She hooked a robe out of her closet, then while he watched her with some surprise, took one out of his and brought it to him. "And a smart mouth isn't always verbal. I can see sarcastic thoughts in your head." "Why don't I shut up and get us some wine?" "Why don't you?" He left her contemplating the AutoChef and opened the panel to the wine rack. He assumed she needed to keep busy, keep the nightmare at bay. Thinking pizza, he selected a bottle of chianti, opened it, and set it aside to breathe.
"You'll be working tonight." "Yeah. I have to do some stuff. I've got Mira's profile, and I want to walk through that again. Put together a progress report. I haven't done any probabilities yet either. Plus I have to scan the eye banks, transplant facilities, that sort of thing.
A time waster since he didn't take them to sell them. But it's got to be eliminated." She brought two plates over to the sitting area, set them down on the table.
"What've you got there?" he asked her.
"Food. What does it look like?" He cocked his head. "It doesn't look like pizza." "My culinary programming skills run beyond pizza." She'd chosen chicken sauteed in wine and rosemary, with wild rice and asparagus.
"Well fancy that," he murmured, flummoxed. "I've opened entirely the wrong wine." "We'll live with it." She went back for a basket of bread. "Let's eat." "No, this won't do." He opened the wine rack again, found a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse in the chilled section. He opened it, brought bottle and glasses to the table. "Looks lovely.
Thanks." She sampled a bite. "Pretty good. Doesn't quite measure up to the soy fries I had at lunch, but it's not bad." When he winced, as she'd intended, she laughed.
"Hopefully you'll be able to choke down whatever Charles and Louise serve when we go to dinner." She stabbed more chicken. "Don't you think it's weird? You know, Charles and Louise, Peabody and McNab, all having a cozy dinner at Charles's place. I'm pretty sure the last time, the only time, McNab was ever over there was when he and Charles punched each other out." "I doubt it'll come to that again, but if it does, you'll be there to break it up. And not weird, darling, no. People find each other. Charles and our Peabody were, and are, friends."
"Yeah, but McNab thinks they did the mattress rhumba." "Whatever he thinks, he knows they're not dancing now." "I still say it's going to be weird." "A few awkward moments, perhaps. Charles and Louise love each other." "Yeah, about that. How can they cruise along this way? He's out there boinking other women professionally, then boinking her for love. What's with that?" An amused smile curving his lips, Roarke sipped his wine.
"You're such a moral creature, Lieutenant."
"Yeah, we'd see how open-minded and sophisticated you are if I decided to turn in my badge and become a licensed companion. I'd have a hard time working up a client list because you'd smash all their faces in." He merely inclined his head, in agreement. "But you weren't an LC when I met and fell for you, were you? A cop, and that took some considerable adjusting on my part." "Guess it did." And that, she thought, was as good a segue as she could ask for, considering what she wanted to say. "I know it did. But I think, under all that, you'd already done considerable adjusting. Meaning you weren't just after the main chance, however you could get it. I don't think you ever were." "In my misspent youth, Lieutenant, you'd have hunted me down like a dog. Not that you'd have caught me, but you'd have tried." "If I'd been hunting…" She trailed off, waved it away.
"Not where I was going." She picked up her wine, took a long sip, set it down. "I went to Dochas today." "Oh?" His gaze sharpened on her face. "I wish you'd contacted me. I'd have made time to go with you." "It was work related. I needed to talk to Louise about this psychic chick, and Louise was there today." He waited, but she said nothing. "What did you think?" "I think-" She set down her fork, clasped her hands together in her lap. "I love you more than I can say. I don't have the words to tell you how much. How much I love you, how proud I am of you for what you're doing there. I was trying to come up with them, but I can't." Moved, he reached across, waited until she unclasped her hands to take his. "What's being done there wouldn't be if you weren't part of it. Part of me." "Yes, it would. That's the thing. Maybe you did it sooner because of me. Because of us. But it was in you to do it. It always was. I'm sorry I haven't gone before." "Doesn't matter." "I was afraid to. Some part of me I didn't want to look at was afraid to go there. It hurt to go." She released his hand.
She had to do this, say this, on her own. "To see those women, those kids. To feel that fear. Even more to feel the hope.
Even more than that. It brought it back." "Eve." "No, you just listen. There was this girl you know, sometimes I think fate just slaps something down in front of you and makes you deal. Her arm was in a skincast. Her father had broken it." "Oh, Christ." "She talked to me; I talked back. I can't remember exactly.
My head was buzzing and my stomach was clenched. I was afraid I'd be sick right there, or just fucking pass out. But I didn't. I got through it." "You don't ever have to go back again." She shook her head. "Just wait. I dropped Peabody at home, saw Mira, came here. I needed sleep. I thought I would just sleep, but it caught up with me. It was bad, you know it was bad. But you don't know that in the nightmare, I was back there, in the shelter. With all those battered women, all those broken kids. And they're asking me why I didn't stop it, why I let it happen."
She held up a hand so he wouldn't interrupt, though she saw her own pain reflected on his face. "He was there. I knew he'd come. He said there'd always be more. More of him, more of them. I couldn't stop it. When he reached for me, I wasn't me anymore. I mean not who I am now. I was a kid. He broke my arm, just like before, and he raped me, just like before." She had to pause, had to wet her throat with wine. "But here's the thing. I killed him, just like before. And I'll keep killing him, as long as it takes. Because he's right. There's always more of them the brutal and the battered.
There's always more, and I can't stop it all. But I can damn well do the job and stop some of it. I have to." She let out a breath. "I can go back there. I want to go back there, because I know when I do I won't be scared or sick or if I am, it won't be as much, as bad. I'll go there because I can see what you've done, what you're doing, is another way to stop it. Her arm was broken, but it'll heal.
So will she, because you've given her a chance." It took him a moment, a long moment, before he could speak. "You are the most amazing woman I've ever known." "Yeah." She gave his hand a squeeze. "We're a hell of a pair."
CHAPTER 6
Eve took a detour to EDD. it was always a culture shock for her to walk into a division where cops dressed like partyoers or weekend loafers. Lots of airboots and neon hues, and as many people walking or trotting around talking on headsets as manning cubes and desks.
Music blatted out, and she actually saw a guy dancing, or she assumed it was dancing while he worked with a handheld and porta-screen.
She made tracks through the bull pen and directly into Captain Ryan Feeney's office, where she expected to find sanity.
She lost the power of speech when she saw him, the reliable Feeney, with his fading vacation tan, his wiry ginger hair threaded with gray. His face was comfortably creased and droopy, but instead of one of the rumpled shirts he habitually wore, he was decked out in a stiff and spotless one the color of raspberry sherbet.