort from this office.”
Eve flattened the look—cop interrogating suspect. “And if we did a quick little truth test on that?”
“What?” Peabody put a hand to her ear. “Did you hear that? Someone’s calling me from the bull pen. There may be crimes being committed even now while we lollygag. Gotta go.”
Eyes still narrowed, Eve walked to the door, shut and locked it. Lollygag? What the hell kind of word was lollygag? A guilty one if she was any judge.
She gave the bag a shake as she considered where her next candy vault might be.
* * *
Between a meeting with the senior staff of one of his manufacturing arms and a lunch he had scheduled in his executive dining room with investors, Roarke’s interoffice link beeped.
“Yes, Caro.” His brow winged up when he noted she’d engaged privacy mode.
“The individual you mentioned this morning is downstairs, lobby level, and requesting a moment of your time.”
He’d bet himself a half mil she’d contact him before noon. Now he went double or nothing she’d show her hand before he booted her out again.
“Is she alone?”
“Apparently.”
“Keep her waiting down there another ten minutes, then escort her up. Not personally. Send an assistant, please, Caro—a young one. Keep her cooling out there until I buzz you.”
“I’ll take care of it. Would you like me to buzz you again a few minutes after she’s in your office?”
“No.” He smiled, and it wasn’t pleasant. “I’ll get rid of her personally.”
He was looking forward to it.
After checking the time, he rose, walked to the wall of glass that opened his office to the spires and towers of the city. It was just rain now, he noted. Dreary and gray and dull, shitting down on the streets from an ugly sky.
Well, he and Eve knew all about being shit on. Life hadn’t dealt either of them a pretty hand, and had given them no stake to play it. What they’d done—each in his own way—was make a win out of it. Bluffing, bulling, and
at least in his case, cheating their way to the pot at the end of the day.
But there was always another game to be played, always another player willing to do all manner of nasty things to take a share. Or take it all.
Well, come on, then, he thought. He wasn’t just willing, but more than able to do all manner of nasty things himself.
He couldn’t go back, more’s the pity, and beat her bastard of a father into a gibbering, bloody pulp. He couldn’t make the dead suffer, as Eve suffered still. But here, fate had dropped a pale substitute right into his hands.
A live one. Plump and pink and prime for skinning.
Trudy Lombard was in for a very unpleasant surprise.
He imagined the last thing that would be on her mind when she crawled out again would be to slither her way around Eve.
He turned, glanced around his office. He’d made it what it was. Needed to. He knew what she would see when she came in, out of the cold and the gray. She’d see power and wealth, space and luxury. She’d scent the money, though if she wasn’t brainless, she’d have some idea of the pot on his table.
An idea that would be considerably short, come to that, he mused. He may have been legal now, but that didn’t mean he felt the need to make public what was in all his pockets.
He kept books in his private office at home, updating quarterly. Eve had access to them, should she ever have any interest. Which she wouldn’t, he thought with a faint smile. She was easier with his money than she’d once been, but he was still a faint embarrassment to her.
He wished he knew the name of the gods who’d looked down on him the day he’d met her. If he could stack everything he owned, had done, had accomplished, on one side of a scale, it still wouldn’t outweigh the gift of her.
As he waited for time to pass, he slid a hand into his pocket, rubbed the button he carried, one that had fallen off her suit jacket the first time he’d met her.