Divided in Death (In Death #18)(61)

"It must be. It moved."

"Where?" He caught himself, cast his gaze to heaven. "Now you've got me turned around. She felt the baby move, then? Isn't that a good thing?"

"She thought so, so it must be."

She sat back, looked at him. He was holding her hand still, studying her face. Waiting.

All so normal, unless you felt, as she felt, that subtle change of rhythm. Things weren't normal between them right now, and maybe they'd never be again. But they were both willing to pretend otherwise.

The pretense that there was nothing hanging over them was oddly terrifying.

But if it was all she had, she was as willing to hide behind it as he was.

"She was all down and teary when I got back," Eve continued. "Figured she'd mess up with the kid because she was messed up as a kid, or something. Afraid she wouldn't know what to do or how to feel. Had herself a serious weep."

"I've heard that's fairly normal for pregnant women. The weeping. I imagine she's a bit scared. It must be considerably scary if you think about the whole process."

"Well, I don't want to think about it, that's for sure."

He'd let go of her hand, and he'd shifted, just the slightest bit away from her. So she knew he felt it, too.

She called herself a coward, but she pushed it out of her mind.

"Anyway, she calmed down mostly, then the baby did whatever it did in there and she got all happy again. She was practically doing handsprings when she left to go tell Leonardo."

"Well, then, why are you sitting here looking miserable?"

"She's coming back."

"That's good. I'd like to see her."

"She's bringing Trina." Eve's voice rose nearly an octave as she gripped Roarke's shirt. "And their instruments of torture."

"I see."

"You don't. They don't gang up on you and come at you with strange, sharp implements or goop unknown substances all over your face and body. I don't know what they're going to do to me, and whatever it is, I don't want it."

"It's hardly as bad as all that, but you could actually have used work as an excuse and put all this off for a while."

"I couldn't fight her." She dropped her head back in her hands. "She had me with that naked face, how often do you see Mavis with a naked face?"

He touched her hair, the lightest stroke. "Never."

"Exactly. And her eyes are all puffy and red-and shiny. And her belly's poking out. This little white lump sticking out. What was I supposed to do?"

"Exactly what you did." He shifted to kiss the top of her head. "You're a good friend."

"I'd rather be a bitch. It's easier, and more satisfying emotionally, to be a bitch."

"And you're so good at it. Well, this should be a fine time for me to fire up that barbecue grill again."

"I can't believe you'd kick me when I'm down."

"I've a handle on it now. I've been practicing on the side. We'll have burgers. They're the simplest."

She could've told him she'd had a burger for lunch, but that would have put too glossy a shine on what she'd swallowed at the Blue Squirrel.

"I just want to work," she complained. But it was for form. It might do them, do everything some good, to have people around. Making noise, taking up energy.

Keeping the illusion all was normal, in place.

"I just want to spend a regular evening working through the insidious and murderous plots of the HSO and foreign techno-terrorists. Is that too much to ask?"

"Of course not, but life will intrude. Would you like me to tell you how Feeney and I did in Queens?"

"Shit. Shit!" She threw out her hands and nearly caught Roarke on the chin with a fist. "See? This has got me so messed up I didn't even remember what's going on with my own case. Where's Feeney?"

"He stayed back in Queens to supervise the removal of some of the sculptures. They're being impounded. You were dead-on about the bugs."

Look how you watch me, he thought. Trying to see inside my head, to read what's there. So we won't have to talk about it again. What are we going to do about this? he wondered.

"We found six sculptures-three out and three in-that were bugged." He smiled. He couldn't make it reach his eyes, but he smiled. "Very sexy technology, too, from the looks of it. It'll be fun to take one of the devices apart for analysis once we hack it out of the metal."

"Eyes or ears?"

"Both. From preliminary study, using a satellite bounce. No question whoever was watching and listening knows we've found them."

"Good." She pushed to her feet. "If Bissel was spying on his own wife for the HSO, they already know we're making moves. I had a meet with an assistant director today."

"Did you?" He said it very softly, very coolly, and sent a chill up her spine.

"Yeah. And if Bissel turned and was working with the other side, though I don't see a hell of a lot of differences between sides here, they'll be scrambling. I'm going to handle it," she said, and let the pretense drop, for a moment. "I'm going to handle it."

"No doubt. I don't intend to tell you how to handle it," he added, very carefully. "Can you say the same?"