New York to Dallas (In Death #33)(53)

She needed sleep but, as he expected, objected when he stopped the elevator on the bedroom level.

“I’m not done.”

“Oh, but you are.”

She stripped her jacket off, tossed it on a bench in the foyer. “Look, I need you to do something.”

“Fine. And I need you to do something. We’ll trade.”

She stood, weapon harness over shirtsleeves, her whiskey-colored eyes ripe with a combination of fury, sorrow, and stress he understood very well. He felt the same himself.

“Goddamn it, Roarke.”

“And that’s not the way to get something from me, particularly at half two in the morning. Tell me what you need, and I’ll try to get it for you.”

“The female, she cased that mall in her ‘I’m just a harmless woman’ gear. She even bought stuff for girls who fit the age spread, things the vic would go for. She knew the place, so I’m betting she used it for her own shopping.”

“Good bet.” He shrugged out of his own jacket, sat on the bench to pull off his shoes. If he’d be working a bit longer, he’d damn well work comfortably. “I see where you’re going.”

“She’d probably dress as who she is or who she wants to be for McQueen, wouldn’t she? Hitting shops that cater to adults, women’s stores, sexy gear stores. You want to bang, you buy the sexy underwear.”

He glanced up. She roamed the foyer, moving, moving, moving because she knew—as he did—once she stopped she’d go out.

“You don’t.”

“I don’t have to buy the sexy underwear when you buy enough for an entire gaggle of high-class LCs.”

“It’s a weakness. A gaggle is it? Darling Eve, you’re very tired.”

Frustration flickered over the tension in her face. “Look, if we can just set up and run a face-and-body-recognition program, something that will give us some probables, we—”

“No, you said you wanted me to do it, and I will.” He rose, barefoot now and in shirtsleeves as she was, and pulled a thin leather tie from his pocket. “In exchange you’ll go to bed, the bed neither one of us has so much as seen yet. That’s the master,” he added, gesturing.

“I want to get this started.”

“I’ll get it started, and we’ll both take a couple hours down while it runs. I’m pretty f**king fagged myself, but if you push it, I promise I’ll put you down.”

“You’re going to stand here and threaten me?”

“You know it’s not a threat.” In a smooth, unhurried move, he tied back his hair. “It’s a simple fact, and one I’m not going to waste time arguing over. Go lie down, now, or it’ll get ugly.”

He watched anger flood temporary color into her face, lifted his brows when her hand balled into a fist. She wasn’t above throwing a punch under the circumstances, and he knew from experience she had a damn good right cross.

He almost hoped she would follow through on it, give him an excuse to manhandle her into bed, pour a tranq down her throat, and relieve some of his own temper in the process.

Apparently she thought better of it as she spun around and stomped off toward the bedroom.

“You’re f**king welcome,” he called after her.

She answered by stabbing her middle finger into the air before she slammed the bedroom door.

“Oh aye, back at you, darling.”

She’d wanted to give him a shot, one good shot. The problem was, she thought as she yanked off her weapon harness, she wasn’t at her absolute best—which meant he’d have more than likely followed through on his threat.

“Oh, excuse me,” she muttered to the empty room, “his simple fact.”

God, she hated when he ordered her around like she was an idiot infant at nap time.

She just needed coffee. Just some coffee to break through the fog. So she was tired, she admitted, dropping her clothes where she stripped. Cops worked tired. That was a simple fact.

One of his minions in his fancy, high-priced (no doubt) hotel had unpacked and put away the things Summerset had packed. She didn’t even have control over her own damn clothes.

She yanked open drawers. Damned if she’d sleep naked and give that bossy bastard any ideas. She sniffed at the soft, pretty nightclothes, shoved through them until she found a practical, definitely unsexy nightshirt and dragged it on.

But she wasn’t going to bed. Not to sleep, that is. She’d stretch out for ten minutes, and consider her part of the bargain met.

Then he could shove it.

She snatched the gold-foiled chocolates off the pillows, tossed them on the night table. She’d have that with her coffee after her ten down. It ought to be enough caffeine to keep her revved for another few hours.

She dropped down flat on her face on the neatly turned-down sheets, thought fleetingly that she missed the cat.

She thought of Darlie Morgansten. The pang as her belly twisted was the last thing she felt before going under. She never heard Roarke come in twenty minutes later.

The chill of the room kept her awake. She wanted to sleep, wanted to go away, but the cold and the gnawing hunger in her belly wouldn’t let her.

She wasn’t supposed to get food. She ate when he told her to eat, and ate what he gave her or there would be hell to pay.

She knew hell to pay meant a beating—or worse. She knew what hell was because she lived there.