Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(79)

“I need to find Summerset, make certain he’s all right.”

“Go,” Feeney told him. “We’re good here. Better than I figured we’d be. You gonna license this program to the NYPSD?”

“We’ll consider it a gift. I’ll arrange it.”

That was something, at least, he thought as he left them.

He tried Summerset’s ’link, but only got v-mail. Forgot to turn the shagging ’link on, he thought, or was too busy staunching blood or splinting bones to answer.

He started to try Eve, decided she’d not welcome an interruption to her work any more than he would have to his at a crisis point.

He wandered through, and cops on guard or at tasks merely nodded to him. Once, they would have chased him hard and fast, he thought. Those days were done, and however much he might entertain a bit of nostalgia for the thrill and adventure of them, he wouldn’t trade a moment of this life he had, not even with the weight of worry.

He saw her first, coming through a door he realized with the blueprint in his head must have led backstage, house left. So pale, he thought, and because he knew those eyes so well, he knew there had been tears somewhere.

As she walked, she spoke into her ’link, giving more orders, he assumed, coordinating details, and taking reports.

As he started to go to her, Summerset came through the doors, house right.

Frail, Roarke thought again, the bones of his face too prominent against the drawn skin. Something more than fatigue in his eyes. Tears again, the sort that burn in the belly, scorch the heart, and aren’t cooled by the shedding.

In that instant he felt caught between them, these two vital loves, opposing forces.

Then he saw Summerset sway, just slightly, and reach a hand down to the back of a seat to steady himself. There the choice was made for him, and he changed angles to go to the man who’d given him a life.

“You need to sit.” Roarke spoke more brusquely than he meant to as that worry leaped hard into his throat. “I’ll get you some water.”

“I’m all right. So many aren’t. There were so many.”

“You’ll sit,” he said again just as Eve stepped up to them. “Both of you will bloody well sit down for five bloody minutes while I find some bloody water.”

“We need to go to Central. I need you to come in,” she said to Summerset, “give a statement.”

“Well, fuck that,” Roarke snapped. “He needs to go home, he needs to rest. Bugger it, have you no eyes to see?”

“It’ll be easier, away from here. I can have you taken home after.”

“He’s going nowhere but home. I’ll be taking him myself.”

With sudden and bright fury, Eve rounded on Roarke. “This is a police investigation, this is a goddamn crime scene, and I say who goes where and when.”

“Then arrest the pair of us since you’ve apparently nothing better to do. Is this how you treat him after he’s fagged to the bone from mopping up blood?”

“Don’t tempt me. I don’t have time for drama.”

“I’ll show you drama right enough.”

“Stop it, both of you.” Summerset’s tone, straw-thin with fatigue, still held an edge. “Behaving like cranky toddlers needing a nap.”

“I told you to sit the hell down.”

“And I believe I will, despite your rudeness. Because I need to.”

Summerset lowered into an aisle seat, let out a sigh. “I’ll go into Central, of course, but I need to know if Ivanna is all right before I leave.”

“I just saw her. She’s fine, and we’re having her taken home. I told her you’d contact her as soon as you could.”

“The others. Mavis, Leonardo, Nadine, Trina?”

“The same. They’re all . . .” Eve’s voice broke; she cleared it. “They’re all good.”

“That eases my mind.” His eyes met Eve’s a moment, and he sighed again. Then he looked at Roarke. “I could use some water, as it happens.”

“I’ll get it. You stay just where you are.”

“I frightened him,” Summerset told Eve when they were alone. “It’s difficult to see weakness in the one who raised you.”

“Understood, but—”

“And you worry him. You look, Lieutenant, as brutally tired and heavy as I feel. And what can he do for us, he asks himself, when one he loves above all else must use one he cares for as a child for a parent? Why, snarl at them both, of course.”

He smiled a little.

She could feel herself teetering on some rocky edge, knowing that if she leaned too far one way she’d crumble. No choice then, she thought, no choice but to lean the other way, and hold on.

“I’m sorry, but time’s so narrow. I can’t wait to move to the next step.”

“Understood.” He echoed her. “I would like to go home. The boy has that right. I would very much like to go home. We could save each other time by doing this here and now. Is that possible?”

“Yeah, I just figured you’d want to get away.”

“You never get away, do you?”

Roarke came back with two tubes of water.

“Hush, boy,” Summerset muttered as Roarke started to speak. “I’m about to give the lieutenant my statement, as we’ve agreed to do so right here.”