by J. D. Robb
“It’s too late to have this kind of argument. I’m tired.”
“You weren’t sleeping. Neither was I. Come on, She-Body, hear me out.” He saw her eyes start to shine and shut his own. “Don’t turn on the tap, okay? This already sucks out loud.”
“I know what you’re going to say. You’re messed up, you’re impaired and you want to break things off because you don’t want to screw up my life. Blah, blah.”
She sniffed, swiped a hand under her nose. “You want me to walk away because you can’t, so I can have a full, meaningful life without the burden of being stuck with you. Well, get fucked, McNab, because I’m not walking. And you managed to piss me off just fine by thinking I would.”
“That covers part of it.” He sighed, kept his hand on her knee. “You wouldn’t walk, Peabody. You’re solid, and you wouldn’t walk when I’m . . . when I’m like this. You’d stick, and you’d keep sticking even if your feelings changed about everything. You’re solid, and that’s what a solid does. After a while, neither of us would know, not for sure, if you were with me because you wanted to be or because you felt obligated.”
She got a stubborn line between her brows and turned her head so that she stared at the wall instead of those sober, serious green eyes. “I’m not listening to this.”
“Yeah, you are.” He eased back, gripped the arm of the chair with his good hand. “I don’t want a medical, and you don’t want to be one. For Christ’s sake, I wouldn’t be able to take a piss on my own if Roarke and Dallas hadn’t given me this fucking chair. She’s keeping me on the job, and she doesn’t have to. I’m not going to forget that.”
“You’re just feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Fucking A.” He nearly smiled. “You try going twenty-five percent dead and see how quick you haul out the violins. I’m pissed and I’m scared, and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do tomorrow. If I’ve got to live like this, then that’s the breaks.”
He wasn’t going to be a whiner, he reminded himself. He was not going to be a whiner. “But I’ve got a right to set up the rules, and I don’t want you around.”
“You don’t know you’re going to have to live like this.” She threw up her hands, trying for exasperated while tears burned the back of her throat. “If it doesn’t come back in a few days, you’ll go to that clinic.”
“I’ll go. I’ll owe Dallas and Roarke big for that, too, but I’ll go. And maybe I’ll get lucky.”
“They’ve got a seventy-percent success rate.”
“They got a thirty-percent fail rate. Don’t talk numbers to an e-man, baby. I’ve got to focus on myself for a while. I can’t think about how things may or may not work out with us.”
“So we just box that up so you don’t have to worry about it? Now you’re a coward, too.”
“Goddamn it! Goddamn it, can’t you get that I need to do this, for you? Can’t you give me a lousy break here?”
“Guess not.” Her chin jutted out. “You already had your lousy break. And I’ll tell you, I don’t know how things are going to work out with us either. Half the time I don’t know what the hell I see in you. You’re irritating, you’re sloppy, you’re skinny, and you sure don’t match my childhood image of Delia’s dream man. But I’m in it now and I make my own calls. When I want out, I’ll get out. Until then, you can shut up because I’m going back to bed.”
“Guess Roarke’s more the image of Delia’s dream man,” he grumbled.
“Damn right.” She swung her legs back into bed, punched her pillows. “Smooth, sexy, gorgeous, rich, and dangerous. None of which you are now, or were before you got zapped. None of which you can hope to be once you’re up and dancing again either. Get your own pitiful self back in bed. I’m not your nursemaid.”
He studied her as she laid back, folded her arms across her chest and glared at the ceiling.
And he began to smile. “You’re good. I didn’t see that coming. Piss me off, insult me—the not sexy remark is the one that stung, by the way—and shove the argument out of its orbit.”
“Kiss my ass.”
“It’s one of my favorite recreational activities. I don’t want to fight with you, She-Body. I just think we could both use a little time, a little space. I care about you, Dee. I really care about you.”
It made her eyes sting again. He never called her Dee. She kept her lips pressed tightly together, afraid she might start sobbing. Certain the killing expression she worked onto her face would have made her lieutenant proud, she turned her head.
Then she sat up like a rocket coming off the launching pad, and stared. “You’re scratching your arm.”
“What?”
Very slowly, trembling only a little, she pointed. He followed the direction and saw he’d been scratching absently at his right arm. “So, it itches. What I’m trying to say . . .”
His body went very still. He’d have sworn his own heart stopped. “It itches,” he managed. “It feels like a bunch of needles under the skin. Oh Christ.”
“It’s waking up.” She hurled herself out of bed to kneel beside his chair. “What about your leg? Can you feel anything?”
“Yeah, yeah, I—” The itch grew maddening, and his heart began to hammer. “Help me out, will you? Right along the hip. I can’t reach. Ahhhh.”
“I have to call Summerset.”
“Stop scratching and I’ll kill you.”
“Can you move your fingers, toes, anything?”
“I don’t know.” He bore down, tried to ignore the sensation in his biceps, in his thigh that was like being pricked with a thousand hot needles. “I don’t think so.”
“Do you feel this?” She pressed her thumb against his thigh, and thought she felt a muscle quiver.
“Yeah.” He fought back the hot flood of emotion that gushed into his throat. “Why don’t you shift that grip a few inches to the left? Distract me before I start screaming from this itching.”
“Your dick never went numb.”
A tear spilled off her cheek, plopped on his hand. And he knew the sweetest sensation he would ever feel was that warm, wet tear against his awakening hand.
“I love you, Peabody.”
She looked up at him, with surprise. “Look, don’t get crazy—”
“I love you.” He laid his good hand on her cheek. “I figured I’d lost my chance to tell you that. I’m not going to risk missing it again. Don’t say anything, okay? Maybe you could just give it a chance to settle in.”
She moistened her lips. “I could do that. I need to get Summerset up here. He should . . . do something. Probably.” When she straightened, her knees wobbled. And she turned and cracked her shin smartly on the bed. “Shit. Shit. Wow.”
She limped to the house ’link while McNab scratched his throbbing arm and grinned after her.
By seven-thirty, Eve was pumping in the caffeine again. Second cup in hand, she headed for the lab for a quick check-in with Roarke before the rest of the team poured into her office.
She was nearly through the door when she heard his voice.
She’d heard that icy tone before—the kind that sliced straight through the belly, spilling out the guts before the victim registered the pain.
Though the victim in this case was a minor, nobody was going to call Child Services.
“Is there something about the rules of this household and your current position in it that’s eluded you?” Roarke posed the question the way a cat lurks outside a mouse-hole. With lethal patience and the gleam of fangs.
“Look, what’s the BFD?”
And the kid, Eve thought with a shake of her head, was responding like the mouse stupid enough to think it could outwait or outwit the cat. Foolish, foolish boy, she mused. You are dead meat already.
“You’ll mind your tone when you speak to me, James. I’ll tolerate a certain amount of idiocy from you due to your age, but I’ll tolerate no sass whatsoever. Are we clear on that particular point?”
“Yeah, okay, but I j
ust don’t—”
Eve couldn’t see Roarke’s face, but she could clearly envision the look in his eye. One that had Jamie swallowing back whatever he’d been about to say, and revising it.
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s good. Saves time and heartache. Now, I’ll explain the big fucking deal to you, in words that should be easily understood. Because I gave you a specific order, and when I give specific orders, they’re to be followed. And that’s the end of it. Any part of that hazy for you?”
“People are supposed to think for themselves.”
“That they are. And people who work for me are to do as I tell them. Or they don’t work for me any longer. If you’re going to sulk over it, take yourself off elsewhere so I don’t have to look at you.”
“I’m almost eighteen.”
Roarke eased a hip onto a work counter. “A man, are you? Then behave as one, and not like a boy who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.”
“I could’ve gotten more data.”
“You could’ve crashed that impressive brain of yours. The fact is, Jamie, I’ve plans for you that don’t include going to your memorial.”
Jamie’s shoulders hunched now, his gaze lowered. He kicked idly at the base of the workstation with the toe of his ancient airboot. “I’d’ve been careful.”
“Careful? Careful isn’t trying to sneak into the lab in the middle of the night to boot up an infected computer without anyone at control, without anyone monitoring. What that is, is arrogant and it’s stupid. I’ll tolerate a bit of arrogance, even admire it. But stupidity’s another matter. Beyond all that, you disobeyed an order.”
“I wanted to help. I just wanted to help.”
“You have been, and you’ll continue to help if you give me your word you won’t try the same thing again. Look at me. You say you want to be a cop. God knows why as you’ll work yourself half to death for piss-poor wages and little to no appreciation from the people you swear to protect and serve. A good cop follows orders. He doesn’t always agree with them, doesn’t always like them, but he follows them.”
“I know.” The wind seemed to go out of him, slumping his shoulders again. “I screwed up.”
“You did indeed. But not as badly as you might. Your word on it, Jamie.” Roarke held out a hand. “As a man.”
Jamie looked down at the proffered hand. His shoulders straightened, and he clasped it. “I won’t do it again. I promise.”
“Then that’s the end of it. Go, grab some breakfast. We’ll be back at this in a half hour.”
Eve eased around the corner, waited until Jamie had dashed out and away.
Roarke was already at a workstation when she walked in. She noted he wasn’t doing casework, but transmitting some complicated instructions for his broker. When he was done, she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again when he immediately started another transmission to his admin.
She reminded herself of all the time he was giving her, the work he was juggling, reshuffling, adjusting so he could carve out the time. It helped keep her from grinding her teeth when he followed up the transmission to his admin with one to FreeStar One.
“If you’re going to stand back there shuffling your feet, Lieutenant, you might bring me a cup of coffee. I’m going to need another ten minutes here.”
He was doing her a favor, she told herself as she choked back the sass and got the coffee. She listened with half an ear as he pulled in transmissions, answered, transferred, instructed and, as far as she could tell, ruled his empire from the workstation more suited to a drone than a king.
“That thing you were bidding on, the office complex. I guess they caved and took your offer.”
“Yes.”
“And I wasn’t shuffling my feet.”
“Mentally you were. I’m going to have to take a meeting this afternoon. Shouldn’t tie me up more than ninety minutes.”
“Whatever it takes. You’ve already given the department more than it could expect.”
“Pay me,” he said, and yanked her down for a kiss.
“You work cheap, Ace.”
“That was only a deposit. Have you decided how you’re going to handle this morning?”
“Pretty much. Before I brief the team, I wanted to say that was a good technique with the kid before. Slap him down, break him, crush him into dust, then build him back up again.”
He sampled the coffee. “Heard that did you?”
“I might’ve added a couple of creative threats. Something that gives a good visual. But all in all, it was very impressive.”
“Little peabrain thinking he’d come in, run an infected, and present us with the data this morning. I nearly planted a boot up his ass.”
“How did you know he tried?”
“Because I took the precaution of adding an extra layer of security to the door and locked down all the units.” The faintest smile touched the corners of his mouth. “And I expected him to try it as I would’ve done at his age.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t get through.”
“I’ve a bit more skill than a teenage boy, thanks.”
“Yeah, yeah, and bigger balls, too. I was thinking of that jammer of his. You took the prototype away from him, but I’d’ve bet a month of my piss-poor wages he had another.”
“You mean this?” Roarke pulled it out of his pocket. “I had Summerset toss his room—discreetly. When it wasn’t found there, I assumed—correctly—he had it on him. So I picked his pocket on the way into dinner last night. And slipped him another with a few particular defects.”
“Defects?”
“Gives you a quick, rather unpleasant little jolt when you begin the cloning function. That was small of me, I suppose. But he needed to be put in his place.”
Amused, she clinked her coffee mug to his. “Yeah, all in all, pretty impressive. You want in on this briefing, or do you need some more time to buy Saturn or Venus?”
“I don’t buy planets. They’re just not cost effective.” He rose.
They walked into Eve’s office to see Jamie, Feeney, and Baxter chowing down from a table set up in the middle of the room and loaded with food.
“These eggs”—Baxter swallowed, forked up another bite—“are from chickens. Chickens.”
“Cluck-cluck.” Eve walked over to snag a piece of bacon.
“You fell into gravy with this guy, Dallas. No offense,” Baxter said to Roarke, and shoveled in more eggs.
“None taken.” Amused, he nodded toward the meat platter. “Have you tried the ham? It’s from pig.”
“Oink-oink,” Jamie said, cracking himself up.
“If we’ve finished visiting the farm animals, you’ve got ten minutes to slurp the rest of this up.” Eve polished off the slice of bacon. “And Baxter, if you spread it around Central about me falling into gravy, I’ll see to it that you never have another chicken egg as long as you live.”
She scowled at her wrist unit. “Why aren’t Peabody and McNab in here?” She turned, intending to use the house ’link to roust them. Roarke stopped her with a hand to her shoulder.
“Eve.” He said it quietly, nudging her around until she faced the door.
Her throat snapped closed. Her hand went to Feeney’s shoulder in turn, squeezed hard. They watched McNab walk slowly into the room.
He used a cane. It looked almost stylish somehow—glossy black, silver-tipped. He was sweating. She could see the beads of effort popping out on his face, even as he grinned from ear to ear.
His steps were unsteady, obviously labored. But he was on his feet. Walking.
Peabody was just behind him, struggling not to cry.
Eve felt Feeney’s hand come up, close tight over hers.
“It’s about time you got up off that lazy ass of yours.” His voice was thick, but Feeney was afraid to lift a cup and drink to clear it. His hand was far from steady. “Team’s been carrying you long enough.”
“I thought about trying to pull it off for one more
day.” McNab was out of breath when he reached the table. Still, he reached out with his right hand, closed his fingers over a slice of bacon, lifted it to his mouth. “But I smelled food.”
“You wanted breakfast, you should have come in twenty minutes ago.” Eve waited until he looked at her. “Better eat fast,” she ordered. “We’ve got work.”
“Yes, sir.” He tried to sidestep to a chair, wobbled. Eve caught his elbow, held it until he had his balance again.
“Dallas?”
“Detective.”
“I figure this is the only chance I’ll ever have at this.” He gave her a hard, noisy kiss on the mouth that had Baxter applauding.
Eve choked back a laugh and looked at him coolly. “And you think I won’t knock you on your ass for that?”
“Not this time.” Exhausted, he dropped into a chair. Caught his breath. “Hey, kid, pass those eggs over here before Baxter licks the damn platter.”
After breakfast, after the briefing, Eve dismissed her team but for Peabody.
“He looks good,” Eve began. “A little worn out, but good.”
“Didn’t get any sleep. He was pulling the ‘woe is me, you’ve got to go’ routine when—”
“The what?”
“He was feeling low and he’d gotten into his head he wanted me to walk so he wouldn’t feel like a burden, or I wouldn’t feel like it, whatever. We were arguing, and it started. His arm starting itching, then his legs, and then . . . Sorry, I get messed up when I talk about it.”
“Okay, then let’s not talk about it. Except to say I’m glad he’s—” She broke off, pressed her fingers to her eyes and breathed deep.
“Messes you up, too.” Peabody sniffled, dug out her handkerchief. “That’s so nice.”
“We’re all glad he’s back. Let’s leave it alone for now.”
She sighed once, then switched gears. “Data has come into my hands through an alternate source. I’m not going to name this source. I intend to act on this data, which includes names and info in sealeds that I do not, as yet, have authority to open.”