Rapture in Death (In Death #4)(57)

“We’ve got a week,” Eve said briskly as she sat. “Let’s make the most of it. ME’s report on Devane?”

“Not yet available.”

Eve turned to her ‘link. “Let’s see if we can give him a little shove.”

By the time she got home, she was staggering. She’d missed dinner, which she thought was just as well since she’d ended the day at the morgue viewing what was left of Cerise Devane.

Even the stomach of a veteran cop could turn.

And she would get nothing there, nothing at all. She doubted even Roarke’s equipment could reconstruct enough of Devane to be of any help.

She walked in, nearly tripped over the cat who was stretched at the threshold, and drummed up the energy to bend down and lift him. He studied her, annoyance gleaming in his bi-colored eyes.

“You wouldn’t get kicked, pal, if you draped your fat ass somewhere else.”

“Lieutenant.”

She shifted the cat, looked over at Summerset who, as usual, had appeared out of nowhere. “Yeah, I’m late,” she snapped. “Give me a demerit.”

He didn’t add his normal withering remark. He had seen the clips on the news channel, and he had watched her on the ledge. He had seen her face. “You’ll want dinner.”

“No, I don’t.” She wanted bed and headed for the stairs.

“Lieutenant.” He waited for her bad-tempered oath, waited until she’d turned her head to scowl at him. “A woman who steps out on a ledge is either very brave or very stupid.”

The scowl turned into a sneer. “I don’t have to ask what category you put me in.”

“No, you don’t.” He watched her climb up and thought her courage was terrifying.

The bedroom was empty. She told herself she’d run a house scan for Roarke’s location in just a minute, then fell facedown on the bed. Galahad wiggled out of the crook of her arm and climbed onto her butt to circle and knead his way to comfort.

Roarke found her there minutes later, sprawled out in exhaustion, a sausage-shaped cat guarding her flank.

He simply studied her for a while. He, too, had seen the news clips. They had paralyzed him, dried the saliva in his mouth, and turned his bowels to water. He knew how often she faced death — others’ and her own — and told himself he accepted it.

But that morning he had watched, helpless, while she’d teetered on the brink. He’d looked into her eyes, seen the grit and the fear. And he had suffered.

Now she was here, home, a woman with more bone and muscle than curves, with hair that badly needed tending and boots worn out at the heels.

He walked over, sat on the edge of the bed, and laid a hand over the one curled loosely on the spread.

“I’m just getting my second wind,” she murmured.

“I can see that. We’ll go dancing in a minute.”

She managed a chuckle. “Can you move that boulder off my butt?”

Obligingly, Roarke picked up Galahad, smoothed the ruffled fur. “You’ve had quite a day, Lieutenant. The media’s been full of you.”

She rolled over but kept her eyes shut a minute longer. “I’m glad I missed it. You know about Cerise then.”

“Yes, I had Channel 75 on while I was preparing for my first meeting this morning. I caught it all live.”

She heard the strain in his voice and opened her eyes. “Sorry.”

“You’ll say you were doing your job.” He set the cat aside and brushed the hair back from Eve’s cheek. “But it was above and beyond, Eve. She could have taken you with her.”

“I wasn’t ready to go.” She cupped a hand over the one he held to her cheek. “I had a flash when I was up there. Memory flash of when I was a kid, standing at the window of some filthy flop he’d booked us into. I thought about jumping then, just getting it the hell over with. I wasn’t ready to go. I’m still not.”

Galahad climbed out of Roarke’s lap and stretched his bulk over Eve’s belly. It made Roarke smile. “Looks like we both intend to keep you here for a while. What have you eaten today?”

She pursed her lips. “Is this a quiz?”

“Nothing to speak of,” he decided.

“Food’s not high on my list right now. I’ve just come from the morgue. Contact with concrete after seventy-story flights does unattractive things to flesh and bone.”

“I don’t imagine there was enough to scan for comparison with the others.”

Despite the grisly image, she grinned, sat up, and gave him a quick, loud kiss. “You’re cued up, Roarke. That’s one of the things I like best about you.”

“I thought it was my body.”

“That’s right up on the list,” she told him as he rose and went over to the recessed AutoChef. “No, there isn’t going to be enough, but there has to be a connection. You see it, don’t you?”

He waited until the protein drink he’d ordered came through. “Cerise was an intelligent, sensible, and driven woman. She was often selfish, continually vain, and could be an enormous pain in the ass.” He came back to the bed, held out the glass. “She wasn’t the type to jump off the roof of her own building — and let the visual media scoop her own organization.”

“I’ll add that to my data.” She frowned at the creamy, mint-colored drink in her hand. “What is this?”