Forgotten in Death(43)

“After your meal. We have some excellent grilled pork chops.”

“Sounds like just the thing.”

Eve muttered her way up and toward her office. “I didn’t trash the boots. They’re just bunged up a little.”

“He’ll unbung them as much as possible.” He gave her butt a quick pat. “I’m going to open that wine. I know very well you’ll want to set up your board—or boards, in this case—and update your book and so on. But I’m having a glass of wine. You have twenty minutes to do as you must, and I’ll take the wine with me and give this search another nudge or two.

“Twenty minutes,” he repeated as he selected the bottle from the hidden cabinet in her office. “Then we’re having chops.”

She’d figured on thirty, and could probably squeeze him for the extra time—especially if he got caught up in the search.

Still, she got right down to it, opening the operations on her command center while the cat made himself comfortable on her sleep chair.

She wrote out the report, starting with the first interview with Angelina Delgato, attached the recording of the crime scene. She shot it to Peabody, who could whine all she wanted, because Eve didn’t have time to bother listening. And because she wanted a consult, sent it and everything else she had to Mira, with a request for that consult.

Since that ate up the twenty, she was still setting up her board when Roarke came back.

“I’m almost done. Anything on your end?”

“We’ll discuss.”

He opened her terrace doors to the air before walking by her and into the kitchen.

“I didn’t get anything from Morris yet,” she called out as she worked. “I need to give him a nudge.”

“Do you think he’s lagging about?”

“No, but—”

“Leave it be, Eve. You’ve had three murders drop in your lap in one day. Take a breath, eat a meal, and let it process in that busy brain of yours for a bit.”

“It’s been processing.”

“No.” He came out with two domed plates. “It’s been collecting, arranging, intersecting. Now let it sit there awhile.”

He set the plates on the table in front of the open doors, then went back for the wine and another glass for her.

“Do you ever get tired of doing all that?” She gestured to the table. “And nagging me to eat something?”

“Yes. But we all have our crosses to bear, don’t we?”

“I closed a lot of cases before I had fancy boots getting unbunged and fancy dining at regular intervals.”

He poured her wine, poured a second glass for himself. Spoke very pleasantly. “Are you trying to annoy me so I’ll say bugger it and leave you alone?”

She stuck her hands in her pockets, stepped back to evaluate a section of her board. “Maybe.”

“Do you think it’ll work?”

“I could make it work.” But she turned around, walked to the table. “But then I’d spend time pissing you off instead of just eating the damn pork chops, then getting back to work.”

“Aren’t you the clever one?”

She sat, giving him the steely eye as she picked up her wine. Because, damn it, she wanted some wine, and maybe a breather with it.

“You can be pretty annoying, too.”

“Yet somehow we tolerate each other.”

He lifted the domes.

“Crap.”

And lifted his eyebrows at her snarl. “A problem with the meal I selected?”

“Yeah. It looks really good, and now I’m hungry. I could’ve done with a couple slices of pie—pizza and cherry. Now I want this chop and those whatever potatoes.”

“Scalloped.”

“Yeah, those. What is that green stuff? Broccoli?”

“Roasted sesame and ginger broccoli, according to the AC menu. That should disguise the green well enough for you.”

“Maybe.” But she went for the chop first. “I’m going to say I know you gave this a lot of your day. You did that, initially, because those remains—one an infant—turned up on your property. You may not take blame and responsibility like Harmony says her father does, but it weighs on you.”

“It does. And on you.”

“It’s supposed to weigh on me. You kept giving more of your day because, well, you get a kick out of solving a puzzle in EDD, but then you gave more because I asked you. So I’ll eat the stupid green stuff and won’t bitch about it. This time.”

“I accept the terms of your deal.”

She took a small bite of the green stuff, which was surprisingly tasty. But she decided there was no need to sweeten the deal by mentioning it.

“If you want to wait until we eat before telling me whatever progress you made on Alva Quirk, I’m okay with it.”

He took a roll, braided and golden and glossy, broke it in two. He passed her half.

“One of the multitudes of reasons I love you is because I know you mean that, even though it’s brutally hard for you. One of the reasons I admire you is I know you’ll work to the bone for Alva Quirk, and when you get her justice, you’ll work to the bone for whoever lay in that cellar all these years. And you’ll do the same for Carmine Delgato, even though he may have played a part in Alva’s death.”