Portrait in Death (In Death #16)(77)

"You want me to spend the night at your place?"

"It'll be easier."

"Uh-huh." Peabody folded her hands neatly in her lap while Eve drove out of Columbia's parking port. "One of the things I need to pick up is McNab."

"Fine."

"Fine," Peabody echoed, pressing her lips together to hold back a grin. "So that means both of us will be bunking at your place."

Eve stared straight ahead. "We need to put in some time on this, so it'll be easier this way."

"And you'll have a Summerset buffer."

"What's your point?"

"You have less trouble with the idea of me and McNab bouncing on the gel bed in the guest room than you do with dealing one-on-one with Summerset. It's kind of sweet."

"Don't make me stop this vehicle, Peabody."

"Did you have a chance to ask Roarke if he's got any apartments up for grabs?"

"No. He's been busy. He's got stuff on his mind."

Peabody sobered. "So I gathered. Dallas, is he in trouble?"

"Yeah. It's a big mess, personal mess. He's working it out. It's a family thing."

"I didn't think he had any family."

"Neither did he." She couldn't talk about it. Didn't know how to talk about it. Didn't know if she was supposed to talk about it. "He'll work it out. He'll be back in a couple of days."

Meanwhile you're off, Peabody thought, because he's off. "McNab and I can hang at your place until he's back if you want."

"Let's take it a day at a time."

She didn't complain about waiting while Peabody packed a bag. Instead, she sat in her vehicle and began streamlining her notes into a report. She didn't complain about swinging by Central to pick up McNab. Anything was better than going home alone.

So it had come to that, she thought, tuning out the chatter Peabody and McNab insisted on making. She didn't want to go home alone. A couple of years before she'd have thought nothing of it. In fact, she'd have preferred it. Closing herself into her own space and spending the bulk of any evening on her caseload.

Of course, she hadn't had Summerset hovering around somewhere. Broken leg or not, he was still in the house. Still breathing the same air as she was.

But that wasn't the whole reason she was dragging Peabody and McNab home with her. She wanted the company, the noise, the distraction. Something, anything, to keep her mind focused on the work so she'd stop worrying about Roarke for a while.

Where the hell was he now, and what was he doing?

Deliberately, she blocked that train of thought and tuned back in to the conversation.

"Crimson Rocket is totally juiced," McNab claimed. "They're completely iced."

"Oh please. They blow."

"You don't jive with rocking tunes, She-Body. Catch this."

He turned on his pocket player and had something screaming out. It sounded, to Eve's ear, like a train wreck. "Off!" she ordered. "Turn that shit off."

"You gotta give it a chance, Dallas. Open up to the energy and irony."

"Two seconds, and I'm opening up the window and throwing you and your energy out on the street."

Peabody's face settled into smug lines. "Told you they suck."

"You've got no musical taste."

"You don't."

"You don't."

Eve hunched her shoulders, trying to lift them over her ears. "What have I done?" she asked herself as she drove through the gates of home. "What have I done?"

They argued all the way up the drive, taking jabs at each other's musical preference with terms like Free-Ager pap, and retro-rock ripoff. She slammed on the brakes, all but leaped out of the car to escape it, but they were right behind her, bickering their way to the door.

"Go. Go back there." Eve stabbed a finger in the general direction of Summerset's quarters. "Take the insanity back there. Maybe his head will explode, and I'll have one less problem. Visit the patient, argue until your tongues turn black and fall out, have dinner, have monkey sex. Go away."

"But, sir, you wanted to work on the case," Peabody reminded her.

"I don't want to see either of you for an hour. One full hour. I must have gone mad," she mumbled as she started upstairs. "I went mad and didn't know it, and now I need a nice, quiet padded room."

"What's with her?" McNab wanted to know.

"Roarke's got some problems. It messes her up. Let's go back and see how Summerset's doing. Crimson Rocket still blows," she added.

"Man, how can I be in love with a woman who doesn't recognize true musical genius?" He gave her butt a squeeze. "Oh yeah, that's one reason." He leaned down to her ear. "Think we can fit Summerset, chow, and monkey sex into an hour?"

"Bet we can."

Eve went directly to her office, directly to the kitchen, directly to the AutoChef. "Coffee. Coffee will keep me sane." She ordered a pot, considered drinking it straight down where she stood, but restrained herself. Taking it and a mug to her desk she sat, poured. Took a long, long breath.

"Computer on." She sat back and sipped the first mug. Cleared her head. "Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, primary, case numbers H-23987 and H-23992 connected. Additional notes. Connection between victims Howard and Sulu is established through various witness statements. Both frequented Make The Scene data club, and had interaction there. Both were photographed by Hastings. Connection between Hastings and Browning, one of Howard's professors, one of the last people to see Howard alive, established. They know each other professionally and personally. Through her recommendation some of Browning's students have served as photographic assistants for Hastings, giving them access to his files, and the images of the victims removed from said files. Browning also had access when escorting classes to Hastings's studio for workshops."