Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(73)

He would have carried her in, and straight up to bed, but she stirred.

“I’m okay,” she mumbled as she pushed herself up to sitting. “I’ve got it.”

“Sleep,” he said as he slid an arm around her on the way to the door.

“Yeah, I’m mostly already there. I need to be up at six. No, five-thirty’s better. I want to clear some things, go into Central, and be ready when they transport Mackie.”

“Five-thirty it is then.”

“I can count on you for that.” She leaned her head toward his shoulder, realized she could have slept standing up. “Does it have to be oatmeal? You’re already thinking about what you’re going to feed me in the morning.”

“Pancakes.” Swamped in love, he brushed a kiss over her hair. “And bacon and berries.”

“And lots and lots of coffee.”

He ended up carrying her the rest of the way, pulling off her boots as she dragged off her coat. Together they got her undressed. She managed a “Thanks” as she burrowed under, and was dead asleep before he slipped in beside her, wrapped an arm around her.

And let himself join her.

—

Eve stood on the circle of white ice with its spreading pools of blood. The wind cut like razors. In the deep, dark night, the blood read black against the white, and the bodies it flowed from were a pale and sickly gray.

She faced the girl, the girl with smooth skin and black dreads and bold green eyes.

And what she felt in that moment, looking into those bold green eyes, was a kind of pity. One she had to shove away, even in dreams.

“I’m better than you,” Willow said with a glinting smile.

“At killing unarmed civilians? Sure, I’ll give you that.”

“Better than you all the way. I know what I am. I like what I am. And I’m the best at what I am. But you? You pretend to be what you’re not.”

“I’m a cop. I don’t have to pretend.”

“You’re a killer, same as me.”

“We’re not even close to the same.” Yet something shuddered through her at the words—Willow’s, her own. “You kill for sport, for jollies. You kill the defenseless and the innocent. Because you can—until I stop you.”

“It’s the kill that counts, and I already have more racked up than you. Reasons don’t matter.”

“Yeah, they do. Who’s running and hiding? Not me.”

“I’m right here.” As the wind whipped, Willow opened her arms. “And you hide every day, run and hide every day from who you are, deep down.”

In the dark night, the red light began to pulse, washing over the white ice. “You did that to your own father.”

Eve looked down at Richard Troy’s body, at the blood seeping from more than a dozen wounds.

“I did that, and I’d do it again.”

“Because you’re a killer.”

“Because he was a monster.”

“Who says you get to choose and I don’t? People hurt my father, now they’re dead.”

“Your father’s a selfish, twisted son of a bitch.”

Willow smiled again. “Yours, too, but my father loves me. He taught me, helped make me what I am. So did yours.”

“I made me what I am, despite him. How did she hurt your father?” Eve pointed at the dead girl in red.

“I didn’t like her. Show-off. The kind who thinks they’re better than me. Like you do. When I’m done, I’ll come back for you.”

“When I’m done, you little freak, you’ll live in a concrete cage. You and your old man.”

Willow threw back her head and laughed. “You’d kill me if you could, because that’s who you are. But you won’t find me. I listened to my father, bitch. I learned, I worked, and I’m not finished. Before I’m done, I’ll check off every name on my list, then I’ll kill everyone you care about. I’ll save you for last.”

Willow raised her assault rifle. Eve drew her weapon.

“And then,” Willow said.

They fired together.

Eve woke with a jolt, Roarke’s arms around her.

“Shh, baby, it’s all right. Just a dream.”

“She said we’re the same, but we’re not. We’re not the same.”

“All right now. You’re cold. Let me light the fire.”

But she wrapped around him. “We’re not the same. Sick bastard fathers don’t make us the same. But she won’t stop and neither will I. What does that mean?”

“It means she’s as sick as her father. It means you’ll do your job. You’ll do whatever you can to protect others, even while you stand for the dead, for those she’s killed. Not the same, darling Eve. Opposites.”

“We could have been the same. We could have.” She pressed her face into his shoulder, a shoulder that was always there when she needed it most. “How much is you?” She drew back, framed his face with her hands. Even in the dark she could see the wild, wonderful blue of his eyes. “I love you.”

“A ghrá.” He kissed her softly. “My only.”

“I love you,” she said again, pouring herself into the kiss. “You saved me.”