It settled her more than a soother. She laughed, rubbed her face dry. “That’s okay. I’m fine. I’m sorry. I really need to—”
“Have some wine,” Mira said, and crossed the room with a tray.
As it was obvious she’d seen the outburst, Eve’s embarrassment only increased.
“I’m a little off, that’s all.”
“Hardly a wonder.” Mira set the tray down, picked up one of the glasses. “Sit down and relax. I’d like to open my present, if that’s all right.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Um…” She picked up Dennis’s gift. “I came across this, thought you might be able to use it.”
He beamed like a ten-year-old who’d just found a shiny red airbike under the tree. And the twinkle didn’t fade when he drew out the scarf. “Look at this, Charlie. This ought to keep me warm when I take my walks.”
“And it looks just like you. And, oh! Look at this.” Mira lifted out the antique teapot. “It’s gorgeous. Violets,” she murmured, tracing a finger over the tiny painted flowers that twined around the white china pot. “I love violets.”
She actually cooed over it, Eve realized, as some women tended to do over small, drooling babies.
“I figured you’re into tea, so—”
“I love it. I absolutely love it.” Mira rose, rushed over and kissed Eve on both cheeks. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“I think I’m going to try my gift out right now, have myself a little walk.” Dennis rose. He walked over, bent down to Eve, tapped her chin. “You’re a good girl and a smart woman. Talk to Charlie.”
“I didn’t mean to run him off,” Eve said after Dennis left the room.
“You didn’t. Dennis is as astute as he is absentminded, and he knew we needed a little time alone. Will you open your gift?” She took a box from the tray, held it out to Eve.
“It’s pretty.” She never knew the right thing to say, but that seemed appropriate when holding a box wrapped in silver and gold and topped by a big red bow.
She wasn’t sure what it was—something round, with open scrollwork and small glittering stones. As it was on a chain her first thought was that it was some sort of necklace, though the disk was wider than her palm.
“Relax,” Mira said with a laugh. “It’s not jewelry. No one could compete with Roarke in that area. It’s a kind of sun catcher, something you might hang at the window. In your office, I thought.”
“It’s pretty,” Eve said again, and looking closer, made out a pattern in the scrollwork. “Celtic? Sort of like what’s on my wedding ring.”
“Yes. Though my daughter tells me the symbol on your ring is for protection. This one, and the stones with it, are to promote peace of mind. It’s been blessed—I hope you’re all right with that—by my daughter.”
“Tell her I appreciate it. Thanks. I’ll hang it in my office window. Maybe it’ll work.”
“You don’t catch much of a break, do you?” Roarke had filled Mira in on the afternoon’s work.
“I don’t know.” She studied the disk, ran her thumb over it. “I guess I was feeling sorry for myself, before, when Dennis put his arm around me. Standing there with him, looking at the tree, the way he is, the way the house smells, and the lights. I thought, I just thought if once—just once—I’d had someone like him… Just once. Well, I didn’t. That’s all.”
“No, you didn’t, and that shame lies in the system. Not in you.”
Eve lifted her gaze, steadied herself again. “Wherever, it’s the way it was. Now Trudy Lombard’s dead, and she shouldn’t be. I had to have my partner interview my husband. I have to be prepared to answer personal questions, put those answers on record if they apply to the investigation. I have to remember what it was like with her, because knowing her helps me know her killer. I have to do that when, a few days ago, if you’d asked me, I could barely remember her name. I can do that,” Eve said, fiercely now. “I’m good at pushing it out, shoving it down. And I hate when it jumps up and kicks me in the face. Because she’s nothing, nothing to who I am now.”
“Of course, she is. Everyone who touched your life had a part in forming it.” Mira’s voice was as soft as the music that wafted through the air, and as implacable as iron. “You overcame people like her. You didn’t have a Dennis Mira, bless him. You didn’t have the simplicity of home and family. You had obstacles and pain and horrors. And you overcame them. That’s your gift, Eve, and your burden.”
“I fell apart when I first saw her in my office. I just crumbled.”
“Then you picked yourself up and went on.”
Eve let her head fall back. Roarke had been right—again. She’d needed to come here, to say it out loud to someone she trusted. “She made me feel afraid, sick with fear. As if just by being there, she could drag me back. And it wasn’t even me she cared about. If I wasn’t hooked to Roarke, she wouldn’t have given me a second thought. Why does that bother me?” She closed her eyes.
“Because it’s hard not to matter, even to someone you dislike.”
“I guess it is. She wouldn’t have come here. Not much to squeeze out of a cop, unless that cop happens to be married to billions.”
She opened her eyes now, gave Mira a puzzled look. “He has billions. Do you ever think of that?”
“Do you?”
“Sometimes, this kind of time, and I can’t really get a handle on it. I don’t even know how many zeros that is because my brain goes fuzzy. And I don’t know the number that goes ahead of them because once you have all those zeros it’s just ridiculous anyway. She tried to shake him down.”
“Yes, he gave me the basics. I’m sure he handled it appropriately. Would you have wanted him to pay her off?”
“No.” Her eyes went hot. “Not one cent out of the billions. She used to tell me I didn’t have a mother or a father because I was so stupid that they’d tossed me away because I wasn’t worth the trouble.”
Mira lifted her wine, sipped, to give herself a chance to push back her own anger. “She should never have passed the screening. You know that.”
“She was smart. I look back now, and I see she was smart, the way you have to be to run long cons or quick scams successfully. She played the system, figured the ins and outs. I think, well, you’re the head doctor, but I think she believed her own bullshit. You have to believe the lie to live it, to make otherssee you the way you need to be seen.”
“Very possibly,” Mira agreed. “To have lived it for so long.”
“She had to figure she deserved the money, had earned it. Had to believe she’d worked and sacrificed, and given me a home out of her humanitarian nature, and now, hey, how about a little something for old times’ sake? She was a player,” Eve said, half to herself. “She was a player, so maybe she played too deep with somebody. I don’t know.”
“You could pass this off. In fact, you may be asked to do so.”
“I won’t. I think I’ve got that covered. I’ll call in favors if I have to, but I’m going to see it through. It’s necessary.”
“I agree. That surprises you?” Mira asked when Eve stared at her. “She made you feel helpless and worthless, stupid and empty. You know better than that, but you need to feel it, to prove it, and to do that you’ll need to take an active part in resolving this. I’ll say just that to Commander Whitney.”
“That has weight. Thanks.”
* * *
When she stepped through the door of her home, Summerset was looming like a black crow in the foyer, fat Galahad at his feet. She knew by the gleam in his beady eyes he was primed.
“I find myself surprised,” he said in what she figured he considered droll tones. “You’re out for several hours, yet you return—dare I say— almost fashionably dressed, with nothing torn or bloodied. A remarkable feat.”
“I find myself surprised that no one’s bothered to beat you into a pulpy mass just on the general principle of your ugliness. But the day’s young yet, for both of us.”