Holiday in Death (In Death #7)(2)

Roarke’s face popped on screen. Such a face, she thought, watching as he lifted one dark eyebrow. Poetically handsome, with black hair falling long and thick to frame it. The clever, perfectly sculpted mouth, the strong bones, the shocking intensity of brilliant blue eyes.

After nearly a year, just the sight of that face could send her blood humming.

“Darling Eve.” His voice was like cream over strong Irish whiskey. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“Because I’m awake.”

She knew what he’d see as he studied her. There was so little she could hide from him. He’d see the shadows of a bad night hounding her eyes, the paleness of her skin. Uncomfortable, she shrugged and pushed a hand through her short, disordered hair. “I’m going into Cop Central early. I’ve got paperwork to catch up on.”

He saw more than she realized. When he looked at her, he saw strength, courage, pain. And a beauty — in those sharp bones, that full mouth, those steady brandy-colored eyes — she was delightfully oblivious to. Because he also saw weariness, he changed his plans.

“I’ll be home tonight.”

“I thought you needed a couple of more days up there.”

“I’ll be home tonight,” he repeated and smiled at her. “I miss you, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah?” However foolish she considered the warm thrill, she grinned at him. “I guess I’ll have to make some time for you when you get here.”

“Do that.”

“Is that why you were calling — to let me know you’d be back early?”

Actually, he’d intended to leave a message that he’d be delayed another day or two — and to try to convince her to join him for the weekend on the Olympus Resort. But he only smiled at her. “Just wanted to inform my wife of my travel plans. Go back to sleep, Eve.”

“Yeah, maybe.” But they both knew she wouldn’t. “I’ll see you tonight. Uh, Roarke?”

“Yes?”

She still had to take a bracing breath before she said it. “I miss you, too.” She cut the transmission even as he smiled at her. Steadier, she took her coffee with her as she went out to prepare for the day.

She didn’t exactly sneak out of the house, but she was quiet about it. Maybe it was barely five in the morning, but she didn’t doubt Summerset was around somewhere. She preferred, whenever possible, to avoid Roarke’s sergeant-major — or whatever term you’d use for a man who knew everything, did everything, and poked his bony nose into what Eve considered her private business entirely too often.

Since her last case had shoved the two of them closer together than either was comfortable with, she suspected he’d been avoiding her as carefully as she had him for the past couple of weeks.

Reminded of it, she rubbed a hand absently just under her shoulder. It still troubled her a bit in the morning, or after a long day. Taking a full blast from her own weapon was an experience she didn’t want to repeat in this or any other lifetime. Somehow worse was the way Summerset had poured meds down her throat afterward, when she’d been too weak to knock him on his ass.

She closed the door behind her, took one deep breath of the frigid December air, then cursed viciously.

She’d left her vehicle at the base of the steps mostly because it drove Summerset crazy. And he’d moved it because it pissed her off. Grumbling because she hadn’t bothered to bring along the remote for the garage door or her vehicle, she trooped around the house, boots crunching on frosted grass. The tips of her ears began to sting with cold, her nose to run with it.

She bared her teeth and punched in the code with gloveless fingers, then stepped into the pristine and blissfully warm garage.

There were two gleaming levels of cars, bikes, sky-scooters, even a two-passenger mini-copter. Her city-issue vehicle in pea-green looked like a mutt among sleek, glossy hounds. But it was new, she reminded herself as she slid behind the wheel. And everything worked.

It started like a dream. The engine purred. At her command, the heat began to whir softly through the vents. The cockpit glowed with lights, indicating the initial check run, then the bland voice of the recording assured her all systems were in operational order.

She’d have suffered the tortures of the damned before she would admit she missed the capriciousness and outright crankiness of her old unit.

At a smooth pace, she glided out of the garage and down the curved drive toward the iron gates. They parted smoothly, soundlessly, for her.

The streets in this exclusive neighborhood were quiet, clean. Trees on the verge of the great park were coated in a thin sheen of glittery frost like a skinsuit of diamond dust. Deep inside its shadows, chemi-heads and spine crackers might be finishing up the night’s work, but here, there were only polished stone buildings, wide avenues, and the quiet dark before dawn.

She was blocks away before the first billboard loomed up, spitting garish light and motion into the night. Santa, red-cheeked and with a manic grin that made her think of an oversized elf on Zeus, rode through the sky behind his fleet of reindeer and blasted out ho, ho, hos, while warning the populace of just how many shopping days they had left before Christmas.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. You fat son of a bitch.” She scowled over as she braked for a light. She’d never had to worry about the holiday before. It had just been a matter of finding something ridiculous for Mavis, maybe something edible for Feeney.