Disgusted, she stalked back to the sitting area, flopped on the couch, scowled at nothing in particular.
"Why don't you try the truth?"
"Yeah, all right. But you have to make me a promise first."
"Which would be?"
"Oh, get the stick out of your ass and sit down, would you?"
"The stick in my ass is surprisingly comfortable just now." He'd been studying her face, calculating, speculating. And he knew. "You went to see Ricker."
"What are you, psychic?" Then her eyes popped wide and she was up and running again. "Hey, hey, hey, you promised."
"No. I didn't."
She caught up to him in the hallway, considered trying to muscle him to the floor, then decided to go for his weak spot. She simply wrapped her arms around him.
"Please."
"He put his hands on you."
"Roarke. Look at me, Roarke." She laid her hands on his face. The look in his eyes was murder. She knew he could accomplish it, hot or cold. "I baited him. I've got my reasons. And right now, I've got him shaken. The flowers were just a dig at you. He wants you to come after him. He wants it."
"And why shouldn't I oblige him?"
"Because I'm asking you not to. Because taking him down is my job, and if I play it right, I'm going to do that job."
"There are times you ask a great deal."
"I know it. I know you could go after him. I know you'd find a way to get it done. But it's not the right way. It's not who you are anymore."
"Isn't it?" But the rage, the first blinding rush of it, was leveling off.
"No, it's not. I stood with him today, and now I'm standing with you. You're nothing like him. Nothing."
"I could have been."
"But you're not." The crisis had passed. She felt it. "Let's go in and sit down. I'll tell you all of it."
He tipped her face back, a finger under her chin. Though the gesture was tender, his eyes were still hard. "Don't lie to me again."
"Okay." She closed a hand over his wrist, squeezed there in silent promise where his pulse beat. "Okay."
CHAPTER SEVEN
So she told him, running through the steps and movements of her day in a tone very close to the one she'd used in her oral report to Whitney. Dispassionate, professional, cool.
He said nothing, not a word, stretching out the silence until her nerves were riding on the surface of her skin. His eyes never left her face and gave her no clue to what he was thinking. Feeling. Just that deep, wicked blue, cold now as Arctic ice.
She knew what he was capable of when pushed. No, not even when pushed, she thought as her nerves kicked into a gallop. When he believed whatever methods he used were acceptable.
When she was finished, he rose, walked casually to the wall panel that concealed a bar. He helped himself to a glass of wine, held up the bottle. "Would you like one?"
"Ah… sure."
He poured a second glass, as steadily, as naturally as if they'd been sitting discussing some minor household incident. She wasn't easily rattled, had faced pain and death without a tremor, had waded through the pain and death of others as a matter of routine.
But God, he rattled her. She took the glass he offered her and had to remind herself not to gulp it down like water.
"So… that's all there is to it."
He sat again, gracefully arranged himself on the cushion. Like a cat, she thought. A very big, very dangerous cat. He sipped his wine, watching her over the crystal rim.
"Lieutenant," he said in a voice so mild it might have fooled another.
"What?"
"Do you expect me-honestly expect me-to do nothing?"
She set her glass down. It wasn't the time for wine. "Yes."
"You're not a stupid woman. Your instincts and intellect are two of the things I admire most about you."
"Don't do this, Roarke. Don't make this personal."
His eyes flashed, a hard glint of blue steel. "It is personal."
"Okay, no." She could handle it. Had to. And leaned forward toward him. "It's not, unless you let him string you. He wants it to be, wants you to make it personal so he can fuck with you. Roarke, you're not a stupid man. Your instincts and intellect are two of the things I admire most about you."
For the first time in more than an hour, his lips curved in a hint of a smile. "Well done, Eve."
"He can't hurt me." Seeing her opening, all but diving through it, she shifted onto her knees, put her hands on his shoulders. "Unless you let him. He can hurt me through you. Don't let him do that. Don't play the game."
"Do you think I won't win?"
She lowered to her heels. "I know you will. It scares me knowing you will and what the cost could be to both of us. To us, Roarke. Don't do this. Let me work it."
He said nothing a moment, looking in her eyes, studying what he saw there, felt there. "If he touches you again, puts his mark on you again, he's dead. No, be quiet," he said before she could speak. "I'll stand back so far, for you. But he crosses the line, and it's over. I'll find the way, the time, and it's over."
"I don't need that."
"Darling Eve." He touched her now, just a skim of his fingertips over her jaw. "I need that. You don't know him. As much as you've seen, as much as you've done, you don't know him. I do."
Sometimes, she reminded herself, you had to settle for what you could get. "You won't go after him."
"Not at the moment. And that costs me, so leave it at that."
When he pushed off the couch, she felt the chill, swore under her breath. "You're still pissed off at me."
"Oh yes. Yes, I am."
"What do you want from me?" Exasperated, she scrambled to her feet and wished she didn't want to punch a fist into his gorgeous face for lack of a better solution. "I said I was sorry."
"You're sorry because I pinned you."
"Okay, right. That's mostly right." Out of patience with him, with herself, she kicked viciously at the sofa. "I don't know how to do this! I love you, and it makes me crazy. Isn't that bad enough?"
He had to laugh. She looked so baffled. "Christ Jesus, Eve, you're a piece of work."
"I ought to at least get some sort of handicap for… Damn it," she hissed as her communicator beeped. She resisted the urge to simply pluck it out and wing it against the wall. Instead, she just kicked the sofa again. "Dallas. What?"
Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. DOS reported, George Washington Bridge, eastbound, level two. Victim is preliminarily identified as Mills, Lieutenant Alan, assigned to Precinct One two-eight, Illegals Division. You are ordered to report to scene immediately, as primary.
"Oh God. Oh Christ. Acknowledged. Contact Peabody, Officer Delia, to act as aide. I'm on my way."
She was sitting now, her head weighing heavily in one hand, her stomach dragging to her knees. "Another cop. Another dead cop."
"I'm going with you. With you, Lieutenant," Roarke said when she shook her head. "Or alone. But I'm going. Get dressed. I'll drive. I can get us there faster."
– =O=-***-=O=-
The bridge sparkled, an arch teeming with lights against the clear night sky. In that sky, busy air traffic streamed, all but obliterating the tentative light of a thumbnail moon.
Life surged on.
On the second level of the bridge, closed now to traffic, a dozen black and whites and city units crowded together like hounds on a hunt. She could hear the 'link chatter, the mutters and oaths, as she cut through the uniforms and plain-clothes.
More lights, cold blue, iced white and blood red washed over her face. She didn't speak but walked to the dirty beige vehicle parked in the break-down lane.
Mills was in the passenger's seat, his eyes closed, his chin on his chest as if he'd stopped to take a catnap. From the chin down, he was blood.
Eve stood, coating her hands with Seal-It, and studied the position of the body.
Posed, she thought as she leaned in the open window. She saw the badge, facedown on the bloody floor of the car, and she saw the dull glint of silver coins.