By the time she'd sent Pepper and her police escort off to Broadway, the stress. and fatigue, had a headache swirling behind Eve's eyes. She'd putout an APB on Fortney, and the dragnet was already spreading.
She met with Breen's attorney, let the preliminary complaints roll off her. But when he demanded his client be allowed to return home and tend to his minor child, she didn't argue. In fact, she surprised the attorney by postponing further questioning until nine the next morning.
And she assigned two men to stake out Breen and his house overnight.
She sat back down in her office, already past the end of shift, and thought about coffee, about sleep, about work.
When McNab jogged in, he looked so bright and energetic, it hurt to look at him.
"Can't you ever wear anything that doesn't glow?" she demanded.
"Summertime, Dallas. Guy's gotta glow. Got some news should put a glow, back in your cheeks. Fortney booked a first-class seat on a shuttle to New L.A. He's en route."
"Quick work, McNab."
He shot out his index finger, blew on it. "Fastest EDD man in the east. Lieutenant, you look well and truly beat."
"Nothing wrong with your vision, either.. Take Peabody home. Make sure she gets a good night's sleep, which is my delicate way of saying restrain yourself from rabbiting together half the night. She needs a clear and alert mind tomorrow."
"You got it. You might try that good night's sleep yourself."
"Eventually," she mumbled, then started the process of extraditing Fortney and arranging for local authorities to meet him when he stepped off the shuttle.
Peabody bounced in. "Lieutenant, McNab said you said-"
"I should just put in a revolving door because everybody just walks in and out as they damn well please anyway."
"The door was open. It's almost always open. McNab said I was relieved, but I haven't yet contacted authorities in New L.A. re Fortney, or transmitted the warrant."
"It's done. They'll pick him up, ship him back, and have promised to take just enough time to ensure he'll spend the night in a cell. He won't wrangle a bail hearing until morning."
"It's my job to "
"Shut up, Peabody. Go home, get a meal, get some sleep. The exam starts oh eight hundred, sharp."
"Sir,. I believe it might be necessary to postpone the exam as this case is at a crucial point. Fortney-and I see that my initial instincts there were right-will have to be interviewed, and you'll want to interview Breeh and try to arrange an interview with Renquist to tie the matter up. I feel it's inappropriate for me to take a half day, minimum, for personal business during this stage of the investigation."
"Got the jitters?"
"Well, yeah, that, too, but-"
"You'll take the exam, Peabody. If you have to wait another three months to take it, one of us will jump off the nearest building, or, more likely, I'll just pitch you off. I think, somehow, I can muddle through the day without you."
"But I think-"
"Report at Exam Room One, oh eight hundred, Officer. That's an order."
"I don't believe you can actually order me to take..." She trailed off, swallowed hard when Eve lifted her gaze. "But, ah, I understand the spirit of the statement, sir. I'm going to try not to let you down."
"Jesus, Peabody, you're not going to let me down whatever you do on the exam. And you'll be "
"Stop." Peabody squeezed her eyes closed. "Don't say anything that'll jinx it. Don't say it, or any sentence with the word luck in it."
"You'd better go take a pill."
"I might." She gave a shaky smile. "Don't wish me the `L' word, okay, but maybe you could do like a signal or a sign. You could do this." Peabody showed her teeth in a grin, widened her eyes to show enthusiasm, and punched out her fist with her thumb sticking up.
Leaning back, Eve cocked her head. "What is that? I'm supposed to signal you to stick your thumb up your ass?"
"No! It's thumbs-up. Jeez, Dallas. Thumbs-up. Never mind."
"Peabody." Eve rose, halting her aide before she could stalk out of the office. "Commencing at oh eight hundred hours, I expect you to kick exam butt."
"Yes, sir. Thanks."
Chapter 20
When Eve dragged herself home, there was one thought uppermost in her mind. To get herself horizontal on a flat surface for one blessed hour.
Fortney was on his way back to New York, under wraps, and by God he could stew in a cage for a few hours. She'd deal with Breen in the morning, and Renquist. Though Smith was down on her list, he'd be watched for the next little while. But she couldn't watch anyone with eyes that felt like a couple of burnt cinders stuck in her face.
She just needed to stretch out, she told herself, give her head a chance to clear. She walked through a fog of fatigue into the cool and gorgeous quiet of the house.
The fog shimmered and tore apart. And Summerset stepped through it.
"You are, as usual, late."
She stared for a moment while her numbed brain struggled to process. Tall, bony, ugly, annoying. Oh yeah, he was back.
She found the energy to peel off her linen jacket and tossed it on the newel just to irritate him.
It was amazing how much better the act made her feel.
"How'd you get through airport security with that steel pike up your ass?" Ordering herself not to stagger, she bent to pick up the cat who was busy threading himself between her legs. She stroked Galahad's head. "Look, it's back. Didn't I tell you to change the security code?"
"The disgrace you call a vehicle does not belong: in front of the house, nor," he added, picking up her jacket with two thin fingers, "is this the proper place for articles of clothing."
She started up the stairs, stifling a yawn. "Bite me."
He watched her go, smiled thinly at her back. It was good to be home.
She went straight to, the bedroom, managed to make it up to the platform, where she dumped the cat on the bed seconds before she fell face down onto it herself.
She was asleep before Galahad padded his: way over and curled up on her butt.
Roarke found her there, as he'd expected from the brief report from Summerset. "Finally hit the wall, have you?" he murmured, noting she hadn'tt removed her weapon harness or boots. He gave the cat an absent scratch between the ears, then settled down in the. sitting area to work while she slept.
She didn't dream, not at first, but simply lay at the bottom of a dark pool of exhaustion. Only when.she began to surface did the dreams come, in vague shapes and muffled sounds. A hospital bed, with a pale figure on it.
Marlene Cox, then herself as a child. Both battered, both helpless. Then the darker shapes that swirled around the. bed. The cop she was, staring down at the child she'd been.
There were questions to be answered. You have to wake up and answer the questions or he'll do it again, to someone else. There's always another victim,
But the figure in the bed didn't stir. The face changed: from her own to Marlene's, to Jacie Wooton's, ' to Lois Gregg's, then back to her own.
Something began to rise up inside her that was both anger and fear. You're not dead, not, like the others. You have to wake up. Damn it, wake up and stop him.
One of those swirling shapes coalesced; stood on the opposite side of the bed. The man. who'd battered the child, and haunted the woman.
It's never really over. His eyes were bright with humor in his bloody face. It never ends. There's always going to be another, no matter what you do. You might as well sleep, little girl. Better to sleep than to keep walking with the dead.
Keep walking, and you'll be one of them.
He reached over, pressed his hand over the child's mouth. Her eyes opened, full of pain, full of fear. Eve could only stare, unable to move, to protect, to defend. Only stare into her own eyes as they glazed over, and died.
She woke with a strangled gasp, and in Roarke's 'arms.
"Ssh. You're just dreaming." His lips pressed against her temple. "I'm right here. Hold on to me. Only a dream."
"I'm- okay." But she kept her face buried' against his shoulder until she got her breath back. "I'm okay."
"Hold on to me anyway." For he wasn't, never really was, when she wandered through nightmares.
"No problem." She could already feel her pulse begin to level off and the ugly smear of terror over her mind fade.
She could smell him-soap and skin, and there was the lovely brush of his hair' against her cheek.
Her world steadied.
"What time is it? How long was I out?"
"It doesn't matter. You needed to sleep. Now you need food, and more sleep."
She wasn't going to argue. She was starving. More, she recognized that tone in his voice, and it meant he'd find a way to pour a soother down her throat if she gave him the smallest opening.
"I could use a meal. But I could use something else first." "What?'
"You know how sometimes you get in a mood when you touch me, when you love me, and it's all tender. Like you know I'm feeling raw inside."
"I do."
She tipped her head back, touched his cheek. "Show me." "Here now." He feathered his lips over her brow, her cheeks, her mouth as he released her weapon harness. "Will you tell me what's wrong?"
She nodded. "Just be with me first. I need... I just need you."
He eased her back on the bed, slipped off her boots. He hated to see the shadows under her eyes, the shadows in them. She looked so pale,-as if he could pass a hand through her, and if he did, she'd vanish like one of his own dreams.
He didn't have to be told to be gentle, didn't need her long, quiet sigh to know it was.love that would-feed her now.
"When I came in and you were sleeping, I thought: There's my soldier, exhausted from her wars." He lifted her hand, kissed her fingers. "Now, I look, and I think: There's my woman, soft and lovely."
Her lips curved as he undressed her. "Where do you get this stuff?"
"It just comes to me. I've only to look at you, and the world comes to me. You're my life."
She reared up, threw her arms around him. The sob wanted to leap out of her throat, but she feared if she let it out, it would never stop. With her lips pressed to the warm curve of his neck, she rocked. Take me away, she silently begged. Oh God, take me away, just for a little while..
As if he heard her, he began to stroke. Gently, to soothe, to comfort. Whatever he crooned quieted her troubled- soul until she relaxed in his arms, and let him lead the way.
His lips were soft, soft and warm when they found hers. He took the kiss deep, but slowly, so she could drift into it, and into him, degree by degree. He felt her surrender to it, his strong and valiant soldier until she was pliant as wax, fluid as water.
Her mind misted over. There were no nightmares here, no shadows lurking in the corners. There was only Roarke, and those almost lazy caresses, those soft and dreamy kisses that took her under, into a quiet eddy of peace; Sensations layered, each one tissue thin, coating over the fatigue and the despair she hadn't realized had bloomed inside her. mouth cruised over her breast, stirred up her heartbeat as his tongue circled her, tasted her. She ran her hands over his back, tracing the shape of him, the muscle and bone. Death, with its infinite faces, was a world away.
When his mouth, his hands became more demanding she was ready, ready for those first shimmers of heat. Those long, liquid pulls inside her belly turned her sigh into a moan.
He took his time, endless time, arousing, fascinating, and being fascinated. Her body was a joy to him with its long, sleek lines, the supple skin, the surprising curves. He could watch the pleasure bloom on her, feel it spread through her with little quivers and shifts.
And at last, when they were both ready, he felt it burst through her, that gorgeous throaty moan, that lovely and helpless shudder.
The orgasm was a long hot wave that flooded body, heart, mind. The sheer release of it was glorious-like life. She would have folded herself around him then, wrapped him tight, taken him in, but he linked his fingers with hers and used his mouth to give her more.
She couldn't resist. He weighed her down with tenderness. And when a sob did escape, it was one of stunned joy as she crested again.
A thousand pulses beat, thickly. Nerves danced over her skin,-shivering at every brush of his lips. Her muscles had gone lax, and everything she was lay open to him.
He watched her face as his lips rubbed lightly over hers. Her fingers tightened on his, and her lips curved before she said his name. Before she rose up to meet him.
When they were. still and quiet, he lay with his head on her breast. He thought she might sleep again, more peacefully now, but she lifted a hand, threading her fingers through his hair.
"I was so tired," she said quietly. "I had to put the car on auto. I felt so weighed down and punchy and stupid. I had a pretty crappy day in a really crappy case. It's not just the victims, not just the women. It's like he's pointing a finger at me when he kills them."
"-And that makes you one of them."
Thank God, was all she could think. Thank God he understands. "One of them, and not... ". she said, thinking of her dream. "One of them, and the one who's standing for them when it's too late."
"Eve." He lifted his head, looked into her eyes. "It's not, it's never too late. You know that better than anyone."
"Usually. Usually I do."
There was something in her tone that had him sitting up, drawing her with him, then cupping her face so he could study it. "You know who he is."
"Yeah, I know. But the trick's stopping him, proving it, putting him away. I knew, in my gut, from the start. I needed to clear my head out so I could start taking the right steps."
"You need to eat, and tell me about it."
"I guess I need to eat, then I have to tell you about something else." She scraped her hair, back with both hands. "I want to take a shower and pull. myself together first."
"All right." He knew her well enough to give her room. "We'll have something up here. I'll take care of it."
Her throat filled, and she dipped her head so her brow rested on his. "You know something handy about you? You take care."
He wanted to gather her in then, to push her to tell him what troubled her mind. But he let her go.
She would run the water too hot, he thought, as he rose to get robes for both of them, to select the sort of meal that would do her the most good. Then she would stand under the spray, willing it to beat the energy back into her.
She wouldn't waste time with a towel, but step directly into the drying tube, and more heat.
No, she wouldn't sleep again, he knew as he set the meal in the sitting area. Not yet, not for a time yet. She would fuel, then she would work, then she would collapse. It was one of the most fascinating and frustrating things about her.
She came back wearing the robe he'd hung on the bathroom door, a thin and simple black robe he doubted she knew she owned.
"What is that green stuff?"
"Asparagus. It's good for you.
She thought it looked like something you'd whack out of a cartoon garden, but the fish and rice with it looked pretty good.
So did the glass of straw-colored wine.
She went for the wine first, hoping it would make the green stalks go down easier. "How come stuff that's good for you always has to be green and funny looking?"
"Because nutrition doesn't come in a candy bar."
"It ought to."
"You're stalling, Eve."
"Maybe." She stabbed one of the stalks, shoved it into her mouth. It wasn't half bad, but she made a disgusted face for form.
"That's not what I meant."
"I know." She flaked off a bite of fish. "I had a dream about my mother."
"Dream or memory?"
"I don't know. Both." She ate, scooped up rice. "I think both. I was in an apartment, or a hotel room. I don't know which, but apartment, I, think. Some dump. I was three, four. How do you tell?"
"I don't know."
; "Me, either. Anyway
She told him of being alone, of going into the bedroom, playing with the. enhancements, the wig, though she'd been forbidden.
"Maybe kids always do what you tell them not to. I don't know. But I... it was irresistible. I think I wanted to look pretty. I thought all that junk would make me look pretty. Dolling up, that's what they call it, don't they? I was dolling up because once, when she was in a good mood, she told me I looked like a little doll."
J D Robb - Dallas 17 - Imitation in Death Page 32
