Strangers in Death (In Death #26)(72)

She scowled, pulled at her hair. “It’s like Mavis having a baby, isn’t it? I have to do all this stuff because they’re doing all this stuff, which is completely—when you think about it— theirstuff, but it gets to be my stuff because somehow or other they got to be my stuff.”

“The fact I followed that clearly from point to point proves you’re my stuff.”

“I’m not thinking about it. I’m just not. It makes the backsides of my eyes ache. Computer, display last run.”

Blowing out a breath, she dropped down at her desk to get back to murder. That was the stuff she understood.

Shortly after oneA.M. , she roused when Roarke slid an arm under her knees. “Damn it, I dropped out. Just for a minute. You don’t have to…” But when he picked her up, she shrugged a shoulder. “Okay, what the hell. I got two more possibles. Not as strong as Petrelli, but possibles.

“Mmm.” Her voice was slurry, a sign she’d not only hit the wall but slid bonelessly under it.

“Need interviews, then could run some probabilities. Gotta hammer the crack,” Eve continued.

“Absolutely. I’ll fetch you a nice big hammer first thing in the morning.”

“Got hundreds left to run. Longer it takes, longer she has to patch up the damn hole. Not going to run though, no sir, not going to run.”

“No, indeed.” He carried her up to the bed, laid her down. As he started to unbutton her jeans, she sat up, patted his hand away.

“I can do it. You get ideas.”

“Yet somehow I can resist them when my wife’s all but comatose. Heroic of me.”

She smiled sleepily as she wiggled out of the jeans. “Better not forget that, ’cause I’m sleeping naked.” She tossed aside the sweatshirt, then climbed under the fluffy duvet. “Gonna nail it down,” she murmured as she snuggled in. “It’s coming around, I can feel it, and I’m going to nail it down.”

“There’s that hammer again.” He slid in beside her, draped an arm around her waist. “Pick it up tomorrow, Lieutenant. Time to lay the tools down for the night.”

“Bet she sleeps like a baby. I bet she…Shit!” She flopped over in bed so quickly, Roarke had to shoot down a hand to catch her knee.

“Mind the jewels, then.”

“He had traces of over-the-counter sleep aid in him.”

“A lot of people take sleep aids routinely. In fact, on nights such as this it’s a wonder I don’t.”

“Didn’t think about them overmuch as the trace matched with what he had in his bathroom. Just a standard. But I asked Ben and the house manager, and neither of them can confirm he was a routine user. So what if she planted them there? What if she found a way to get some into him that night.”

“When she was in St. Lucia.”

“He took vitamins—a whole buncha vitamins regularly. He had this, ah…crap, my brain—”

“Is begging you to turn it off.”

“It has to wait. He had this weekly dispenser deal. You fill up each day’s dose, so you don’t have to open a bunch of bottles or try to remember if you took the E and not the C—whatever. She could’ve pulled a switch.”

“So he fell asleep at his desk that morning, or while putting on the third green.”

“He took them at night.” She smiled in the dark. “He took them at night because he thought that helped them absorb better. That’s in my notes somewhere.”

“All right, then, she switched pills. How would you prove it, and what would you do with it should you?”

“Just another piece to poke at. I don’t remember seeing any sleep aids in her bathroom, in her night table. But she said she might take a soother, or take an aid now and then.”

“She was traveling,” he reminded her. “She might have taken them with her.”

“Yeah, I’m going to check on that. And what if—”

“Eve?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember that hammer I said I’d fetch you in the morning?”

She frowned in the dark. “Sort of.”

“Don’t make me get it now and knock you out with it.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Go to sleep.”

She frowned in the dark for another minute, but her eyes began to droop. She felt his arm go around her again, drawing her in, then the muffled thud as Galahad pounced onto the foot of the bed.

As the cat arranged himself over her feet, she dropped into sleep.

15

IN SLEEP, SHE ARRANGED THEM. THOMAS ANDERS at the center with the others fanning out like rays. Ava, Ben, Edmond and Linny Luce, Greta Horowitz, Leopold Walsh, Brigit Plowder, Sasha Bride-West.

But no. She shifted restlessly in sleep. No, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t the sun, he wasn’t the center. Not to her. He was only the vehicle, he was only the means.

Expendable, when the time was right. Steady, reliable, not very spectacular, predictable Tommy.

Left with a nice chunk of change. Dirk Bronson lounged in a deck chair behind Ava, sipping a frothy drink. Not a backward glance.

Seed money. The kickoff. The flashy lead-off batter.

Change the lineup.

In the dream, the ball field was summer green and rich brown, the white bases gleaming like marble plates. The players took that field in uniforms black as death. Brigit crouching behind the plate—catcher to Ava’s pitcher—Sasha fussing with her hair at short, Edmond at first, Linny at second, Ben playing the hot corner at third with Leopold and Greta patrolling right and left fields, respectively.