Thankless in Death (In Death #37)(77)

She jammed her hands in her pockets. “I don’t want to give him so much as a rat hole for his lawyers to shove him through once we’ve got his sorry ass.”

“Some are good enough shooting angles not to make a rat hole. Not that I’m saying that’s the way.” He lifted his shoulders. “Roarke’s heading in.”

And he knew every angle. Had probably invented some. “He likes to play with his nerds.”

Feeney only smiled. “We can use him. I’m going to move into the lab once McNab gets back with the comps. I can run some of this on auto, for now. We may have quicker luck with the equipment.”

“Let me know when … That was quick,” she said when Roarke strolled in.

“Some luck with traffic.” His elegant dark suit and topcoat stood in contrast to the frenzy of color through the doorway behind him. He glanced at the screens, a quick scan with those wild blue eyes. “Ah, multishifts, cross-funnels, lateral dips.”

“Yeah,” Feeney confirmed. “And then some.”

“Won’t this be fun?”

“Have at it. I’m hitting the morgue, then I have some interviews with potential targets.”

And where, Roarke wondered, would any sort of food be in the mix? She looked, to his eye, tight and tired. “I’ll go with you.”

She frowned at him. “What about the fun?”

“I’ll work by remote, and have the best of both. You can send what you’d like me to do to my PPC,” Roarke said to Feeney.

“Can do. If you hang until McNab gets back—”

“He’s back,” Roarke interrupted. “I ran into him briefly. He was logging in evidence then bringing it up to the lab.”

“We’ll log out one of the comps. See what you can do with it.”

“Delighted. Should I meet you in the garage?” he asked Eve.

“I can wait.” She stepped to the side, pulled out her ’link, and took the time to notify those on her list to expect a visit.

She finished up with the last one walking with Roarke as he carried a sealed comp to the garage.

“You’re supposed to have a minion haul stuff when you dress like that.”

“Am I now? Are you volunteering?”

She ignored that, keyed in her code to unlock the car doors. “How are you supposed to work on that while we’re driving all over lower Manhattan?”

“Easily enough as you’ll be behind the wheel.”

He unsealed the comp then took some sort of minidrive out of his pocket, attached it to one port, attached his PPC to another. Glanced at her as she pulled out of the garage and into perfectly miserable traffic.

“You’re tired,” he said.

“No, I’m not.”

“You are, and you show it very likely because you haven’t had any real food since breakfast.”

“I had a cookie. And I have a little box of them—which, damn it, I left in my office. Say good-bye to those.”

“Real food,” he repeated.

Had she? She couldn’t remember. “I’ll eat when we get home. Mommy.”

He drilled a finger into her side in retaliation, then tapped and swiped on the in-dash ’link. “AC mode,” he commanded, “twelve-ounce protein shake, chocolate.”

Received … Selecting …

“AC mode? What AC mode?”

“The one programmed into the system because my wife starves herself most days.”

Delivering …

He had to take off his seat belt, shift, reach through the seats to the back. She heard the quiet slide, little click, and frowned into the rear-view, but couldn’t quite get the angle.

“Where is it? How is it?”

“It’s in the backseat console. Just a mini,” he said as he handed her the shake. “It’ll only hold a few basics. A couple of shakes, coffee—”

“Coffee?”

He gave her a long look, dry as dust. “It must be love.”

“Coffee,” she said again.

“A few protein bars as well. You told me you’d read the manual.”

“I did. Most of it. Some of it. A little of it,” she admitted. And because it must have been love, drank the shake. It didn’t suck.

“Why aren’t you tired? Why don’t you have to have a protein shake?”

“Because I had a decent lunch and a little tea with biscuits a couple hours ago.”

“I was chasing a killer a couple hours ago.”

“Maybe if you’d eaten something you’d have caught him.”

“Would not. Lucky bastard. Who gets in and out of a health clinic inside thirty minutes? Nobody. But he does. It’s been breaking his way, but with this”—she jerked her chin toward the comp—“maybe it’ll start breaking mine.”

She pulled up at the morgue.

“If you don’t need me to come in, I’ll start working on that break.”

“Yeah.” She started to get out, hesitated, then put her seat back. Reaching under, she tugged, then pulled out a candy bar with sticky tape crossed over the wrapper.

“Clever girl.”

“That damn candy thief can’t get into a shielded vehicle, so I keep emergency candy.” She broke it in half, handed him a share. “It is love,” she confirmed, then climbed out.