Chapter Thirteen
Because she knew she needed to settle, she leaned back as Roarke drove, closed her eyes. She tried the breathing technique she’d learned from the master in the dojo Roarke had built.
Her fury at a dead man who’d taken countless lives indiscriminately and for money wouldn’t help her find and stop the one who’d taken his life.
It wouldn’t help her take down Jacob Wyst and Calvin Banner and, she had no doubt, Jack O’Brian.
Maybe the breathing helped a little, at least enough to clear her head of most of the fury.
She straightened, sent a memo to Mira.
You’ll get a report on a third victim connected to my current investigation inside an hour.
I need an additional consult tomorrow on various aspects of the investigation, and the person I believe is responsible.
I’ll see Morris first, and should be at Central before nine.
I’ll make myself available when you are.
Eve had a response before they drove through the gates.
I’ll read your report asap, and I’ll have you scheduled for nine. Earlier if you arrive earlier.
Eve acknowledged the response, then studied the house silhouetted against the night sky.
“I never thought about having a house. I just realized I never thought about never thinking about having a house. My first apartment was about half the size of my office up there, and it was amazing to me. My own place, not wherever they’d dragged me.
Not a room in a foster home, or in the state school, not even a shared room at the Academy—and that one was pretty amazing to me.
“But that boxcar of an apartment? Mine. I didn’t share that space with anyone.
I could put whatever I wanted—that I could afford—in it, so that was mine, too.
My things. I woke up every morning for weeks, maybe longer, stunned to find myself there.
Then I got the bigger one, and that was amazing.
More space, all mine. A place I’d earned doing what I wanted and needed to do.
It didn’t matter that I spent more time at Central or in the field than I did in that space. ”
“Because it was yours.”
“Yeah. I never thought about having a house, not like you did, or Peabody, or, as it turns out, Mavis. I didn’t want to move in here with you, because I was afraid to give up what was mine. I moved in here because I was more afraid of losing you.”
“You wouldn’t have. I couldn’t live without you, not then, not now.”
“I didn’t know that.” She let out a sigh. “I wouldn’t have believed that, not then. I loved you, and that terrified me. And I was so afraid that by living here, in something that was yours, I’d lose parts of myself.”
She looked at him now. “I didn’t. I found more parts of myself. I found more parts of you, too. And they work really well together. I never thought about having a house, but now I do. And coming home? No matter how bad things get, I know we can come home.”
He took her hand, kissed it. “You made it a home, for me, not just a space that was mine.”
“It’s a hell of a space. I have to get the report done and sent.”
“I’ll update your board for you.”
She nodded as they got out of the car. “Yeah, it works really well.”
She took his hand again as they walked in. “Do you ever wish I knew more about your business?”
“I don’t, no.”
“I mean if I actually knew stuff like you know cop stuff, so you could come home with some thorny problem and say: ‘Well now, Eve, what’s your thinking on the design for this whatsit that will make me another billion or so?’ Or ‘I’ve a holographic meeting in the morning at half-six with Joe-Bob in Sydney, care to sit in? ’ ”
“I don’t believe I know a Joe-Bob in Sydney, and have no design in the works for a whatsit,” he said as they walked upstairs. “But if I did? Still no.”
“See, I don’t take offense, because I can’t blame you. I’m actually doing you a favor by staying out of all of it.”
“You absolutely are, and thanks for that.”
“Galahad’s still in the sleep chair.”
“He has a sense of these things. You’ll want coffee, so program one for me while you’re about it.”
She sat, programmed the coffee, plugged in her recorder so he could access the files. He sat at her auxiliary while she wrote the report.
By the time she’d finished, he sat on the sofa working on something on his PPC. With the cat across his lap.
She studied her updated board.
He saw it, too, she thought. Just the way he’d arranged her board showed he saw what she saw. Those connections, all linking back to a thirteen-year-old tragedy.
One deliberately caused, with the reason not yet known.
She found it interesting he’d included the timeline from that night. The time Redman had entered the twenty-four/seven, the time he’d left—both verified by in-store surveillance. The time of the explosion.
Roarke had calculated, and she’d intended to do, where on the route home Redman would have been, at a brisk walking pace.
Less than twenty-five away. Nearly home.
Had Roarke imagined what Redman felt in that instant? Hearing the explosion, seeing the flames erupt, knowing that his wife and son were inside.
His wife waiting for her ice cream; his son sleeping.
Yes, he’d imagined it, just as she had.
And what it felt like to see your whole world destroyed while you stood helpless and alive.
“Beyond the bearing of it.” Roarke gave the cat one long stroke before setting him aside and rising. “It’s hardly a wonder his mind shut down.”
“No, but it came back. And I think it came back well before he walked out of the health center. He didn’t wander aimlessly as they all thought.
He had an aim. He knew the best way to get out, the best time, and he went to someone.
I need to find out who. I need to find him, stop him, get him into custody. ”
She studied the ID shot.
“They’re looking for him, too. They’re afraid not just of him, but of what he knows. They killed all those people to cover killing him. If they find him first, he’s dead.”
“It matters to you, to keep him alive, and I’m with you. But I doubt it matters to him. Come now, put it away. You’ll get some rest, and start again tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I need to put it away.” She glanced toward the sofa. “Galahad’s already on the bed.”
“As I said, he has a sense of these things.”
“It’s a little spooky.” As they walked, she sighed. “I got more blood on these pants.”
“Summerset will get it out.”
“Right. I had just a little bit on them when I got home. I mean you practically needed microgoggles to spot it, but he did.”
“We can say someone else has a sense of things.”
He ran a hand down her hair as they walked into the bedroom, where the cat stretched out luxuriously on the bed.
“Why doesn’t he sense he’s going to have to move?”
“You think he doesn’t?” Amused, Roarke switched on the fire, for the comfort, before he began to undress. “He’s simply enjoying the sprawl while he has it.”
Eve set her weapon harness, her badge, ’link, and all the rest aside. Shouldn’t that help her put it all away? she wondered. But no, it didn’t. Not really.
She stripped down to her underwear, looked over at him.
“I think you can handle the rest.”
He angled his head. “Can I now?”
“It’s not that much.”
“True. I suppose I can manage it well enough.”
“You usually do better than well enough.”
“Only usually?” he said as he drew her in. “I’ll have to up my game.” After brushing his lips over hers, he looked into her eyes. And he smiled. “And there she is, my own darling Eve.”
She framed his face with her hands. “There he is, my own Irish gazillionaire. I love you. I’d love you even if you were only a paltry millionaire. Under that, it could get shaky.”
“I’ll have to keep a careful eye on my investments, won’t I then? As I don’t want to lose you.”
“You couldn’t, because you’d find me.” She pressed her lips to his, then locked her arms around his neck. “Let’s get lost,” she murmured. “Together.”
He hitched her up, off her feet, so her legs circled his waist. The cat opened one eye, saw what was coming. On a grumble, he leaped out of the way as they tumbled onto the bed.
“Let me just get this task out of the way.”
He eased up her support tank, sliding his fingers along her skin as he took her mouth again.
Slowly, deepening the kiss slowly, as her body softened under his, on that edge of a surrender he found miraculous.
She needed tending, he thought, needed the lovely and the loving.
And so, he knew, did he, to shut out—even for a little while—the ugliness, the horror, the cruelty that so often pushed bloody hands into their lives.
So to tend and be tended, long, deep kisses, slow, patient hands.
He could marvel in the wonder of her, how the strength and the softness merged. The long, narrow torso, the leanly muscled arms, the endless legs that tangled with his.
Drawing the tank away, he pressed his lips to her shoulder. Shoulders, he thought, built to carry the weight of her duty, however heavy. Yet the skin over them . . . so much silk, so smooth, so soft to the touch and taste.
He felt her heart against his own, beat for beat.
As she ran her hands through his hair, down his back, she sighed.
“I think your game’s definitely up.”
And felt his lips curve against her throat.
He understood her. Had anyone ever understood her so absolutely, heart, mind, body? He knew her every vulnerability, every weakness, every flaw, yet loved her anyway.
He took her away, as he’d known she’d needed, from everything she’d faced that day, everything she’d face the next. He gave her, as she could give him, a light in the dark, the beauty of life amid so much death.
She rolled with him, a quiet surf beyond a restless ocean, her hands and lips exploring the body she knew as intimately as her own. Strong, lean, disciplined, one it seemed to her could slip through shadows without leaving a ripple.
And that mouth, she thought as it roamed over her. So perfect, so skilled, it could arouse with a whisper.
When his lips glided over her breast, her sigh became a moan; her hand pressed him closer.