Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(30)

“You think Hobe doesn’t have the ten days.”

“I think he stepped up his schedule, taking Hobe so soon after Elder. Maybe because of the rain, good cover. Maybe because he didn’t want to put all his eggs in one box. Maybe because Elder already wasn’t working out for him.”

“Two are more difficult to hold than one, so I agree there was some need or reason. It’s basket for the eggs, not box.”

She turned in her seat. “I’ve seen eggs in boxes. With the little…” She outlined a dip in the air with a hand. “To hold them in.”

“You gather them up from the hens in a basket.”

“How do you know that? When’s the last time you snatched an egg from a chicken, ace?”

“That would be on the far side of never, but I watched my cousin gather them up on the farm in Ireland.”

“Don’t they get pissed off? The chickens. Like, ‘Hey, that’s my egg, you fuckhead.’ What’s Irish for fuckhead?”

“Fuckhead translates to all languages. Young Sean told me they, for the most part, go broody—don’t ask me why—but occasionally one might object and have a go at you.”

“I’d brood, too, if I worked to push out an egg and somebody snagged it to make an omelet. Anyway, now I’m thinking about exactly where eggs come from, so I have to erase this entire conversation from my memory bank.”

He only smiled as he turned, and the gates of home opened.

And home stood, fanciful as a castle, its towers and turrets stone gray against the summer-blue sky. Bright things dotted the lush green grass—artfully placed beds of flowers, blooming shrubs and bushes. Trees spread their quiet evening shade.

She thought of Mavis again, in a house not as massive but in its way just as fanciful. And she’d feel this way, Eve thought, probably just this way when she came home from a gig and saw the house she’d made her home.

Welcomed, and grateful.

And her mind shifted to what Elder and Hobe might have felt as they’d walked from work, one in the clear, one in the rain, toward what they’d made home.

“They were nearly there.”

Roarke parked, looked at her.

“He caught them at their most vulnerable, nearly there, when you’re just thinking about getting inside, shaking off the day. Or night in their case. Did he think of that? I think so. He’s not stupid. A lot, maybe most, criminals are. Just dumb as a basket of rocks. He’s not.”

He started to tell her it was a box of rocks, but saw that winding around, and let it go.

“Is that what you think when you come through the gates? Getting inside and shaking off the day?”

“Depends, I guess. Because if I’m working one, I usually know it’ll take awhile to shake it off. Don’t you?”

“I do, yes.” He didn’t say his first thought, always, was: Is she home? Is she safe?

She didn’t need to hear that.

They went inside together, where Summerset, bony in black, stood with the fat cat at his feet. Galahad pranced over to ribbon through Eve’s legs, through Roarke’s, and back again.

“Barely late and together,” Summerset observed.

“A bit of tweaking the internals at Mavis’s house,” Roarke told him.

“Ah. On schedule there?”

“We are, yes. You should drop by again.”

“Be sure I will.

“Thoughts, Lieutenant?” Summerset asked as she started up the stairs.

“What? On the house? It’s better without the scary wallpaper and nightmare kitchen.”

“A point of agreement. I’ll mark the calendar.”

He sort of got her that time, Eve thought as she continued up. But she’d been thinking of home and work and not of giving him a nice little jab.

Next time.

“I need to set up my board and book.”

“Understood.” The cat shot by them because he also understood.

“And I’m hoping I’ve got some lab reports. All that makeup, the hair products, and she was wearing perfume. I could smell it. Then there’s the jewelry he put on her. And the tat.”

She glanced over as they turned into her office. “Forgot, I gave Jamie the tat.”

“Sorry, what?”

“EDD’s new part-time intern. Part-time because you finagled getting him part-time interning for you. Long shot, like Nadine coming up with an ID on the mother figure, but it’ll keep him busy.”

“If memory serves, he’s working in Cybersecurity at my headquarters tomorrow.”

“Your memory always serves. Cybersecurity. Clever of you, keeping it close to cop work.”

“And the head of that division tells me what I already knew. The boy’s a bloody genius. Be grateful he didn’t decide to tread my earlier path. If he and I had partnered up back in the day? Ah.” Roarke let out a sentimental sigh. “The possibilities.”

“Cop here. Still a cop standing right here.”

“Darling Eve, you can’t fault a man for imagining.”

“Imagine me busting your ass and slapping the cuffs on you.”

Now he grinned, now he grabbed her. “A different sort of imagining altogether.”

She struggled away from the kiss—after a minute. “Put a pin in that imagining. I’ve got work.”