"I'm well aware of that."
"I don't need your fancy food or your fancy gifts or your fancy words. I see the pattern, Roarke. Say I love you at regular intervals until she learns to respond. Like a well-trained pet."
"Like a pet," he repeated as his fury froze into ice. "I see I'm wrong. You are stupid. You really think this is about power and control? Have it your way. I'm tired of having you toss my feelings back in my face. My mistake for allowing it, but that can be rectified."
"I never – "
"No, you never," he interrupted coolly. "Never once risked your pride by saying those words back to me. You keep this place as your escape hatch rather than commit to staying with me. I let you draw the line, Eve, and now I'm moving it." It wasn't just temper pushing him now, nor was it just pain. It was the truth. "I want all," he said flatly. "Or I want nothing."
She wouldn't panic. He wouldn't make her panic like a first-time rookie on a night run. "What exactly does that mean?"
"It means sex isn't enough."
"It's not just sex. You know – "
"No, I don't. The choice is yours now – it always was. But now you'll have to come to me."
"Ultimatums just piss me off."
"That's a pity." He gave her one long last look. "Goodbye, Eve."
"You can't just walk – "
"Oh yes." And he didn't look back. "I can."
Her mouth dropped open when she heard the door slam. For a moment she simply stood, rigid, the sun glinting off the jewel around her neck. Then she began to vibrate. With fury, of course, she told herself and ripped the precious diamond off to toss it on the counter.
He thought she would go crawling after him, begging him to stay. Well, he could go on thinking that into the next millennium. Eve Dallas didn't crawl, and she didn't beg.
She closed her eyes against a pain more shocking than a laser strike. Who the hell is Eve Dallas? she wondered. And isn't that the core of it all?
She blocked it out. What choice did she have? The job came first. Had to come first. If she wasn't a good cop, she was nothing. She was as empty and as helpless as the child she had been, lying broken and traumatized in a dark alley in Dallas.
She could bury herself in work. The demands and pressures of it. When she was standing in Commander Whitney's office, she was only a cop with murder on her hands.
"She had plenty of enemies, Commander."
"Don't we all." His eyes were clear again, sharp. Grief could never outweigh responsibility.
"Feeney's run a list of her convictions. We're breaking them down, concentrating on the lifers first – family and known associates. Someone she put in a cage for the duration would have the strongest revenge ratio. Next down the line are the uncorrected deviants. UDs sometimes slip through the cracks. She put plenty away on mental, and some of them are bound to have crawled their way out."
"That's a lot of computer time, Dallas."
It was a subtle warning about budgets, which she chose to ignore. "I appreciate you putting Feeney on this with me. I couldn't get through it without him. Commander, these checks are SOP, but I don't think this was an attack on the prosecutor."
He sat back, inclined his head, waiting.
"I think it was personal. She was covering something. For herself, for somebody else. She zapped the 'link recording."
"I read your report, Lieutenant. Are you telling me you believe Prosecuting Attorney Towers was involved in something illegal?"
"Are you asking me as my friend or as my commander?"
He bared his teeth before he could control himself. After a short internal struggle, he nodded. "Well put, Lieutenant. As your commander. "
"I don't know if it was illegal. It's my opinion at this stage of the investigation that there was something on that recording the victim wanted kept private. It was important enough to have her get dressed and go out again into the rain to meet someone. Whoever that was, was certain she would come alone and that she would leave no record of the contact. Commander, I need to speak with the rest of the victim's family, her close friends, your wife."
He'd accepted that, or tried to. Throughout his career he had worked hard to keep his loved ones out of the often nasty air of his job. Now he had to expose them.
"You have my address, Lieutenant. I'll contact my wife now and tell her to expect you."
"Yes, sir. Thank you."
Anna Whitney had made a fine home from the two-level house in the quiet street in the suburbs of White Plains. She had raised her children there, and raised them well, choosing the profession of mother over a teaching career. It wasn't the state salary for full-time parents that had swayed her. It had been the thrill of being in on each and every stage of childhood development.
She'd earned her salary. Now, with her children grown, she earned her retirement stipend by putting the same dedication into nurturing her home, her husband, and her reputation as a hostess. Whenever she could, she filled the house with her grandchildren. In the evenings, she filled it with dinner parties.
Anna Whitney hated solitude.
But she was alone when Eve arrived. As always, she was perfectly groomed: her cosmetics were carefully and expertly applied, and her pale blond hair was coiffed in a swept-back style that suited her attractive face.
She wore a one-piece suit of good American cotton, and held out a hand adorned only with a wedding ring to welcome Eve.
"Lieutenant Dallas, my husband said you would come."
"I'm sorry to intrude, Mrs. Whitney."
"Don't apologize. I'm a cop's wife. Come in. I've made some lemonade. It's tablet, I'm afraid. Fresh or frozen is so monstrously hard to come by. It's a little early for lemonade, but I had a yen for it today."
Eve let Anna chatter as they walked into the formal living area with its stiff-backed chairs and straight-edged sofa.
The lemonade was fine, and Eve said so after the first sip.
"You know the memorial service is at ten tomorrow."
"Yes, ma'am. I'll be there."
"There are so many flowers already. We've made arrangements to have them distributed after… but that's not why you're here."
"Prosecutor Towers was a good friend to you."
"She was a very good friend to me and my husband."
"Her children are staying with you?"
"Yes, they're… they've gone with Marco just now to speak with the archbishop about the service."
"They're close to their father."
"Yes."
"Mrs. Whitney, why are they staying here, rather than with their father?"
"We all thought it best. The house – Marco's house – holds so many memories. Cicely lived there when the children were young. Then there's the media. They don't have our address, and we wanted to keep the children from dealing with reporters. They've swamped poor Marco. It'll be different tomorrow, of course."
Her pretty hands plucked at the knee of her suit, then calmed and lay still again. "They'll have to face it. They're still in shock. Even Randall. Randall Slade, Mirina's fiance. He'd gotten very close to Cicely."
"He's here as well."
"He'd never leave Mirina alone at such a time. She's a strong young woman, Lieutenant, but even strong women need an arm to lean on now and then."
Eve blocked out the quick image of Roarke that popped into her brain. As a result of the effort, her voice was a bit more formal than usual as she led Anna through the routine questions.
"I've asked myself over and over what could have possessed her to go to that neighborhood," Anna concluded. "Cicely could be stubborn, and certainly strong willed, but she was rarely impulsive and never foolish. "
"She talked to you, confided in you."
"We were like sisters."