Forgotten in Death(84)

He paused a moment. “Which is why I didn’t find the time to buy Lithuania.”

“Well. There’s always tomorrow. Where is Lithuania anyway?”

“On the Baltic Sea.” At her stony stare, he laughed. “Baltic is here,” he said, holding up the wine bottle. “Sweden and Denmark here, Belarus here, Poland here, and … yes, Latvia up here. So sits Lithuania.” He circled a finger at the point in his invisible air map.

“How do you know that? Seriously. I could go out, grab twenty strangers off the street, and, unless they’re Lithuanian, odds are low I’d find two who know that.”

“It pays to know when you have business interests there and in the region. How many people did the Traveler murder?”

“Jacob Ainsley—I hate when they have a nickname. Traveler because he stayed mobile, using mostly campgrounds, national parks, cheap motels in his quest to murder at least one person in every U.S. state and territory. He used various means—shooting, bludgeoning, stabbing, strangling—but preferred the knife for the close-up work and the blood. Blood he kept labeled by date of kills in a collection of vials.

“Between 2037 and 2043 he killed fifty-three—that’s known kills. He’d have made it fifty-four, but the woman he targeted in Juneau, Alaska, Marian Moon, former U.S. Army Special Forces, kicked his ass. Ainsley was the first convict transferred to off-planet prison Rexal when it was completed in 2053.”

“I’ll wager I could grab twenty strangers and so on.”

“I see your point. Where’s Mirvinastan?”

“Somewhere on the north side of your imagination.”

“Just checking.”

As they approached the house, she saw a table set on one of the patios. Summer-blue linen, scattered tea lights, cheerful flowers, silver heating domes.

“You had a plan.”

“I did.”

“It’s a good plan.”

He poured more wine and, prepared for anything—even spinach—Eve removed the domes.

“Pizza.” She felt a ridiculous surge in her heart. “You must really love me.”

“I must.”

She sat, reached for his hand one more time. “After dinner, we could walk around the other way, work off the pizza. And we could watch a vid.”

“Now who loves who? What sort of vid would you like?”

“Let’s do one of those ancient ones you like so much, where the men all wear hats and the women dress like getting out of bed’s a formal event.”

“I can make that work.”

She took her first bite of pizza and thought again it was good to be home.





17





In the morning, she woke refreshed and satisfied. Hard not to, she figured, when you had a pond, pizza, popcorn. Add in a pretty entertaining vid followed by a round of lazy sex, and how could you complain?

And she woke with the man she’d shared all that with sitting across the room, the cat curled in his lap. The stock reports scrolled by on the wall screen, but he appeared to pay more attention to whatever he studied on his tablet.

“They insist we’ll have storms with heavy spots of rain this afternoon,” he said without looking up.

“They do?”

“They’re very confident, so you’ll want your topper if you go out into the field.”

“Check.”

Right now she wanted coffee. But when she glanced at the time, she saw she could squeeze in a solid thirty-minute workout.

“I’m going to hit the gym. I’ve got thirty to spare.”

“Take twenty, and use the other ten for a swim. That’s the way I started my day, and it’s set me up nicely.”

“Your day starts in the middle of the night.”

But she considered it as she rode the elevator down and decided it was a damn good idea.

Thirty minutes later, system pumped and ready, she came up to grab coffee and to shower. And he still worked the tablet.

“What’s on there?”

“The security system McNab and I are designing for the new house. Plus, the other business—sound and entertainment, lighting, communications, and the like.”

She took her first life-affirming gulp of coffee. “I gave Peabody a time-limited opportunity to gush about her kitchen stuff yesterday.”

He looked up, smiled. And God, that smile could drain recently pumped muscles into putty.

“It’s a warm, lovely palette she’s chosen, good materials, an efficient but not stagnant design. Or they’ve chosen, as Ian’s very involved.”

She shrugged, grunted, then went to shower.

Under the jets, she let her mind open to the work again. Garrett Wicker, and she looked forward to that one. Now, if storms and crap really were happening, she wanted to get to the Singers in Hudson Valley before they hit.

Especially if getting to Hudson Valley and back involved a jet-copter. Which, sadly, made the most sense.

But she had to hit DeWinter. Lab first, she decided. And if she got to Central a little later than nine, the son of a bitch could wait.

Since she’d pushed it off her plate the night before, she needed to contact Reo about Wicker, set that up. Have Peabody set up the meet with the Singers.

She stepped into the drying tube, closed her eyes as the warm air swirled, and laid out a mental agenda.