by J. D. Robb
“You found our Beata.”
“I’d have found her my own way. I’d have stopped this my own way.”
“I think perhaps you would. But the child is so precious to me, how could I risk it? I was guided to you, or you to me, when I was between. Who can say?”
“I’d think you could at this point. Death ought to come with a few answers.”
Now Gizi smiled. “Perhaps it will. You didn’t kill him.”
“It’s not how I work.”
“I would have,” she said simply, “but your way will be enough. You are the warrior. I can leave the gift with you.”
“No. Seriously.”
“Then it goes with me. I had a good, long life, but he didn’t have the right to end it. You’ll see there is balance.”
“He’ll pay, for all of it.” She hesitated, then asked what she had asked Lopez, asked herself. “Is it enough?”
“This time. For others?” Gizi lifted her shoulders, let them fall. “Who can say?”
“This time then. I have to finish. I have to finish my way.”
“Yes. As do I. You’ve freed them. Now I’ll guide them to the other side where there will be light and peace. Until we’re called again. Pa chiv tuka, Eve Dallas.”
“Ni eve tuka.” Eve shook her head. “You’re welcome,” she corrected.
She saw the light again, not blinding now, but warm. She simply closed her eyes as the heat flowed through her, then out again. When she opened them, there was nothing but the dim corridor and the sound of approaching footsteps.
She pushed away from the wall, moved forward to direct cops and techs. To do her job. “They’re in there,” she said to Lopez. “Maybe you can do . . . what you do.”
“Yes. The girl, Beata, she’s waiting for you. She won’t leave until she speaks to you.”
“I’ll go up.”
“A very hard day,” he said. “And yet . . . ”
“Yeah.” She reached over as Roarke came out, brushed mortar and brick dust off his shirt. “Let’s go up.”
“Tell me how you are.”
“I’ll show you.” She stopped, yanked up her pants leg. Her clutch piece rode on her unmarked ankle. “No more tattoo. It’s a lot less crowded in here.” She tapped her head. “Say something in Russian.”
“I only have a few phrases, but this one seems appropriate. Ya liubliu tebia.”
She grinned at him, felt a lightness she hadn’t felt in hours. “I have no idea what you said. Thank God.”
He grabbed her, held tight. Then he drew her face up, crushed his mouth with hers.
“On an op,” she murmured but kissed him back before drawing away.
Linking hands, they continued down the corridor. “I said I love you—and it’s true in every language.”
“Nice. Let’s just keep it all in English for a while. God, I’m starving again.” She pressed her hand to her belly. “Anyway, thanks for the assist. In there and all around.”
“No problem. But next time we have a barbecue, Lieutenant, we both stay the bloody hell home.”
“That’s a deal.”
Upstairs she paused, walked over to where Natalya and Alexi sat on the steps, nodded at the cop standing by them. Natalya looked up, eyes flooded with tears.
“They said—we heard—there are bodies.”
“Yes.”
“My brother.” Her voice broke as she pressed her face to her son’s chest. “He was broken, but he took his medication. We went on—we both went on. What has he done? In the mercy of God, what has he done?”
“She didn’t know.” Alexi held her close while she sobbed. “We didn’t know, I swear it. My uncle, he’s such a quiet man. Such a quiet man. Beata? She’s all right?”
“She’ll be all right. We’re going to have to take you and your mother down to Central. We need to talk.”
He only nodded and stroked his mother’s hair. “We didn’t know.”
“I believe you.”
“A nightmare for them,” Roarke commented as they stepped outside into the warm night.
“One that won’t end anytime soon.”
Gawkers pressed behind the barricades. Cops swarmed, lights flared, and the air was busy with voices and communicators. Reporters, alerted to the scene, shouted questions.
Eve ignored them all as Beata broke away from Mira and ran to her.
“They said Mamoka is dead. Sasha killed her—my great-grandmother.”
“Yes. I’m very sorry.”
The sound she made was deep, dark grief. “Mamoka. She came for me, to find me. And he killed her.”
“He’ll pay for that, for all of it.” And this time, Eve reminded herself, it was enough. “She did find you, and that’s what mattered most to her. She told me your name. She . . . showed me the way.”
“She spoke to you?”
“She did. And I know she’s okay, because you are. You can see her tomorrow. I’ll arrange it. But now, you need to go to the health center, get checked out. You need to listen to Dr. Mira. We’ll talk again.”
“There were others.” Her face stark, Beata stared at the old building with its glittering windows. “I heard—”
“We’ll talk again,” Eve said.
Beata pressed her fingers to her eyes, nodded, then dropped them. “I’m sorry. I never asked your name.”
“I’m Dallas.” Through and through, she thought, in and out and all the way. “Lieutenant Eve Dallas.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Dallas.” Beata held out a hand. “For every day of the rest of my life.”
“Make good use of them.” Eve shook her hand, then sent her back to Mira.
Eve took a breath, then tuned in to the lights, the noise, the movement. Her world, she thought, and walked back to Roarke.
“Things to wrap up,” she told him. “Reports to file, killers to question.”
“You look pretty pleased about it.”
“All in all, I am. But tomorrow? Why don’t we stay home, watch old vids and eat junk food, maybe drink a whole bunch of wine and have half-drunk sex?”
“A master plan. I’m in.”
“Excellent. I have to go back down there. You could wait here or go on home.”
“Lieutenant.” He took her hand again. “I’m with you.”
“Well, you’re handy,” she said, grinned again.
She walked back toward the building with him to do the job. She felt tired, violently hungry, and completely herself.
The Other Side of the Coin
MARY BLAYNEY
For Paul, who I trust completely
One
FELL HOUSE, LONDON
MAY 1810
“Admit it, Harry. You want to have an affair with that Melton woman.” Bettina faced him and looked straight into his eyes, hoping to see the truth.
“No, my dear, I do not want to have an affair with her. Or with anyone else.” He narrowed his eyes as if wondering what question she was really asking.
“You say that with such ennui, you would think I’ve asked it a dozen times before.”
“I answer that way because it’s an absurd question.”
“Is it? You haven’t been the same lately.” He’d been distant, too considerate. Even in bed he’d been more careful than intense. “I find myself hoping that you are only thinking about an affair and not already having one.”
“Bettina.” Harry came to her, gathered her close, pressing a kiss to her cheek—not her lips. “There is only you.”
Bettina laid her head on his chest. Their darling baby, Cameron, was almost six months old, but her passionate lover had not come back to her bed. Harry had been sweet and gentle, but that was not what she wanted from him. At least not every time they made love. Had her lying-in been too great a test of Harry’s fidelity?
With a quick kiss on her mouth, Harry stepped back and handed her a glass of champagne. “An excellent idea to have champagne waiting in your bedchamber.” The Earl of Fellsborough tugged off his coat and did
not seem to notice the sound of a seam ripping. He tossed it onto a chair.
As usual, she acted the valet, picking up Harry’s coat and folding it with the care that the fine wool deserved.
He picked up his own glass of champagne and took a long drink. “As for Patricia Melton, did you notice that her dress was the same fabric as yours?”
“Oh no!” Bettina’s cheeks burned at the thought, and she vowed to give her maid the dress the very next day.
Laughing, Harry continued, apparently unaware of his wife’s dismay. “I doubt anyone remarked on it. Her décolletage had every man there watching her breasts. If the material slipped just one more inch, we all would have had an eyeful.”
“You are an idiot, Harry.” His countess grabbed the glass from his hand and put it on the table with enough force to draw his attention if her words did not.
“What? What did I say?” His humor disappeared. “I didn’t do anything!”
His confusion was convincing and even more infuriating. “How can you be so unfeeling? You’ve as much as said that my gown was the inferior of the two and you called that woman by her first name. I did not even know what her given name was.”
Bettina turned her back to him and was distracted by the glint of a coin on her night table.
“Do you want an argument?” he asked in an all too reasonable voice.
“Yes!” she yelled and picked up the coin. “What is this?” She held out her hand to show it to him.
“I would say it’s a coin. Is that what you want to argue about?”
Rage roiled through her, aimed at him, at herself, at her life. “I just wish you could be in my shoes. Then you would not be so patronizing.” Bettina threw the coin at him.
Harry caught it handily, his expression a mix of frustration and annoyance. “And I wish you would trust me.” Then he dropped the coin as if it had burned his hand.
At the same moment Bettina’s vision blurred. She had the feeling that her mind was being pulled from her body. She braced herself with a hand on the bedpost, but the world would not stop spinning.
She plunged into the vortex, feeling it forcefully separate her mind from the rest of her, taking from her control of limbs, mouth, eyes. There was no pain but confusion as terrifying as any sensation she had ever felt.
I’m dying. Her fear disappeared as her heart filled with regret, sorrow, loss. Oh, her poor son. Motherless or worse, with a mother like Patricia Melton. Oh, Harry, I was only afraid you did not love me anymore.
The sensation felt like it lasted forever and less than a minute, both at the same time. Finally the spinning slowed, and the room settled around her. Bettina did not feel dead, but something profound had happened.
She saw her body lying on the bed. Had she fallen there when she died? Was she in some kind of faint? Looking around, she did not see her husband. Where was he? “Harry! Harry!” she called.
She heard her words, not from where she lay on the bed, but from where she stood, as though her voice had come from someplace else.
“My God, Bettina, where are you?” Her body sat up on the bed. Were Harry’s words coming from her mouth?
“Right here in front of you.” She moved forward, awkwardly. Bettina looked down, and to her confusion and growing horror, it looked as though her mind were encased in Harry’s body.
Bettina stopped and thought, I will lift my hand. Harry’s hand rose, palm up, as she wished. She hurried to the bed and her actual body.
“Harry, what has happened? Are you hurt?”
“I feel damned strange dressed in your ball gown. These god-awful pins are sticking in my, I mean your, scalp.”
“Yes, the pins work loose sometimes,” she answered, as if explaining her body while someone else used it was normal. “Dear heaven, what has happened?” she asked again.
“My dear,” her husband’s distinctive drawl came from her lips, “I do believe your wish has come true.”
Two
FELL HOUSE
THE NEXT MORNING
“My lord! My lord! You must come. The countess is dying!” The maid burst into the earl’s dressing room without even a perfunctory knock.
“Freeba! Calm yourself.” Bettina ripped the towel from around her neck. The shave would have to wait. Before she could stand, the valet grabbed the cloth, wiping the soap from the earl’s chin. Bettina, clad in trousers and shirt, still only in stockings, dashed from the room in as much distress as Freeba.
Harry cannot be dying. She could not bear to live if he was lost to her. Life without Harry would be empty, dull. The horror of it made her heart beat so hard and fast that she raised a hand to her chest as if to keep it from bursting from her body. The gesture reminded her that she had another reason to fear losing him.
If he died in her body, she could well be trapped in his body forever. Twelve hours ago she would have thought nothing worse could happen than the two of them changing places. Now she could see her imagination was not nearly vivid enough.
Bettina tore into the suite of rooms that had been hers for the three years of their marriage. The curtains around the bed were still drawn tight, and the bedchamber was in unusual disarray. Clothes tossed on the chair, shoes left under it, and a stack of books opened, one atop another, on her writing desk. How like him, even in a woman’s body, to not give a thought to his clothes.
“The countess would not allow me to do anything to help her prepare for bed last night, except unlace her stays.” Freeba stepped in front of the earl to slow his progress. “I came in to bring her chocolate and found the room this way. She must be very ill, my lord. You know how careful she is with her clothes.”
“Never mind, Freeba. It hardly matters right now.” Bettina stepped around the maid and went straight to her bed, pushed aside the curtains. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Harry was no more than a lump under the linen, but the groans as much as said, “I am in misery here.”
“What is wrong? Explain!” Bettina demanded.
Freeba gasped at the unsympathetic tone of voice, and Bettina dismissed the maid from the room with a curt wave.
Alone with Harry, Bettina repeated the question, trying for a more sympathetic tone.
He spoke, though his face, which was actually her face, was buried in the pillow. Still, the words were quite intelligible. “I have the worst ache in my gut.”
She understood in an instant. With a roll of eyes and a relief most profound, Bettina expanded on her husband’s terse explanation. “Does it feel like some monster from hell is working its way through your stomach and below and the only relief will be when it explodes out of you? But before that can happen the pain fades, but only for a few moments.”
“Yes.” He sounded amazed at her insight.
“It happens every month, my lady,” Bettina said with a sarcastic emphasis on the honorific. “Indeed, it will happen monthly right before your courses for the next twenty years.”
“God help me.”
“I endure it every four weeks,” Bettina answered with a prosaic nonchalance. “Are you saying that I am able to tolerate pain better than you are?” If he had gone through childbirth as she had, he would not need prompting to answer.
“We have to find a way out of this, it’s unbearable.”
“The cramps will end.”
“When?” he asked.
“Harry, they will end soon, and you will not die.”
“What else should I expect? Tell me,” he demanded as if facing a wasting disease. “Is this the worst of it?”
“The worst of your courses? Yes. Except for the bleeding. That usually lasts about four days for me.”
“That had better be the worst part of my being in your body.”
Exactly what was he going to do if there was worse to come? “This will pass, Harry,” she said again. “But you will still have to look in the mirror every day. For me, that is the worst part of this switch. Every time I see your face where mine should be, I’m shocked
all over again. And your body feels strange.”
“Oh, that I understand completely. You have no idea how odd I feel.” Harry paused. “Or maybe you do.”
Bettina glanced back at Harry, his brain surrounded by her dark hair, green eyes, clear skin. She shut her eyes tight. If this went on much longer, she was going to have to find a way to rise above the upset it caused.
“I can’t take the pain, Bettina,” Harry said as another cramp struck. “Bring me some brandy. I’ll drink it away.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I never do that, and we have to preserve the façade that life is normal for as long as we can.”
“The façade being all there is.” He struggled into a sitting position. “At least you have something beautiful to look at.”
Oh, she thought, that was rather sweet.
“Did Freeba interrupt Roberts while he was shaving my face?”
Bettina nodded.
“How unfortunate. You know how disreputable I look with a day’s growth of beard. Go back and allow him to finish.”
“Believe me, Harry, the state of your beard is the least of our problems.”
Another cramp seemed to convince him that she was right. “God help me, we have to find a way to undo this damned curse.” He covered his face with the bed linen and groaned.
Bettina pulled the chair from in front of the secretary, amazed at how light it felt. With a firm grasp she tested her man’s strength and easily lifted it, moving the chair to the side of the bed so she could face Harry.
She straddled the chair with her arms folded on the back of it. Just because she could. Trousers were as comfortable as they looked, even if she did feel self-conscious showing off the turn of her ankle and leg. Or rather Harry’s ankle and leg.
“Harry,” she said and waited until he pulled the linen down and she could see her face. She stared at it, trying to see him somewhere inside her. “The thing is, Harry, I don’t think this is a curse.”
“Semantics, Bettina. You made a wish, and God help us, it came true. Now we have to undo it.” The last word was followed by a grunt of discomfort.