Leverage in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel (In Death #47)(77)

When she walked into her office, Roarke and the cat walked out of his. “There she is.”

“What’s left of me.” As the cat rubbed against her legs, she shrugged out of her jacket. Even excellent material and a perfect fit could morph into the misery of a straitjacket after fifteen hours.

Roarke took the jacket before she tossed it at the handiest chair. “First things,” he said. He took a little case out of his pocket, flipped it open.

Eve scowled down at the tiny blue pain blockers. “Do you have stock in those things?”

“I ought to by this point. Let’s deal with the headache I can all but hear banging, and take five minutes.”

“I could use five minutes.” Though the headache wasn’t banging—it was more a muted thumping—she took the blocker, let him nudge her to the sofa. “You’ve been working, too.”

“I have, yes, after Summerset and I had a meal together, and he told me a bit more about his holiday.” As he spoke, Roarke shifted Eve, began to knead her shoulders. “He and Ivanna enjoyed the time together.”

“How am I supposed to ditch the headache if I’m thinking about Summerset sex?”

“I didn’t mention sex.”

“It’s implied.”

“And if you push that line, we’ll both have headaches. To add to these rocks in your shoulders.”

“Crap day. Pretty much crap day.” And wasn’t it just fine to lean back into those talented hands? “I ate. I pulled a Roarke and ordered in pizza for the team.”

“So you said when you texted you’d be late. Points for you.” He leaned forward, laid a kiss on the back of her neck. “Why don’t I get you a glass of wine, and you can fill me in.”

“I’d rather have a beer. I’d rather have coffee,” she added, “but you’d make those noises about needing a break from coffee. At least beer’s a cop drink.”

“I’m no cop, but I’ll have one with you. We’ve still some of Will Bannon’s brew. That’s definitely cop beer. How would that do you?”

“Down to the ground, thanks.”

Already the headache receded to an annoyed murmur. The rocks in her neck and shoulders had broken down into irritating pebbles.

The man had a way.

So when he walked back with the beer, sat, she curled into him, wrapped around him.

“Here now,” he soothed.

“It’s nothing wrong. It’s just . . . good to be home, and here. I can take the long, crap days, the multiple DBs in the long, crap days. I can even take feeling like I’m getting basically nowhere after the long, crap days because it’s good to be home, and here.”

She tipped her head back, kissed him, then shifted back to sit hip to hip. Took a swig from the pilsner he’d poured. “Beer’s good, too.”

“It is. And I’ll wager you’ve gotten beyond nowhere.”

“It doesn’t feel like it. And less like it after each notification. Three today seeing as Baxter notified Denby’s wife.”

“How is she?”

“Holding steady. They didn’t fuck her up as much as they did the first one. Broken nose, couple broken fingers. They mostly kept the pounding to her face, especially after she told them she was pregnant. They didn’t spend as much time on the Denbys. It may be Denby broke sooner than Rogan, or it may be they wanted to hit the loading in instead of the actual opening.”

“You lean toward the first,” Roarke commented.

“Yeah, not only because I think Denby broke sooner, but because they found out they had a pregnant woman on their hands. I think they moved up the timetable. They still accomplished what they wanted, but it meant adjustments, and a daylight B and E.”

She drank again. “I’m skipping around.”

She walked it back to the home invasion, moved through the destruction of Richie’s paintings in his studio.

“We’re still checking on rentals of black panel vans, but so far they’re all legit. Maybe they own one, or have access to one, or just boosted one for a couple hours and nobody noticed.”

“Will you have your witness at the loft work with Yancy or another police artist?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think we’ll get anything there. She couldn’t even give us skin color, height, nothing. She’s three floors up, not paying any attention. We’re lucky we got anything. Sweeper’s report lists twenty-two canvases destroyed from the loft—fifteen completed, the other seven partials. And nobody but dead Angelo knows how many more were completed, how many they took with them.”

“If that was always the plan, they may not have had a stash of his paintings ahead of the game.”

“Yeah, that’s another bitch. Still, you know people in the art-collecting world, and people who know people.”

“I’ll poke around there. I can tell you that there will be an immediate boost on the value. As soon as the details and circumstances of his death, and the loss of much of his work, gets out? Well, there are certain collectors who’ll pay considerably more due to those circumstances. Particularly.”

“Maybe you know some of those sick bastards?”

“I may know a few, and of more. If this is the plan—and it follows, doesn’t it—they’d have to know at least one.”