Origin in Death (In Death #21)(99)

"I know the way. I'm Dallas. I live here, too."

The boy cocked his head. She was bad with ages when it came to the underaged, but she figured maybe eight. He had a lot of hair the color of the syrup she liked to drown pancakes in, and enormous green eyes. His face exploded with freckles.

"I thought the lady who lived in the grand house with cousin Roarke was Eve. She's with the garda, and wears a weapon."

"Dallas, Lieutenant Eve." She shoved back her coat so he could see her sidearm.

"Oh, brilliant! Can I-"

"No." She flapped the coat back before his reaching fingers made contact with her weapon.

"Well, that's all right, then. Have you blasted many people with it?"

"Only my share."

He fell into step with her. "Were you in a fight, then?"

"No. Not exactly."

"It looks like someone planted a right one on you. Will you be going with us on the city tour?"

Did the kid do anything but ask questions? "I don't know." Did she have to? "Probably not. I've got. .. things."

"We're after going skating at the place, the outside place. Have you done that already?"

"No." She glanced down, and with hopes of discouraging his inexplicable attachment to her, gave him her flat-eyed cop stare. "There was a murder there last year."

Instead of shock and terror, his face registered delicious excitement. "A murder? Who was it? Who killed him? Did the body freeze onto the ice so it had to be scraped off? Was there blood? I bet that froze so it was like red ice."

His questions slapped at her ears like gnats as she quickened her pace to, hopefully, escape into the house.

She opened the door to voices, a great many voices.

And there was a small, human creature of undetermined sex crawling over the foyer tiles. It moved like lightning, and it was heading her way.

"Oh my God."

"That's my cousin Cassie. Quick as a snake, she is. Best close the door."

Eve not only closed it, but backed up against it as the crawling thin;: made a series of unintelligible noises, quickened the pace, and cornered her.

"What does it want?"

"Oh, just to say hello. You can pick her up. She's the sociable sort. Aren't you, Cassie darling?"

It grinned, showing a couple of little white teeth, then to Eve's horror, got a grip on the bottom of her coat and hauled itself up on its chubby legs. It said: "Da!"

"What does that mean?"

"It means most anything."

A man dashed out of the parlor. He was tall, beanpole thin, with a messy thatch of dense brown hair. He grinned and in other circumstances Eve might have found him charming.

"There she is. I'm on watch, and I take my eyes off the monkey for a split second and she's off to the races. No need to mention this to your aunt Reenie," he said to Scan. Then to Eve's vast relief, scooped the baby up to bounce her casually on his hip.

"You'd be Eve. I'm your cousin Eemon, Sinead's son. It's lovely meeting you at last."

Before she could speak, he'd wrapped his free arm around her, pulled her into a hug, and into intimate proximity with what was on his hip. Tiny fingers shot out, grabbed her hair.

Eemon laughed. "She's a fascination with hair, as she has so little of it yet herself." Competently, he tugged the fingers free.

"Um" was all Eve could think of, but Eemon flashed that smile once more.

"And here you are, barely in your own door and we've got you surrounded. We're already scattered about the place, and sure a beauty of a place it is. Roarke and some of us are in the parlor there. Can I help you with your coat?"

"Coat? No. Thanks." She was able to ease away, peel it off, toss it over the newel post.

"Gran!" Scan raced forward, and some of Eve's tension faded when she saw Sinead step into the foyer. At least this was someone she'd already met.

"You'll never guess it." Brimming with excitement, Scan danced in a circle. "Cousin Eve said there was a murder at the skating place. A dead body."

"Murder usually involves a dead body."

It occurred to Eve, quite suddenly, that murder probably hadn't been an appropriate point of conversation. "It was last year. It's okay now."

"I'm relieved to hear it, as there's a considerable horde who's looking forward to taking a spin on the ice." She grinned, stepped forward.

She was slim and lovely. Delicate white skin and fine features, golden red hair and sea green eyes. The same face, Eve thought, her twin-Roarke's mother-would have had if she'd lived.

She kissed Eve's cheek. "Thank you for having us in your home."

"Oh. Sure, but it's Roarke's-"

"Whatever he built, it's the home you've made together. How is it you manage such a place?" She hooked an arm through Eve's as she walked back toward the parlor. "Sure I'd be lost half the time."

"I don't, really. Manage it. Summerset."

"Competent, he looks it. A bit intimidating as well."

"I'll say."

But she'd have handled him better than the sight in the parlor. There were so many of them. Had he said there were so many? They were all talking and eating. More kids-the couple others she'd seen outside. They must have come around the side, she thought. Or just whizzed through, invisibly.