Naked in Death (In Death #1)(74)

“What exactly is it about me that rubs you wrong, Summerset?”

With his back poker straight, he led her up a flight and down the wide corridor. “I have no idea what you mean, lieutenant. The library,” he announced in reverent terms, and opened the door for her.

She’d never in her life seen so many books. She never would have believed so many existed outside of museums. The walls were lined with them so that the two-level room positively reeked with books.

On the lower level, on what was surely a leather sofa, Roarke lounged, a book in his hand, the cat on his lap.

“Eve. You’re early.” He set the book aside, picked up the cat as he rose.

“Jesus, Roarke, where did you get all these?”

“The books?” He let his gaze roam the room. Firelight danced and shifted over colorful spines. “Another of my interests. Don’t you like to read?”

“Sure, now and again. But discs are so much more convenient.”

“And so much less aesthetic.” He stroked the cat’s neck and sent him into ecstasy. “You’re welcome to borrow any you like.”

“I don’t think so.”

“How about a drink?”

“I could handle that.”

His ‘link beeped. “This is the call I’ve been waiting for. Why don’t you get us both a glass of wine I’ve had breathing over on the table?”

“Sure.” She took the cat from him and walked over to oblige. Because she wanted to eavesdrop, she forced herself to stay the length of the room away from where he sat murmuring.

It gave her a chance to browse the books, to puzzle over the titles. Some she had heard of. Even with a state education, she’d been required to read Steinbeck and Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens. The curriculum had taken her through King and Grisham, Morrison and Grafton.

But there were dozens, perhaps hundreds of names here she’d never heard of. She wondered if anyone could handle so many books, much less read them.

“I’m sorry,” he said when the call was complete. “That couldn’t wait.”

“No problem.”

He took the wine she’d poured him. “The cat’s becoming quite attached to you.”

“I don’t think he has any particular loyalties.” But Eve had to admit, she enjoyed the way he curled under her stroking hand. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about him. I called Georgie’s daughter and she said she just couldn’t face taking him. Pressing the matter only made her cry.”

“You could keep him.”

“I don’t know. You have to take care of pets.”

“Cats are remarkably self-sufficient.” He sat on the sofa and waited for her to join him. “Want to tell me about your day?”

“Not very productive. Yours?”

“Very productive.”

“A lot of books,” Eve said lamely, knowing she was stalling.

“I have an affection for them. I could barely read my name when I was six. Then I came across a battered copy of Yeats. An Irish writer of some note,” he said when Eve looked blank. “I badly wanted to figure it out, so I taught myself.”

“Didn’t you go to school?”

“Not if I could help it. You’ve got trouble in your eyes, Eve,” he murmured.

She blew out a breath. What was the use of stalling when he could see right through her? “I’ve got a problem. I want to do a run on Simpson. Obviously, I can’t go through channels or use either my home or office units. The minute I tried to dig on the chief of police, I’d be flagged.”

“And you’re wondering if I have a secured, unregistered system. Of course I do.”

“Of course,” she muttered. “A nonregistered system is in violation of Code four fifty-three-B, section thirty-five.”

“I can’t tell you how aroused it makes me when you quote codes, lieutenant.”

“It’s not funny. And what I’m going to ask you to do is illegal. It’s a serious offense to electronically breach the privacy of a state official.”

“You could arrest both of us afterward.”

“This is serious, Roarke. I go by the book, and now I’m asking you to help me break the law.”

He rose, drew her to her feet. “Darling Eve, you have no idea how many I’ve already broken.” He fetched the wine bottle, letting it dangle from two fingers of the hand he slipped around her waist. “I ran an underground dice game when I was ten,” he began, leading her from the room. “A legacy from my dear old father who’d earned himself a knife through the gullet in a Dublin alley.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We weren’t close. He was a bastard and no one loved him, least of all me. Summerset, we’ll have dinner at seven-thirty,” Roarke added as he turned toward the stairs. “But he taught me, by means of a fist to the face, to read the dice, the cards, the odds. He was a thief, not a good one, as his end proved. I was better. I stole, I cheated, I spent some time learning the smuggling trade. So you see, you’re hardly corrupting me with such a nominal request.”

She didn’t look at him as he decoded a locked door on the second floor. “Do you…”

“Do I steal, cheat, and smuggle now?” He turned and touched a hand to her face. “Oh, you’d hate that, wouldn’t you? I almost wish I could say yes, then give it all up for you. I learned a long time ago that there are gambles more exciting for their legitimacy. And winning is so much more satisfying when you’ve dealt from the top of the deck.”