Galahad obviously had other ideas on how to use his time and was already curled up dead center of the bed. “See, that’s why you’re fat,” she told him. “Eat, sleep, maybe prowl around a little, then eat and sleep some more. I oughta get Roarke to put a pet treadmill downstairs. Work some of that pudge off you.”
To show his opinion of the suggestion, Galahad yawned hugely, then closed his eyes.
“Sure, go ahead. Ignore me.” She stepped into the elevator, went down to the gym.
She did a two-mile run, using her favored shoreline setting. She had the texture of sand under her feet, the smell of the sea around her, the sight and sound of waves rolling, receding.
Between the effort and the ambiance, she finished the run in a kind of trance, then switched to weights. Sweaty, satisfied, she ended the session with some flexibility training before she hit the shower.
Okay, maybe the bite on her leg throbbed a little in protest, but it was still better than a nap, she assured herself. Though she had to admit the cat snoring on the bed looked pretty damn happy. She pulled on loose pants, a black sweatshirt she noticed with baffled surprise was cashmere, thick socks. With her file bag in tow, she went from bedroom to office.
She programmed a full pot of coffee, and drank the first cup while updating, then circling and studying her murder boards. She paused, looked into the eyes of the killer Yancy had sketched.
“Did you come home to die? Ted, Ed, Edward, Edwin? Is it all about timing and circles and death? Has it all been your own personal opera?”
She circled again, studying each victim’s face. “You chose them, used them. Cast them away. But they all represent someone. Who is that? Who was she to you? Mother, lover, sister, daughter? Did she betray you? Leave you? Reject you?”
She remembered something Pella had said, and frowned.
“Die on you? More than that? Was she taken, killed? Is this a recreation of her death?”
She studied her own face, the ID print she’d pinned up. And what did he see when he looked at it? she wondered. Not just another victim this time, but an opponent. That was new, wasn’t it? Hunting the hunter.
The grand finale. Yes, Mira could be right about that. The twist at the end of the show. Applause, applause, and curtain.
She poured out a second cup of coffee, sat to prop her feet on her desk. Maybe not just an opera fan. A performer? Frustrated performer or composer…
The performer didn’t fit profile, she decided. It would involve a lot of training, a lot of teamwork. Taking direction. No, that wasn’t his style.
A composer, could be. Most people who wrote anything worked alone a lot of the time. Taking charge of the words or the music.
“Computer, working with all current data, run probability series as follows. What is the probability the perpetrator has returned to New York, has targeted Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in a desire to complete what he may consider his work?
“What is the probability that desire is fostered by his knowledge of his own death, or plans to self-terminate?
“What is the probability, given his use of opera houses for false addresses, he is or was involved in opera as a profession?
“What is the probability, given the timelines of the perpetrator’s sprees and subsequent rest periods, he utilizes chemicals to suppress or release his urge to kill?”
Acknowledged.
“Hold it. I’m still thinking. What is the probability the victims represent a person connected to the perpetrator who was, at some time, tortured and killed by methods he now employs? Begin run.”
Acknowledged. Working…
“You do that.” Leaning back, Eve sipped coffee, closed her eyes.
She let it filter in, chewed on it awhile, used the results to formulate other runs. Then she simply sat and let it all simmer in her head.
When Roarke stepped in, she had her boots on the desk, ankles crossed. There was a coffee mug in her hand. Her eyes were closed, her face blank. The cat padded in behind him and arrowed straight for the sleep chair, lest someone get there first. Then he sprawled out, as if exhausted by the walk from nap to nap.
Roarke started across the room, then stopped dead in front of the murder board. If someone had slammed a steel bat into his chest it would’ve been less of a jolt than seeing Eve’s face on that board, among the dead and missing.
He lost his breath. It simply left his body as he imagined life would if he lost her. Then it came back, blown through him by sheer rage. His hands clenched at his sides, hard balls of violence. He could see them punching through the face of the man who saw Eve as a victim, as some sort of grand prize in his collection. What he felt, literally, was the connection of those fists to flesh, to bone and blood, not to empty paper and ink.
And he reveled in the raw phantom pain in his knuckles.
She didn’t belong there. Would never belong there, in that hideous gallery of death.
Yet she had put herself there, he realized. Had put her image among the others. Steely-minded, he thought now. His cop, his wife, his world. Coolheadedly, cool-bloodedly aligning the facts and data, even when her own life was part of them.
He ordered himself to calm, to understand why she’d put herself there. She needed to see the whole picture, and seeing the whole picture would shut it down.
He looked away from the board and over to her. She was exactly as she’d been when he entered. Kicked back, still-and safe.
He went to her, realized some of the rage and fear was still with him when he wanted to simply pluck her up, wrap himself around her, and hold on. And on. Instead he reached down to take the mug out of her hand.
“Get your own coffee,” she muttered, and opened her eyes.
Not asleep, he realized, but in the zone. “My mistake. I thought you were sleeping on the job.”
“Thinking time, pal. Didn’t hear you come in. How’s it going?”
“Well enough. I grabbed a swim and a shower to delude myself that I was still feeling human.”
“Yeah, I went the beach run and iron pumping route. Mostly works. I’ve been doing probabilities and some data juggling. I need to write up a report, then do some runs. When-”
“I want ten minutes,” he interrupted.
“Huh?”
“Ten minutes.” He took the coffee now, set it aside, then captured her hand to pull her out of the chair. “Where it’s just you, just me.”
She cocked up her eyebrows as he drew her away from the desk. “Ten minutes isn’t anything to brag about, ace.”
“I’m not meaning sex.” He slid his arms around her, kept moving in what she now understood was a slow and easy dance. “Or not precisely that. I want ten minutes of you,” he repeated, lowering his brow to hers. “Just that, without anything or anyone.”
She drew in a breath, and smelled the shower on him. That lingering scent of soap on his skin. “It already feels good.” She touched her lips to his, angled her head. “Tastes good, too.”
He skimmed a finger down the dent in her chin, brushed his lips on hers. “So it does. And there’s this spot I know.” He used his finger to turn her head slightly, then laid his lips along her jawline, just below her ear. “Just exactly there. It’s perfect.”
“That one spot?”
“Well now, there are others, but that’s a particular favorite of mine.”
She smiled, then rested her head on his shoulder-a favorite spot of hers-and let him guide her through the easy dance. “Roarke.”
“Mmm?”
“Nothing. It just feels good to say it.”
His hand stroked up and down her back. “Eve,” he said. “You’re right again. It does. I love you. There’s nothing that feels more perfect than that.”
“Hearing it’s not bad. Knowing it’s the best.” She lifted her head, met his lips again. “I love you.”
They held on, and they ended the dance as they’d begun. With his brow resting against hers. “There, now,” he murmured. “That’s better.” He drew back, then lifted her hands to his lips.