Desperation in Death (In Death #55)(35)

“All right then. They’re provocative, certainly, and designed to enhance the body. Given the color, the touches of lace, I’d say subtle again, and yes, classy, even romantic. On an adult woman.”

She punched his shoulder. “Yes. On a kid, not subtle or classy because just wrong. But they still have that … Mavis would say vibe. I get that vibe. Or it hit me when I put on this robe. It’s not bang me against the bedpost.”

“Did that.”

“That wasn’t banging,” she corrected, taking the PPC back. “And maybe I’m putting too much into a couple scraps of silk, but I think they wanted more from her than banging. Banging’s easy. You don’t have to spend a couple grand on underwear for that. And this had to be like daily wear, right? Like you buy me stuff like this—and some of it’s straight fuckwear. I’m not stupid. But for work? I’m not going to wear anything like this on the job.”

Thinking, thinking, she set the PPC down again. “Anyway, I’m going to get dressed before waffles.”

Roarke pointed toward the bed. She looked at the clothes laid out, then looked back at him.

“Seriously?”

“A time-saving offer only.”

“Accepted,” she decided, and took his coffee, finished it off. “I’ve got too much jumbling through my brain to think about clothes anyway.”

“Let me see the ribs first.” When she rolled her eyes and opened the robe, he set Galahad aside and rose to give them another pass with the wand.

“Bruising’s nearly faded off.”

“They feel okay. Not bullshit,” she said quickly. “If somebody punches me in the ribs, I’m going to feel it, but otherwise they’re okay.”

“Don’t drop your guard. Swelling’s down,” he added as he passed the wand over her jaw. “Your eye’s bloomed a bit more, but it’s not swollen. I’d tell you to give the eye another pass this afternoon, but you won’t.”

“I will if I remember.”

He kissed it lightly. Just, she thought, as Dennis Mira had.

“You’ll do.”

He went back to sit as she wiggled into the simple cotton briefs he’d set out.

“See,” she said as she pulled on the support tank. “You know.”

He’d gone for brown trousers. Not Feeney’s shit brown, but something that edged toward copper. And the shirt—nearly the same cream color as the robe—had needle-thin stripes of the copper and some navy. Navy, she assumed, because of the navy jacket. She strapped on her weapon, added the belt—also navy, with a copper buckle—the navy boots with thick copper soles, then the jacket that hit at her waist.

“This jacket has the magic lining, like the coat.”

“It’s a prototype,” he told her, removing the domes on the breakfast plates. “Removable, so transferable. Something we’re working on.”

“Huh. It’s really light.”

“In testing and simulations it blocks a full stun, a blade, and, should it come up against someone who’s managed to get hands on a gun, a bullet. Of course, I’d prefer you not put any of that to the test, but in case.”

He poured her coffee. “Now, tell me about the dream.”

“Right. Mostly annoying,” she began as she drowned the waffles in syrup. “It was in Dallas, in the room in Dallas.”

“Ah, Eve.”

“No, it doesn’t hit me like it used to. They’re dead, they’re dead and gone. I’m not saying it was sex on a tropical beach, but I handled it. First it was just the victim, just Mina.”

She told him as she ate, occasionally stabbing a fat berry between bites of syrup-soaked waffle.

“They were pretty damn bitchy,” she added, waving a piece of bacon that had Galahad’s nose twitching as he started casually toward the table.

And stopped dead at Roarke’s warning look.

“I know it’s me bitching at me, really. My subconscious and all that. Or how I figure thirteen-year-old girls would bitch. I mean, what do I know? The only thing I remember about being thirteen was it meant five more years until I could get out.”

She crunched into the bacon. “But I figure my brain worked out some truths. Mina had something to get back to. And if Dorian felt—feels—anything like I did, getting out’s enough.”

“You put them both in school uniforms.”

“Yeah, because I think that’s probably how it works. You’ve got a couple of girls or a handful, they’re all the same. Products. The underwear though, that’s different. Major expense. Investment,” she said again. “It’s like the robe. It feels good against the skin. You feel a certain way when you have it on. I put on my underwear for work, I feel a certain way. Put on the fancy stuff for under the fancy stuff, that feels a certain way. Maybe you don’t really think about it, but you feel it.”

“The uniform strips the individuality. Under it, the silk, the sexy accustoms you to that feel, that mood?”

“There you go. A kind of mind game. Some want someone they have to force, even hurt. That kind of power and dominance. But you can get an LC to role-play.”

“Not the same,” Roarke commented. “You don’t own an LC.”