Echoes in Death (In Death #44)(32)

She drove across town, cursing the traffic to help stay alert. Then let out a long sigh of relief when she drove through the gates.

Night had fallen when she’d done her second round in the crime scene, and low, sulky clouds smothered moon and stars. But the house, with all its turrets and towers, its dignified gray stone, glowed in welcome.

She wound up the drive, parked in front of the entrance, and let out one more sigh before grabbing her file bag. She stepped out of the car into the bitter wind and thought: Winter sucks. Pushed her way through the wind to the door, and stepped inside to warmth and light and quiet.

Where the bony figure of Summerset loomed in the foyer with the pudge of a cat at his feet.

Galahad trotted to her to slip and slide through her legs.

As she shrugged out of her coat, she eyed Summerset and thought of the ghoul costume.

“Where were you on the night of November twenty-eight?” she demanded.

He arched one elegant eyebrow. “I’ll have to check my calendar.”

“Never mind.” She pulled off her hat, her scarf, tossed them on the newel post with her coat. “That asshole needed makeup to pull off the ghoul. You’re a natural.”

Ridiculously pleased she’d had the energy and brainpower for some decent snark, she started upstairs. The cat bounded up with her.

She thought of her newly redone office with its already beloved command center—with an AutoChef that would provide coffee right there. But calculated she didn’t have the energy or brainpower to so much as set up her murder board, much less review her notes or add to them.

Instead, she aimed for the bedroom.

And there it was, the big, glorious bed.

She’d been fine with the way the bedroom looked before. Hell, a lot more than fine, she thought now, plus she’d gotten used to it.

But she couldn’t fault the newly painted walls in their soft, relaxing gray, the deeper tones used on the thick molding of the ceiling to sort of showcase the height of it, the punch of the sky window. She could hardly bitch about the deep blue sofa in the sitting area—the longer, wider sofa.

She didn’t know squat about floor plans and decor, really, but she couldn’t dig up a complaint about the arrangement of chairs—and the rich tones of them—that all but insisted you sit down, relax, and let the world go somewhere else for a while.

Even she could appreciate the intricately carved doors closing off a slick little bar, including AutoChef and friggie. Maybe she thought the expansive closet/dressing room was over the top, but it didn’t detract from the whole. And she knew both she and Roarke would enjoy the addition of a terrace outside of what the decorator called atrium doors.

But the real star of the room, in her book, was that big bed with its fancifully carved head-and footboard, all dressed in soft bronze and copper tones with mounds of fluffy pillows.

She didn’t stumble to it, but it was close. Then fell across it, facedown, and dropped straight into sleep.

Galahad gathered himself, leaped up. He padded across the duvet, sniffed at Eve’s hair. Apparently satisfied, he stretched himself across her waist as if to hold her in place. And began to purr.

Roarke walked in moments later.

“Down for the count, is she?” he said as Galahad blinked his bicolored eyes.

Shaking his head, Roarke moved to the bed, crouched, pulled off Eve’s boots. She didn’t so much as stir.

He lit the fire, sat to pull off his own boots. Snagging the cashmere throw from the foot of the bed, he tossed it over his wife. Waited for the cat’s head to pop out.

Then he stretched out beside Eve, and slept.

*

Dreams broke down defenses. For hours she’d blocked out the echoes, the murmurs, the emotions. But sleep undermined boundaries.

She was a child, lost and frightened, bloody and broken. Though she kept it cradled against her body, the arm her father had snapped before she’d killed him jarred with every step, wept with pain. It burned where he’d raped her; her face throbbed where he’d struck her.

Yet it seemed she floated, like a ghost. Like the dead.

She feared the dark. Terrible things hid in the dark, waited there, watched from there.

Would they swallow her whole, would she fall into the bottomless pit where the rats and spiders would eat her as her father had said?

Everything around her looked like something she’d seen through a dirty window, all smudged and blurry. And all the sounds came from far, far away.

Was he coming after her? Would he find her and drag her back to that cold, cold room with the flashing red light?

He would hurt her, he would hurt her, he would hurt her. Kill her. Kill.

She wanted to hide, wanted to sleep.

She tried. But they found her. She couldn’t fight, even when they made everything inside her scream at the pain, shriek with the terror.

Then the lights were too bright, burning her eyes, and the voices were too loud, banging in her head. Someone told her she was going to be all right, that she was safe. But she knew about lies.

Someone asked her for her name, but she had none to give.

There were hands on her, everywhere, and she smelled her own blood. Even as she screamed again, the dark came and took her in.

“Dreaming, just dreaming. You’re home, you’re safe. I’m here.”

Roarke gathered her close, and his voice, his scent, broke the hold of the past.