Promises in Death (In Death #28)(72)

Eve stood, dragging her hands through her hair. “Do some coffee thing,” she told Summerset. “Or . . . maybe we should let him get drunk. I don’t know. What should we do here? I don’t know what to do for him.”

“Then figure it out.” Summerset moved to the door. Then he paused, turned back to her. “A drunk only clouds the pain for a time, so it comes back sharper. Coffee’s best when you listen to him as that’s what he’ll need. Someone who cares who’ll listen to him.”

He opened the door. “Go on, go on. He’ll do better if you go to him.”

“Don’t kick at me,” she muttered, but went out.

The cart was nearly silent as he cruised sedately down the drive, made a graceful turn. It stopped at the base of the steps.

“I’m sorry.” Morris rubbed his hands over his face like a man coming out of sleep. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I came. I shouldn’t have.” He got off the cart as she went down the stairs. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

She held out a hand. “Come inside, Li.”

He shuddered, as if fighting a terrible pain, and only shook his head. She knew pain, and the fight against it, so moved to him, and took his weight, some of the grief when his arms came around her.

“There,” Summerset murmured. “She’s figured it out, hasn’t she?”

Roarke put a hand on Summerset’s shoulder. “Coffee would be good, I think. And something . . . I doubt he’s eaten.”

“I’ll see to it.”

“Come inside,” Eve repeated.

“I didn’t know where to go, what to do. I couldn’t go home after . . . Her brother took her. I went and I watched them . . . They loaded her on the transpo. In a box. She’s not there. Who knows that better? But I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t go home. I don’t even know how I got here.”

“It doesn’t matter. Come on.” She kept an arm around him, walked him up the stairs where Roarke waited.

15

“I’M INTRUDING, INTERRUPTING.”

“You’re not.” Eve steered him toward the parlor. “Let’s go sit down. We’re going to have some coffee.” His hands were cold, she thought, and his body felt fragile. There were always more victims than the dead.

Who knew better?

She led him to a chair by the fire, relieved she didn’t have to ask Roarke to light one. Anticipating her, he already was, so she pulled a chair around, angling it so she sat facing Morris.

“It was easier, somehow,” Morris began, “when there were details to see to. Easier somehow to go through the steps. The memorial, it centered me. Somehow. Her brother—helping him—it was something that had to be done. Then she was gone. She’s gone. And it’s final, and there’s nothing for me to do.”

“Tell me about her. Some small thing, something not important. Just something.”

“She liked to walk in the city. She’d rather walk than take a cab, even when it was cold.”

“She liked to see what was going on, be part of it,” Eve prompted.

“Yes. She liked the night, walking at night. Finding some new place to have a drink or listen to music. She wanted me to teach her how to play the saxophone. She had no talent for it whatsoever. God.” A shudder ran through him. Racked him. “Oh, God.”

“But you tried to teach her.”

“She’d be so serious about it, but the noise—you’d never call it music—that came out would make her laugh. She’d push the sax at me, and tell me to play something. She liked to stretch out on the couch and ask me to play.”

“You can see her there?”

“Yes. Candlelight on her face, that half smile of hers. She’d relax and watch me play.”

“You can see her there,” Eve repeated. “She’s not gone.”

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.

Panicked, Eve looked over at Roarke. And he nodded, centered her. So she kept talking.

“I’ve never lost anyone who mattered,” Eve told Morris. “Not like this. For a long time, I didn’t have anyone who mattered. So I don’t know. Not all the way. But I feel, because of what I do. I feel. I don’t know how people get through it, Morris, I swear to Christ I don’t know how they put one foot in front of the other. I think they need something to hold on to. You can see her, and you can hold on to that.”

Morris dropped his hands, stared down at them. Empty. “I can. Yes, I can. I’m grateful, to both of you. I keep leaning on you. And here, I’ve turned up on your doorstep, pushing this into your evening.”

“Stop. Death’s a bastard,” Eve said. “When the bastard comes, the ones left need family. We’re family.”

Summerset wheeled in a small table. Businesslike and efficient, he moved it between Eve and Morris. “Dr. Morris, you’ll have some soup now.”

“I—”

“It’s what you need. This is what you need.”

“Would you see the blue suite on the third floor’s prepared.” Roarke moved forward now to sit on the arm of Eve’s chair. “Dr. Morris will be staying tonight.”

Morris started to speak, then just closed his eyes, took a breath. “Thank you.”