Divided in Death (In Death #18)(39)

"I didn't read it."

"Aren't you just full of willpower?" When he didn't speak, she turned away from the screen, and took a step toward him.

He took one back. "Someone will pay for this. Nothing will stop me. I can't kill him, though God, I've dreamed of it. But someone will pay for standing by, standing back, and letting this happen to you."

"It won't change anything."

"Aye, by God it will." Some part of the fury he'd held inside him since reading the reports lashed out. "There are balances, Eve. You know it. Checks and balances, that's what makes your precious justice. I'll have my own on this."

She was cold, already so cold, but his words, the look of him now all but numbed her. "It's not going to help me to think about you going off and hunting up some spook assigned to this over twenty years ago."

"You don't have to think about it."

A little bubble of panic rose in her throat. "I need you focused on the work-do what you promised to do."

He stepped around the console, up to her. His eyes were blue ice as he took her chin in his hand. "Do you think I can or will let this go?"

"No. Do you think I can stand back and let you hunt someone down and mete out your personal sense of justice?"

"No. So we have a problem. In the meantime, I'll give you whatever you need from me on this case. I won't fight with you over this, Eve," he said before she could speak. "And I won't ask or expect you to change your moral ground. I only ask you do the same when it comes to me."

"I want you to remember something." Her voice wanted to shake. Her soul wanted to tremble. "I want you to think about this before you do something you can't take back."

"I'll do what I have to do," he said flatly. "And so will you."

"Roarke." She gripped his arms, and was afraid she could already feel him slipping away from her. "Whatever happened to me back in Dallas, I came out of it. I'm standing here because of it. Maybe I have everything that matters to me, including you, because of it. If that's true, I'd go through it all again. I'd go through every minute of the hell to have you, to have my badge, to have this life. That's enough balance for me. I need you to think about that."

"Then I will."

"I need to get ready for the morning briefing." To think about something else-anything else. "So do you. This has to be put away for now. If you can't put it away, you're no good for me, or your friend."

"Eve." He said it gently, as he'd loved her gently, and he brushed the tear she hadn't been aware of shedding from her cheek.

She broke when his arms came around her. And because they did, she burrowed into him and let herself weep.

8

She was back in form by the time her team arrived for the briefing. Thoughts of what she'd survived in Dallas were locked away to be taken out later when she was alone, when she could stand them. When she could, she would figure out what could and couldn't be done.

He'd kill them. She had no illusions. Left to himself, Roarke would hunt down those responsible for the nonaction directive in Dallas, and... eliminate them.

Checks and balances.

He would do this, unless she found the key to his rage, his sense of justice, his need to punish. His need to stand for her and to spill blood for blood for the sake of a desperate and brutalized child.

So she had to find that key, somehow. And while she was looking for it, she was going up against one of the most powerful and self-contained organizations on or off planet.

Her prior plans of expanding the team, of including a strong showing of hand-selected EDD men, had to be put on hold. She had an intricate little bomb on her hands. Too much shifting and passing and it would blow up in her face.

She would keep her team as small and tight as possible.

Feeney. She couldn't do without Feeney. He was currently chowing down on one of his favored danishes while he argued with McNab about some Arena Ball player named Snooks.

EDD ace Ian McNab didn't look like somebody who'd get riled up about Arena Ball. Then again, he didn't look like a cop either. He was wearing purple leather-look pants, pegged tight as tourniquets at the ankles to show off his low-rider purple gel-sneaks. His shirt was purple stripes and snug enough to show off his narrow torso and bony shoulders. He'd pulled his blond hair back in a relatively simple braid that hung between his angel-wing shoulder blades, but had made up for the simplicity with a jungle of silver hoops that curved along his left ear.

Though he had a pretty face, narrow and smooth and set off by clever green eyes, he didn't look like the type the sturdy and steady Peabody would go for. But she did, and in a big way.

You could see what was between them in the casual way his hand brushed Peabody's knee, the way she jabbed him with her elbow when he tried to take her pastry.

And the proof that love was in bloom when Peabody broke the pastry in half and gave it to him.

She needed them, the three of them, and the man-her man-who sipped his coffee and waited for her to start the show.

And once she did, she put them all at risk.

"If everyone's finished their little coffee break, there's a little matter of a double homicide to discuss."

"Got your EDD report there." Feeney nodded toward the disc packet he'd put on her desk. "Every one of the units-house, gallery, studio-was fried. Total corruption. I got some ideas on how to regenerate and access data, but it's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be quick. Easier and quicker with the use of some of the equipment our civilian consultant has at his disposal."