Born in Death (In Death #23)(35)

How bad could that be?

She was feeling fairly steady about the entire matter when she drove through the gates of home.

Considering various openings, she jogged through the bitter cold and into the warmth. The gilded light, the lightly spiced scent of the air were spoiled momentarily by the looming figure in black that was Summerset.

“I didn’t realize you were taking a few days off,” he began as the cat left its squat at his side to prance toward Eve.

“What are you talking about?”

“As you’ve returned home unbloodied, without any of your clothing torn, I assume you’ve spent the day in some leisurely pursuit.”

“Day’s not over yet.” She tossed her coat over the newel post. “I could end it pursuing your bony ass, but you’d be the one bloodied and torn.”

She picked up the pudgy cat and hauled him with her up the stairs. He purred like a jet copter as she idly scratched his ears, then dumping him on the sofa in the bedroom, she checked Roarke’s whereabouts on the house scanner.

“Where is Roarke?”

Roarke has not yet returned to the house this evening.

Bought some time, she decided, and stripped off her clothes to change into workout gear. The best way to clear her mind and tune up, she thought, was a good sweaty session in the gym.

To avoid Summerset, she took the elevator down, then programmed a hill climb on the cardio machine. She did a hard twenty minutes until her quads felt the burn, then switched to a flat-out sprint.

She was well into a series of upper-body reps on the weight machine when Roarke strolled in.

“Long day?” she managed, puffing out air.

“A bit.” He bent over, touched his lips to hers. “Getting started or finishing up?”

“Finishing. I’ve got enough in me for a spar if you’re looking for a workout.”

“I had mine this morning. I’m looking for a very large glass of wine and a meal.”

She studied his face. “Was a long day, then. Problems?”

“Irritations, mostly, and mostly eliminated. But now that I’m thinking of it, I wouldn’t mind a swim before that wine. If I had some company.”

“Sure.” She picked up a towel, scrubbed it over her face. Get it over or put it off until he mellowed out? Tough to know, she thought, but it seemed wrong to let him mellow then hit him with a sucker punch.

“Ah, there’s this thing.” To give herself another moment, she walked over, got a bottle of water from the minifriggie. “The double murder I’m investigating. The accounting firm element.”

“You got your warrant?”

“Yeah. That’s part of the thing.”

“The thing being?”

She braced inside, as she might before diving into a very cold pool. “There’s a concern at some levels regarding the sensitivity of the data on the files now in the possession of the NYPSD, and the primary—being me, who’s married to you.”

“There’s a question, on some levels, about your ability to handle sensitive data?” His voice was perfectly pleasant, even amiable. And had her antennae quivering.

“There’s a question, on some levels, about the ethics, I guess, of you having some close proximity to private financial information belonging to current or future business competitors. I want you to know that I—”

“So the assumption,” he interrupted smoothly, “is that I would use my wife, and her investigations into a double torture murder, to not only learn the financial situation of competitors—current or future—but would then use that information to my own gain? Do I have that right?”

“Nutshelling. Listen, Roarke—”

“I haven’t finished.” He whipped the words out, one quick lash. “Did it occur to any of theselevels that I don’t need to use my wife or her investigation to beat bloody hell out of a competitor, in a business sense, should I choose to do so. And that I somehow managed to compete and succeed on my own before I met the primary on this case?”

Shehated when he usedmy wife in that tone. Like she was one of his fancy wrist units. Temper bubbled into her throat and was a very hard swallow down. “I can’t speak to what occurs or occurred there, but—”

“Goddamn it, Eve. Do you think I’d use you for f**king money?”

“Not for a single second. Look at me. Not for one single second.”

“Crawl over the bloody bodies, risk your reputation and my own, come to that, for an edge in some shagging deal?”

“I just said I didn’t—”

“I heard what you said,” he snapped back and his eyes were lethal. “But I see for some it’s ‘once a thief.’ I’ve worked side-by-side with the NYPSD, given it considerable time, taken considerable physical risks, and now they question my integrity over this? Over this? Well, f**k them. If they can’t and won’t trust you after all you’ve given them, or me, f**k them to hell and back. I want you to pass the case.”

“You want—whoa, wait.”

“I want you to pass it,” he repeated. “I’ll not have one byte of that bloodysensitive data in my home, or in my wife’s head, or anywhere I can be suspected of using it. Damned,goddamned if I’ll be accused somewhere down the line of using something like this over some deal I close over someone else. I bloody well won’t have it.”