Blood spurted. Several people screamed. Though his nose was now a fountain, the geek kept himself in hand.
“Break it up.”Eve surged, reached down to grab tough guy number one when a fellow passenger panicked, sprang to his feet, and knockedEve into the fist of tough guy number two.
“Goddamn it to hell!” She saw a couple of shooting stars, shook her head clear. “I’m the frigging police.” With her cheek throbbing, she smashed her elbow into tough guy number one to stop him from pounding on the giggling pervert still whacking off on the floor of the car, then stomped her foot on the instep of tough guy two.
When she hauled up the geek, snarled, everyone else stepped back. Something about the glint in her eye did what the tough guy’s fist hadn’t. The geek went limp.
She glanced down as he deflated, and let out a sigh. “Put that thing away,” she ordered.
– -«»--«»--«»--
Screw the subway, she grumbled as she strode up the long drive toward home. The ride had given her a sore jaw and a headache, and cost her the time it had taken to get off the damn car and turn the idiot over to the transit authority.
She didn’t much care that there was a nice breeze stirring up, an almost balmy one. Or that it carried hints of something sweet and floral into the air. She didn’t care that the sky was so clear she could see a three-quarter moon hanging in it like a lamp.
Okay, it looked nice, but hell.
She stomped inside, and after a terse inquiry, was told by the house system that Roarke was in the family media room.
Which was opposed to the main media room, she thought. Where the hell was it again? Because she wasn’t entirely sure and the hike from the subway stop to the front door had been considerable, she went into the elevator.
“Family media room,” she ordered, and was whisked up, and east.
The main media room was for parties and events, she remembered. It could fit more than a hundred people in plush chairs, and offered a wall screen as wide as a theater’s.
But the family media room was-she supposed he’d say-more intimate. Deep colors, she recalled, cushy seats. Two screens-one for vids, one for games. And the complex and complicated sound system that could play anything from the old-fashioned clunky vinyl records Roarke liked to fiddle with on occasion to the minute sound sticks.
She stepped into the room to a blast of sound that seemed to come from everywhere. Her eyes widened in reaction to the fast-moving space battle being waged over the wall screen.
Roarke was kicked back in a lounge chair, the cat in his lap, a glass of wine in his hand.
She should go to work, she told herself. Do more research on the Boston Strangler, keep digging for a connection between Wooton andGregg. Though she was dead sure there would be no connection.
She should hound the sweepers, the ME, the lab. None of whom, she knew, would pay much attention to her at nearly ten on a Sunday night. But she could harass them anyway.
She could run probabilities, go over her notes, her suspect lists, stare at her murder board.
Instead, she walked over, plucked the cat off Roarke’s lap. “You’re in my seat,” she told him, and set him on another chair.
She slid into Roarke’s lap, took his wine. “What’s this one about?”
“It seems water is the commodity in fashion. This particular planet in the Zero quadrant-”
“There isn’t any Zero quadrant.”
“It’s fictional, my darling, literal-mindedEve.” He snuggled her in, pressing an absent kiss to her head as he watched the action. “Anyway, this planet’s all but out of water. Potable water. And there’s a rescue attempt being made to get the colony there a supply, and the means to clean up what they have. But there’s this other faction who wants the water for themselves. There’ve been a couple of bloody battles over it already.”
Something exploded on-screen, a shower of color, an ear-splitting boom of sound.
“Nicely done,” Roarke commented. “And there’s a woman, head of the environmental police-the good guys-who’s reluctantly in love with the rogue cargo captain who’s helping deliver the goods-for a price. It’s about thirty minutes in. I can start it over.”
“No, I’ll catch up.”
She intended to sit with him for a few minutes only, let her mind rest. But she got caught up in the story, and it was so nice, so simple to stay, stretched out in the chair with him while fictional battles raged.
And good overcame evil.
“Not bad,” she said when the credits began to roll. “I’m going to get another hour or two of work in.”
“Are you going to tell me about it?”
“Probably.” She climbed out of the chair, stretched, then blinked like an owl when he turned on the light.
“Well, damn it,Eve, what have you done to your face now?”
“It wasn’t my fault.” Sulking a little, she touched fingers gingerly to her jaw. “Somebody knocked me into this guy’s fist when I was trying to stop him from beating this other guy who was whacking off in the subway to a bloody pulp. I couldn’t blame the guy, the guy with the fist, because he wasn’t aiming it at me. But still.”
“My life,” Roarke said after a moment, “was gray before you walked into it.”
“Yeah, I’m a rainbow.” She wiggled her jaw. “My face anyway. You up for some drone work?”
“I might be persuaded. After we put something on that bruise.”
“It’s not so bad. You know, the transit cop told me that guy’s a regular on that line. They call himWilly the Wanker.”
“That’s a fascinating bit ofNew York trivia.” He pulled her toward the elevator. “It makes me yearn to ride the subway.”
Chapter8
InPeabody ’s cramped apartment, McNab ran her through a series of intense computer simulations. He’d proven himself,Peabody had discovered in the last few weeks, a strict and fairly irritating instructor.
With her shoulders hunched, she carefully picked her way through a murder scene, selecting her choices and options in a field investigation of a double homicide.
And cursed when her selection resulted in a blasting buzz-McNab’s personal addition to the sim-and a stern-faced figure of a robed judge shaking his finger at her.
Ah-ah-ah-improper procedure, scene contamination. Evidence suppressed. Suspect gets a free walk due to detective investigator’s screw-up.
“Does he have to say that?”
“Cuts through the legal mumbo,” McNab pointed out, and stuffed potato chips in his face. “Digs down to the point.”
“I don’t want to do any moresims.” Her face fell into a pout that had McNab’s libido jiggling. “My brain’s going to leak out of my ears in a minute.”
He loved her, enough to mostly ignore the image of peeling her out of her clothes and doing her on the rug. “Look, you’re aces on the written. You’ve got a memory for details and points of law, blah blah. You get thumbs-up on the oral, once your voice settles down from a squeak.”
“It does not squeak.”
“Sort of like how it does when I bite your toes.” He grinned toothily when she scowled at him. “And while I like how it sounds myself, the test team’s going to be less romantically inclined. So you’re going to want to oil the squeaks.”
She continued to pout, then her mouth dropped open in shock when he slapped her hand away from the bag of chips. “None for you until you get through a sim.”
“Jesus, McNab, I’m not a puppy performing for a biscuit.”
“No, you’re a cop who wants to make detective.” He moved the bag out of her reach. “And you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared; I’m understandably anxious about the testing process and proving myself ready to…” She hissed out a breath as he merely studied her with patient green eyes. “I’m terrified.” Because his arm came around her, she snuggled into his bony shoulder. “I’m terrified I’ll blow it, and I’ll letDallas down. And you, and Feeney, the commander, my family.Jesus.”