by J. D. Robb
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t draw in enough air. She was strangling. But she couldn’t stop the words.
“When Daddy came in to kiss you good night, he didn’t crawl into bed with you, did he, and put his sweaty hands all over you. Fathers don’t jam themselves into their little girls in your tidy world.”
She strode off the elevator, through the lobby, and out to the street, while Peabody stood stiff with shock.
Eve paced the sidewalk, barely restrained herself from kicking the duet of white poodles and the droid that walked them. A headache was raging, a rocket blast that screamed inside her skull. She could feel her hands tremble, even though they were balled into tight fists in her pockets.
“Dallas.”
“Don’t,” she warned Peabody. “Keep back a minute.”
She could walk it off, she promised herself. She could walk off the leading edge of the fury that made her want to scream and pound and rip. And when she had, all that was left was the headache and the sick misery deep in her gut.
Her face was pale but composed when she walked up to Peabody. “My personal remarks were over the line. I apologize for them.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“It is. In my opinion, it was also necessary to be cruel up there. It doesn’t make me feel any better about it. But you’re not here to be a punching bag for my foul moods.”
“That’s okay. I’m kind of used to it.”
Peabody tried a smile, then gaped with horror when Eve’s eyes filled. “Oh, jeez. Dallas.”
“Don’t. Shit. I need some time.” She bore down, stared hard at the face of the building. “I’m taking a couple of hours’ personal time. Grab some public transpo back to Central.” Her chest wanted to heave, to throw the tears up and out. “I’ll meet you at Roosevelt in two hours.”
“All right, but—”
“Two hours,” Eve repeated and all but launched herself into the car.
She needed to go home. She needed to hold on and to go home. Not trusting herself, she set the car on auto and rode with her head back and her hands balled in her lap.
From the age of eight, she’d built a wall or her subconscious had mercifully built one for her to block out the ugliness that had happened to her. It left a blank, and on that blank she’d created herself. Piece by painful piece.
She knew what it was to feel that wall crumble, to have the cracks form so the ugliness oozed in.
She knew what Carly faced. And what she would go through to live with it.
The headache kicked like a tornado inside her skull by the time she drove through the gates. Her eyes were glazed with it, with the greasy churn of nausea in her belly. She ordered herself to hold on, to hold it in, and staggered up the steps.
“Lieutenant,” Summerset began when she stumbled inside.
“Don’t mess with me.” She tried to snap it out, but her voice wavered. Even as she bolted upstairs, he moved to the house intercom.
She wanted to lie down. She’d be all right if she could just lie down for an hour. But the churning defeated her. She turned into the bathroom, went down on her knees, and was vilely ill.
When she was empty, too weak to stand, she simply curled on the tiles.
She felt a hand on her brow, cool. Blessedly cool. And opened her eyes.
“Roarke. Leave me alone.”
“Not in this lifetime.”
She tried to turn away from him, but he slipped his arms under her.
“Sick.”
“Yes, baby, I know.” She felt fragile as glass when he lifted her, carried her to bed.
She began to shiver as he drew off her boots, covered her with a blanket. “I wanted to come home.”
He said nothing, only got a damp cloth and bathed her face. She was too pale, the shadows under her eyes too deep. When he held a glass to her lips, she turned her face away.
“No. No soothers. No tranqs.”
“It’s for the nausea. Here now.” He brushed her damp hair back and hoped he wouldn’t be forced to pour it down her throat. “That’s all. I promise.”
She drank because her stomach was quivering again, and her throat felt as if it had been raked by claws. “I didn’t know you were here.” She opened her eyes again, and the tears that burned in her chest flooded into her eyes. “Roarke. Oh God.”
She pressed herself against him. Burrowed. As her body shook, he tightened his arms around her. “Get rid of it,” he murmured. “Whatever it is, let it go.”
“I hate what I did. I hate myself for doing it.”
“Ssh. Whatever it was, you wouldn’t have had a choice.”
“I should have found one.” She turned her head so that her cheek rested against his shoulder, and with her eyes closed, she told him everything.
“I know what went through her.” She was better now, the worst of the sickness eased. “I know what she felt. And I saw myself in her when she looked at me.”
“Eve. No one knows better than you, or I, what vileness there is in the world. You did what you had to do.”
“I could’ve—”
“No.” He leaned back, cupped her face so that their eyes met. There wasn’t pity in his, which she would have hated. There wasn’t sympathy, which would have scraped her raw.
There was simply understanding.
“You couldn’t have. Not you. You had to know, didn’t you? You had to be sure if she’d known who he was to her. Now you do.”
“Yeah, now I do. No one’s that good an actress. She’ll see herself, again and again, together with him. Over and over.”
“Stop. You couldn’t have changed that, no matter how she found out.”
“Maybe not.” She closed her eyes again, sighed. “I swiped at Peabody.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“I came close to losing it, right out on the street. I nearly—”
“But you didn’t.” He gave her a little shake before she could speak again. “You irritate me, Eve. Why must you beat yourself up like this? You haven’t slept in over thirty hours. You’ve entered into a phase of this investigation that hits so close to a personal horror most people would run away or shatter. You’ve done neither.”
“I broke.”
“No, Eve. You chipped.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Then you came home. Lie down for a bit. Close your eyes. Turn it off.”
“I shouldn’t have told you to leave me alone. I didn’t mean it.”
“It hardly matters.” The innate arrogance in his voice nearly made her smile. “I wouldn’t have. I won’t.”
“I know. I wanted you to be here.” She slid into him before he could nudge her back. “I needed you to be. And you were.” Her mouth turned to his. Seeking. “Roarke.”
“You need to sleep.”
“I’m empty, and it hurts.” Her hands roamed up his back, kneading. “Fill me with something. Please.”
Love filled the voids and hollows, no matter how deep, no matter how wide. He would give it to her, take it for himself. With patience, with tenderness.
His lips brushed hers, settled, sank, until he felt hers warm and yield. Gathering her, he trailed kisses over her face, her hair, her throat. First to comfort.
She turned into him, offering more. But his hands were light as wings, floating over her, slipping under her shirt to her flesh with long, slow strokes. Then to soothe.
And when she sighed, when her body melted back against the pillows, he undressed her. His lips followed the trace of his fingers, gently stirring pulses. Now to arouse.
She opened for him, as she never had for anyone else. For him, she could lay herself bare. Body, heart, and mind. And know, and trust, he would do the same.
Without heat or demands or urgency, he nudged her up, let her linger on the crest, slide over, until her system glowed with the pleasure of belonging.
Her heart swelled, matched its beat to his, and her arms wrapped around him like ribbons to draw him close.
“I love you.”
He watched her face as he slipped inside her. “Completely. Endlessly.”
Her breath caught, sighed out again. She closed her eyes to hold on to the beauty of the moment. And let him bring her home.
She held him close, needing for just a bit longer to have his body pressed so intimately to hers. “Thanks.”
“I hate to state the obvious, but it was my pleasure. Better now?”
“A lot. Roarke—no, just stay like this a minute.” She kept her face turned into his shoulder. “When we’re together like this, it’s not like it’s ever been with anyone else. It’s like there never was anyone else.”
“For me either.”
She laughed, relieved that she could. “You’ve had a lot more anyones.”
“Who’s counting?” He shifted, rolling over so that she ranged over him. The fragility was gone, he noted. There was the smooth and agile flow to her movements that characterized her.
Her cheeks were no longer pale, but her eyes were heavy, bruised, exhausted. It made him regret not pouring a tranq into her after all.
“Cut it out.” She scooped her hair back and nearly managed a scowl.
“Cut what out?”
“Thinking about fussing over me. You don’t have to take care of me.” She didn’t need the amused glint in his eyes to tell her how ridiculous that sounded under the circumstances. “All the time,” she amended.
“Let’s take a nap.”
“I can’t. I don’t imagine you can, either. I’ve already messed up your day. You were probably buying a solar system or something.”
“Only a small, largely uninhabited planet. It’s not going anywhere. I can use a break, and you need to sleep.”
“Yeah, I do, but I can’t.”
“Eve—”
“Look, I’ll catch some downtime soon. You’re one to talk. You haven’t had much more than me lately.”
“Our engines don’t run at the same speed.”
That stopped her from her slide off the bed. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Just that.”
She frowned, considered. “It sounds like something that ought to piss me off. But I can’t figure out exactly why. When I do, I might have to pop you one.”
“I’ll look forward to it. If you won’t sleep, eat. You need something in your stomach. And what are you grinning at?”
“You. You’re such a wife,” she said as she headed toward the shower.
He sat for a minute, stunned. “Now I’m pissed off.”
“See, now you know how it feels. Well, order me something to eat,” she called out. “Water on, one hundred and two degrees.”
“Bite me,” he muttered and ordered her some soup with a high-protein additive.
She ate every drop, as much to please him as to kill the hunger. Her mind clear again, she dressed, strapped on her weapon. “I have to go by the hospital, see what I can get out of Stiles.”
“Why? You’ve already figured it out.” When she just stared at him, he shrugged. “I know you, Lieutenant. You let it churn around while you were eating, settle into place. Now you’re revving up to finish it.”
“I haven’t filled all the gaps yet. I want to cover a few more bases, and I need to run something by Whitney. It sort of involves you.”
“And what might that be?”
She shook her head. “If he doesn’t clear it, it won’t matter. I’ll be able to reach you, right? If I need to talk to you before I get back.”
“I’ll be available. I thought I’d bake some cookies.”
The dry tone had her snorting as she picked up her jacket. “You do that, honey.” She turned to kiss him, then yelped when he twisted her earlobe. “Hey!”
“Don’t work too hard, darling.”
“Man.” Pouting, she rubbed her ear as she walked to the door. “If I did that every time you used the W word, you wouldn’t have any ears left.”
She stopped at the door, looked back. “But you’re beautiful when you’re angry,” she said, and fled.
Peabody stood outside the hospital’s main doors, shoulders hunched against the brisk wind, nose red from it.
“Why the hell didn’t you wait inside?” Eve demanded. “It’s freezing out here.”
“I wanted to catch you before you went in. Can we take a minute?”
Eve studied Peabody’s set and serious face. Personal business, she decided, not official. Well, she deserved it. “All right. Let’s walk, keep the blood moving.” She headed away from the ramps and glides, as sirens announced another unlucky resident of New York was about to enjoy the building’s facilities.
“About before,” Peabody began.
“Look, I was out of line, and you were the closest target. I’m sorry about it.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I figured it out. Took me a while,” she added. “What you did, telling her cold like that was because you had to see how she’d react. If she knew Draco was her father, well, it bumped up her motive. Either way, if she knew it before they . . . you know, or if she knew it after they got going, it went to her frame of mind.”
Eve watched a medi-van whip past. “She didn’t know.”
“I don’t think so either. If you’d eased her into it, it would’ve given her time to think, to figure out how best to react, what to say. I should’ve known that right off instead of working around to it an hour later.”
“I could have clued you in before we got there.” With a shake of her head, she turned around, started back. “I hadn’t settled myself into it yet.”
“It was a hard thing to do. I don’t think I’d’ve had the guts for it.”
“It has nothing to do with guts.”
“Yeah, it does.” Peabody stopped, waited for Eve to turn to face her. “If you didn’t have feelings, it wouldn’t have been hard. But you do. Guts can be the same thing as mean without compassion. It was hard, but you did it anyway. A better cop would have realized that quicker.”
“I didn’t give you much of a chance since I was busy jumping down your throat. You worked it out, came around to it on your own. I must be doing something right with you. So, are we square now?”
“Yeah, all four corners.”
“Good, let’s get inside. I’m freezing my ass off.”
chapter twenty
They went by to see Trueheart first. At Peabody’s insistence, they stopped off in the shopping mall for a get-well gift.
“It’ll take five minutes.”
“We’ve chipped in on the flowers already.” The forest of goods, the wide and winding trails that led to them, and the chirpy voices announcing the sales and specials caused Eve’s already abused stomach to execute a slow, anxious roll.
She’d rather have gone hand-to-hand with a three-hundred-pound violent tendency than be swallowed up in a consumer sea.
“That’s from everyone,” Peabody explained patiently. “This’ll be from us.”
Despite herself, Eve stopped at a display of dull green surgical scrubs brightly emblazoned with the hospital’s logo. For ten bucks extra, you could have one splattered with what appeared to be arterial blood.
“It’s a sick world. Just sick.”
“We’re not going for the souvenirs.” Though she thought the oversized anal probes were kind of a hoot. “When a guy’s in the hospital, he wants toys.”
“When a guy gets a splinter in his toe, he wants toys,” Eve complained but followed Peabody into a game shop and resigned herself to having her senses battered by the beeps, crashes, roars, and blasts.
Here, according to the flashing signs, you could choose from over ten thousand selections for your entertainment, leisure, or educational desires. From sports to quantum physics programs and everything in between, you had only to key in the topic of your interest and the animated map, or one of the fully trained and friendly game partners, would direct you to the correct area.
The store menu pumped out screaming yellow light. Eve felt her eyes cross.
The clear tubes
of the sample booths were all loaded with people trying out demos. Others trolled the store proper, their faces bright with avarice or blank from sensory overload.
“Don’t these people have jobs?” Eve wondered.
“We hit lunch hour.”
“Well, lucky us.”
Peabody made a beeline for the combat section. “Hand-to-hand,” she decided. “It’ll make him feel in control. Wow, look! It’s the new Super Street Fighter. It’s supposed to be majorly mag.” She flipped the antitheft box over, winced a little at the price, then noted the manufacturer.
“Roarke Industries. We oughta get a discount or something. Oh well, it’s not so bad when you split it.” She headed toward the auto-express checkout, glanced back at Eve. “I guess Roarke’s got a whole factory full of these, huh?”
“Probably.” Eve pulled out her credit card, swiped it through the scanner, pressed her thumb to the identiplate.
Thank you for your purchase, Eve Dallas. One moment, please, while your credit is verified.
“I’ll give you my half on payday, okay?”
“Yeah, whatever. Why do these things take so long?”
Thank you for waiting, Eve Dallas. The cost of your selection, Super Street Fighter, PPC version, comes to one hundred and sixteen dollars and fifty-eight cents, including all applicable taxes. Due to Authorization One, your account will not be debited for this selection. Please enjoy your day.
“What the hell are you talking about? What’s Authorization One?”
Authorization One, Roarke Industries. This level entitles you to select any items under this manufacturer’s brand at no cost.
“Wow. We can clean house.” Peabody turned her dazzled eyes to the shelves crammed with delights. “Can I get one of these?”
“Shut up, Peabody. Look, I’m paying for this,” she told the machine. “So just bypass Authorization One and debit my account.”
Unable to comply. Would you care to make another selection?
“Damn it.” She shoved the game at Peabody. “He’s not getting away with this.”