Forgotten in Death(82)

And let her mind empty.

She wanted home. Wanted the cool, the clean, the quiet, but just didn’t have the energy left to push for it.

It would be there, she told herself. Beyond the endless river of pedestrians, the smoking glide-carts, the yellow flood of Rapid Cabs.

It would be there.

And when she drove through the gates, the world shut itself on the other side.

Before Roarke, she’d never had that, that demarcation, that line between everything else and home. Even when she brought the work, the blood, the death, the despair through the gates, she still had home.

And now, when her head ached from the blood, the death, the despair, with work yet to do, she thanked God for home.

Summerset waited, and the cat pranced away from his side to ribbon between her legs.

“Did you lose your topper?”

It took her a minute to understand what he meant. And to realize she’d forgotten to grab it when she left her office. “I left it at work. It didn’t rain.”

“Thunderstorms likely tomorrow afternoon. You’ll want it then.”

She didn’t want to think about tomorrow afternoon. She didn’t want to think about tomorrow morning, so she walked up the stairs.

Summerset watched her go, then took out his ’link, sent a text.

Boy, the lieutenant has exhausted herself.

The reply came quickly.

Leaving for home shortly. I’ll see to her.

Because she was exhausted, more in mind than body, Eve went straight to the bedroom. Without bothering with her weapon harness, her boots, she flopped facedown on the bed.

When Roarke came in some thirty minutes later, she lay where she’d dropped, with the cat stretched over her butt.

“Worn herself out, has she now?” he murmured to Galahad. “Well then, we’ll tend to her as best we can.”

He gave the cat a light scratch between the ears before he tugged off his tie.

He was ready, more than, to shed the day himself.

He loved his work, as his cop loved hers, but Christ, there were times it left you knackered.

His thoughts ran right alongside where Eve’s had as he changed out of his suit. Home. He’d had the building, and the beauty, the space and the quiet of it. But he hadn’t had home, not the full of it, before Eve.

He left her sleeping to see to some details. When he came back, he stretched out beside her and let himself fall away.

Still, when she surfaced, stirred, opened her eyes, his looked back into them.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi to you.” He laid a hand on her cheek. “You rested well.”

“I needed to get out of my head. I guess I did. The cat weighs a ton.”

“He’s been on guard.”

“Damn good cat. Did you actually nap?”

“For a bit. I wanted out of my head as well. What do you say to a walk on this fine spring evening?”

“I could take a walk. Do you have work?”

“Nothing urgent. Do you?”

“We closed it.” She put her hand over his, squeezed. “Alva and Delgato. I’m sorry there’s not much movement on—”

“Stop.” He brought her hand to his lips. “The Russian, was it? As you thought.”

“Tovinski, yeah.”

“You’ll tell me about it, if you like, while we take that walk.” He sat up, picked up the cat, stroked him. “I don’t think you’ll need your weapon.”

“Right. It was a good day,” she said as she pushed up, released the harness. “We did the job.”

“And still you’re unsettled.”

“Some, I guess. Yeah. It’s not time to walk away.”

He rose, reached for her hand. Satisfied he’d done his job, Galahad stretched across the bed to take his own nap.

They went out the front door and walked the lush grounds through the long tunnel of roses. They bloomed elegantly and scented the air while little diamonds of sunlight sparkled through.

Another world, she thought. A separate world from blood and death and petty cruelties.

“He was sloppy,” Eve began, “just like you said. Reo got a warrant because I had enough—the correct way,” she added. “And the forensic accountant found what you found pretty quick. Not Roarke quick, but quick.”

“Well, after all, the accountant would have to do it the correct way.”

“Reo and I came up with a plan—and an alternate if that didn’t fly. Peabody and I worked out strategy … Over lunch. Over lunch on the floor of my office, because she decided to be you.”

He shot her a bemused look. “I don’t recall ever having lunch with you on the floor of your office.”

“She cornered me into eating, which is you.”

He took a long, winding, meandering way as she filled him in.

“Not to disparage your considerable skills—or Reo’s, or Peabody’s—the man broke quickly for a veteran gangster.”

“Fear for his life.” They walked through the orchard, where tiny green peaches replaced the fragrant blossoms of May. “He could take lives without a second thought, but the idea of his own death terrified him. Bardov terrified him. Living in a cage is still living.”

“A kind of living, I suppose. And you don’t know where he’ll do that kind of living?”