Born in Death (In Death #23)(20)

Something hot enough to kill for twice was too hot to take chances with a payoff.

Back to the accounting firm—just had to be. She needed those damn files. Using the dash ’link, she contacted Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Cher Reo.

“I’m on my way out,” Reo said. “I have an actual date. Don’t screw with me.”

“I have two bodies in the morgue. I want my warrant. Don’t screw with me.”

“Do you know how much paper a lawyer can generate in a few hours?”

“Is that one of those questions like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

Reno smiled sourly. “Runs down the same channel.”

“Why would angels dance on a pin? Wouldn’t they rather boogie in the clouds?”

“I would.” Reo’s lips curved slyly. “But I’m not an angel.”

“Me either. Now, enough of this philosophizing. About those lawyers, about my warrant.”

“I’m going to get it, Dallas, but I’m not going to get it before morning. We’re not just talking lawyers, we’re talking really rich lawyers with big, fat retainers and hordes of legal drones who can find a precedent in a haystack.”

“A haystack? What does that mean?”

“Never mind.” Reo sighed, long and deep. “It’s been a day, that’s the best I can say about it. I’ve got a judge reviewing their last block right now. If he’s not too big on having, say, an actual meal or a life, he may rule on it within a couple hours. I hear, you hear.”

“The minute,” Eve said, then cut off.

Too much time, she thought. Too much time screwing around the system. Whoever killed Natalie and Bick—or ordered them killed—had probably started deleting or adjusting the files immediately.

She hoped McNab was right about the EDD hounds digging up the scent she had a feeling was being covered up even as the lawyers dug through their haystack.

But if EDD let her down, she had a very sleek, very smart hound of her own.

So thinking, she drove through the gates of home.

5

BECAUSE HER MIND WAS ON OTHER THINGS, Summerset caught Eve off guard as she came in the door.

“Do you require change-of-address forms?”

“Huh? What?” She yanked herself back to the moment, then immediately regretted it. He was in her moment, the bony, black-suited pain in her ass. “Can’t you find another place to haunt? I hear there’s one available down on East Twelfth.”

His lips thinned—if, she thought, it was possible for what passed as his lips to compress in an even tighter line. “I assumed as you no longer appear to live here, you’d need the proper forms.”

She pulled off her coat, tossed it on the newel post. “Yeah, get those forms, I’ll fill them out.” She started up the stairs. “How many M’s in Summerset anyway?”

She left him behind in the grand foyer. Roarke was probably home, she decided, but she’d wait until she was out of the hearing of those demon ears before she checked on one of the house scanners.

She was tempted to go straight into the bedroom, fall flat on the bed for twenty minutes. But with the case weighing on her, she continued up to her office.

He was there, pouring wine.

“Long day for you, Lieutenant. Thought you could use this.”

“Couldn’t hurt.” Either the man was psychic or she was pretty damn predictable. “Been home long?”

“A couple of hours.”

She frowned, checked the time. “It’s later than I thought. Sorry. I should have done the call home thing, probably.”

“Couldn’t have hurt.” But he moved to her, handed her the glass. Then he took her chin in his free hand, studied her face before he touched his lips to hers. “Long, hard day.”

“I’ve had shorter and easier.”

“And from the look of you, you’re going to make it longer. Red meat?”

“Why is everyone speaking in code around here?”

He smiled, ran his fingertip along the dent in her chin. “You could use a steak. Yes, pizza would be easier to eat at your desk,” he continued, anticipating her. “Consider having a meal that requires utensils payment for not checking in.”

“I guess that’s fair.”

“We’ll have it up in the conservatory.” To avoid protest, he simply took her arm and led her to the elevator. “It’ll clear your head.”

He was probably right, and in Roarke’s world it was a simple matter to order real meat and all the trimmings, have a meal with wine, even candles, in a lush setting where the lights of the city twinkled and gleamed beyond black glass, and a cheerful fire crackled away.

There were times she wondered that she didn’t get whiplash from the culture shock.

“Nice,” she said and tried to adjust her mind, her mood.

“Tell me about the victim.”

“Victims. It can wait.”

“They’re in your head. We’ll both do better if you talk it through.”

“So, you don’t want to chat about politics, the weather, the latest celebrity gossip over dinner?”

He smiled, sat back, gestured with his glass.

She told him, going step by step through both murders, the timing, the method, the background.