Connections in Death (In Death #48)(91)

Later, lying in the dark, curled against him and starting to drift toward sleep, she smiled. “You can be Dr. Sexpert.”

“I don’t think—”

“Just for tonight.”

“Then never again.”

He stroked her back to lull her the rest of the way to sleep, then felt the cat jump up to take his favorite spot. And so he brushed his lips over her forehead, and joined her in sleep.





19

She woke stiff, sore, and early. In the firelight Roarke stood, drinking coffee, watching the scroll on the wall screen reported from somewhere she assumed the stupid rotation of the planet made it later.

She thought, sleepily, he looked almost as good in a suit as he did naked. And that was saying something.

She started to roll out of bed, must have made some sound that acknowledged the annoyance of aches. He turned, studied her in the dim light.

“Feeling it this morning?”

“Maybe.”

“We’ll do another round of ice and wanding.”

“Maybe.” She eased out of bed, headed straight to the shower to pummel some of the aches into submission with hot jets.

It helped, as did the coffee Roarke handed her—along with a blocker—when she came out. “Swelling’s down.” He stroked a gentle finger down her jaw. “And the bruising lessened. Let’s see what else we can do.”

“It doesn’t hurt to look like I got punched in the face during arrests on the record in interview.”

“Always a bright side.”

When they sat, he placed the ice patches, glided the wand over her face. “Let’s see the rest.”

Rather than argue, she unbelted the robe, let him treat the shoulder, the ribs, her arms.

“You should try to take a break sometime during the day, do another round.”

“Breaking those bastards is all the healing up I need.”

“You could do me a favor,” he said as he lifted the domes on breakfast. “Send me a running tally as you do.”

Bacon, she noted—American style—an omelette, fruit, scones, and jam. Not bad.

“I can do that.”

“What’s your plan of attack?”

“After the briefing, I’m taking the one you punched first—and if Dickhead doesn’t have the DNA, hasn’t passed that to Harvo for the other hair found on Duff? I’m siccing Whitney on him. The finger-snapping guy’s the asshole who had Rochelle’s earrings and Lyle’s earbuds in his idiot pocket. I break him, it all falls apart. And I get to tell Cohen even the bullshit deal he signed is rescinded.”

“Why bullshit?”

“I didn’t fill you in on that?” Breaking open a scone, Eve piled on enough butter and jam to delight any five-year-old. “The feds agreed to the Witness Protection—on the stipulation he told no falsehoods—after he’d faced prosecution on the accessories charges from us. So yeah, after he did fifty, minimum, on that, he could be Horace Dickwad of Bullshit, Iowa.”

“He agreed to that?”

“Yeah, he did, because he’s a crappy disbarred lawyer and he didn’t read the fine print.” She bit into the smothered scone. “Or maybe read it and just didn’t understand it.”

“It just keeps coming back to morons.”

“Yeah, it does, and with Cohen lying—it’s pathological with him. Since he lied about Jones, and probably more, no deal. He’ll never see the outside again. When we’re done with him, the feds slap him in a cage for the tax and fraud. Reo gets lots of points on how she handled this one.”

It didn’t shock her to find spinach in the omelette, but at least it was well disguised with cheese and herby stuff.

“I’ll take the Ticker guy next. It’s going to be his hair, his DNA.”

“And save Jorgenson for the last of the three.”

“He’ll go down the hardest, if I can make that happen. And there’s coordinating with the other interview teams as they take the rest. Strong and her teams.”

“A big day.”

“We took them down, now we wrap them up.” She ate while Roarke paused to point a warning finger at the belly-crawling cat. Galahad rolled over, shot up a leg to wash.

The feline middle finger.

“And what’s your plan of attack for the day?” Eve asked.

“Well now, I do have to finalize the purchase of that galaxy.”

“Funny guy.” Now she paused. “Not really, right?”

He smiled at her, then picked up a tablet he’d left on the table. “I’ll be doing a bit more on this.”

He opened it up, did something or other, and had the image on the tablet flashing on the wall screen.

Eve saw a sprawling house—white with blue trim, a lot of fields, what looked like landscaping in progress. “What is it?”

“Darling Eve, it’s your farm in Nebraska.”

“What—” How the hell had he managed to turn a scary dump into a postcard? Maybe still scary to her urban eyes with all that empty land, but . . .

“Still interior work going on, of course, though winding down. And the outbuildings . . .” He swiped at the tablet, did a run-through of a big red barn-thing, what she knew was a silo—another couple of buildings, fenced areas.