The In Death Collection 06-10 (11 page)

“Then I’ll work fast.”

Halfway up the long, curving drive Eve sat in her car and studied the house that Roarke built. That wasn’t entirely accurate, she supposed. The structure would have been there for more than a century, ready for someone with money and vision to buy it. He’d had both and had polished a stone and glass palace that suited him beautifully.

She was at home there now, or more at home than she’d ever imagined she could be. There with the towers and turrets, the graceful lawns and glamorous shrubberies. She lived among the staggering antiques, the thick carpets from other lands, the wealth and the privilege.

Roarke had earned it—in his way. She had done nothing more than tumble into it.

They had both come from the streets and misery, and had chosen different paths to make their own. She had needed the law, the order, the discipline, the rules. Her childhood had been without any of them, and the early years that she had so successfully blanked out for so long had begun to hurtle back at her, viciously, violently, over the past months.

Now she remembered too much, and still not all.

Roarke, she imagined, remembered all, in fluid and
perfect detail. He wouldn’t allow himself to forget what he’d been or where he’d come from. He used it.

His father had been a drunk. And so had hers. His father had abused him. And so had hers. Their childhoods had been smashed beyond repair, and so they had built themselves into adults at an early age, one standing for the law, and one dancing around it.

Now they were a unit, or trying to be.

But how much of what she had made herself, and he had made himself, could blend?

That was about to be tested, and their marriage, still so new and bright, so terrifying and vital to her, would either hold or fail.

She drove the rest of the way, parking at the base of the old stone steps. She left her car there, where it consistently annoyed Summerset, and carried a small box of file discs into the house.

Summerset was in the foyer. He would have known the moment she’d driven through the iron gates, she imagined. And he would have wondered why she’d stopped for so long.

“Is there a problem with your vehicle, Lieutenant?”

“No more than usual.” She stripped off her jacket, and out of habit, tossed it over the newel post.

“You left it in front of the house.”

“I know where it is.”

“There is a garage for the purpose of storing vehicles.”

“Move it yourself. Where’s Roarke?”

“Roarke is in his Fifth Avenue office. He’s expected home within the hour.”

“Fine, tell him to come up to my office when he gets here.”

“I’ll inform him of your request.”

“It wasn’t a request.” She smirked as she watched Summerset pick up her jacket by the collar with two reluctant
fingers. “Any more than it’s a request when I tell you to make no plans to leave the city until further notice.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched visibly. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Lieutenant?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s a bucketful of laughs for me. A couple of dead guys, one of them slaughtered on my husband’s property, both of them old pals of his. I’ve been breaking up over it all day.” When he stepped forward, her eyes went to dangerous slits. “Don’t get in my face, old man. Don’t even think about it.”

The core of his anger simmered out in one terse sentence. “You interrogated Ms. Morrell.”

“I tried to verify your piss-poor alibi.”

“You led her to believe I was involved in a police investigation.”

“News flash: You
are
involved in a police investigation.”

He drew air audibly through his nose. “My personal life—”

“You’ve got no personal life until these cases are closed.” She could read his embarrassment clearly enough, and told herself she didn’t have time for it. “You want to do yourself a favor, you do exactly what I tell you. You don’t go anywhere alone. You make certain you can account for every minute of your time, day and night. Because somebody else is going to die before much more time passes if I can’t stop it. He wants the finger to point at you, so you make sure it doesn’t.”

“It’s your job to protect the innocent.”

She’d started up the stairs and now she stopped, turned back until their eyes met. “I know what my job is, and I’m damned good at it.”

When he snorted she came down two steps. She came down slowly, her movements deliberate, because her own temper was much too close to the boil. “Good enough to
have figured out why you’ve hated the sight of me since I first walked in that door. Since you understood Roarke had feelings for me. Part A was easy—a first-year rookie could have snagged onto it. I’m a cop, and that’s enough for you to hold me in contempt.”

He offered a thin smile. “I’ve had little reason to admire those in your profession.”

“Part B was tougher.” She came down another step so that their eyes were level. “I thought I had that figured, too, but I didn’t realize that Part B had a couple of stages. Stage one: I’m not one of the glamorous, well-bred stunners that Roarke socialized with. I haven’t got the looks or the pedigree or the style to suit you.”

He felt a quick tug of shame, but inclined his head. “No, you don’t. He could have had anyone, his pick of the cream of society.”

“But you didn’t want just anyone for him, Summerset. That’s stage two, and I just figured that out this morning. You resent me because I’m not Marlena. That’s who you wanted for him,” she said quietly as the color slipped out of his cheeks. “You hoped he’d find someone who reminded you of her, instead you got stuck with an inferior model. Tough luck all around.”

She turned and walked away, and didn’t see his legs buckle, or the way his hand shot out to grip the newel post as the truth of what she’d tossed in his face struck him like a fist in the heart.

When he was sure he was alone, he sat on the steps and buried his face in his hands as the grief he thought he’d conquered long ago flowed through him, fresh and hot and bitter.

When Roarke arrived home twenty minutes later, Summerset was composed. His hands no longer trembled, his heart no longer shuddered. His duties, as he saw them—as
he needed to see them—were always to be performed smoothly and unobtrusively.

He took Roarke’s coat, approving of the fine and fluid weight of the silk, and draped it over his arm. “The lieutenant is upstairs in her office. She would like to speak with you.”

Roarke glanced up the stairs. He was sure Eve hadn’t put it quite so politely. “How long has she been home?”

“Less than thirty minutes.”

“And she’s alone?”

“Yes. Quite alone.”

Absently he flicked open the top two buttons of his shirt. His afternoon meetings had been long and tedious. A rare tension headache was brewing at the base of his skull.

“Log any calls that come through for me. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

“Dinner?”

Roarke merely shook his head as he started up the stairs. He’d managed to put his temper on hold throughout the day, but he felt it bubbling back now, black and hot. He knew it would be best, certainly more productive, if they could speak calmly.

But he kept thinking about the door she’d closed between them the night before. The ease with which she’d done so, and the finality of the act. He didn’t know if he would be able to remain calm for long.

She’d left her office door open. After all, Roarke thought sourly, she’d summoned him, hadn’t she? She sat scowling at her computer screen as if the information it offered annoyed her. There was a mug of coffee at her elbow, likely gone cold by now. Her hair was disordered and spiky, no doubt disturbed by her restless hands. She still wore her weapon harness.

Galahad had made himself at home on a pile of paperwork on the desk. He twitched his tail in greeting, and his
bicolored eyes gleamed with unmistakable glee. Roarke could almost hear the feline thoughts.

Come on in, get started. I’ve been waiting for the show.

“You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?”

Her head came up, turned. He looked cool, she noted, casually elegant in his dark business suit with the collar of his shirt loosened. But the body language—the cock of his head, the thumbs hooked in his pockets, the way his weight was balanced on the balls of his feet—warned her here was an Irish brawler spoiling for a fight.

Fine, she decided. She was ready for one.

“Yeah, I wanted to see you. You want to shut the door?”

“By all means.” He closed it behind him before crossing the room. And waited. He preferred for his opponent to draw first blood.

It made the striking back more satisfying.

“I need names.” Her voice was clipped and brisk. She wanted them both to know she was speaking as a cop. “Names of the men you killed. Names of any- and everyone you can remember you contacted to find those men.”

“You’ll have them.”

“And I’ll need a statement from you, detailing where you were and who you were with during the times of the Brennen and Conroy homicides.”

His eyes went hot, for an instant only, then frosted to brilliant blue ice. “Am I a suspect? Lieutenant?”

“No, and I want to keep it that way. Eliminating you from the top simplifies things.”

“By all means let’s keep things simple.”

“Don’t take that line with me.” She knew what he was doing, she thought with rising fury. Oh, she had his number, all right, with his cold and utterly reasonable tone. Damned if he’d shake her. “The more I can go by the book on this, the better it is for everyone involved. I’d like to fit
Summerset with a security bracelet. He’d never agree if I asked, so I’d like you to.”

“I won’t ask him to submit to the indignity of that.”

“Look.” She got to her feet, slowly. “A little indignity might keep him out of a cage.”

“For some, dignity is a priority.”

“Fuck dignity. I’ve got enough problems without worrying about that. What I need is facts, evidence, an edge. If you keep lying to me—”

“I never lied to you.”

“You withheld vital information. It’s the same thing.”

“No, it’s not.” Oh, he had her number, he thought, with her stubborn, unbending rules. Damned if she’d shake him. “I withheld information in the hope I could keep you out of a difficult position.”

“Don’t do me any favors,” she snapped as control teetered.

“I won’t.” He moved to a dome-topped cabinet, selected a bottle of whiskey, and poured three fingers into a heavy crystal glass. He considered throwing it.

She heard the ice pick fury in his tone, recognized the frigid rage. She would have preferred heat, something hot and bubbling to match her own mood.

“Great, terrific. You go ahead and be pissed off. I’ve got two dead guys, and I’m waiting for the third. I’ve got essential information, information vital to the case, that I can’t use officially unless I want to come visit you in a federal facility for the next hundred years.”

He sipped, and showed his teeth in a smile. “Don’t do me any favors.”

“You can just yank that stick out of your ass, pal, because you’re in trouble here.” She found she wanted to hit something—smash anything—and settled for shoving her chair aside. “You and that bony droid you’re so goddamn fond of. If I’m going to keep both your butts out of the
sling, you better get yourself a quick attitude adjustment.”

“I’ve managed to keep my butt out of the sling by my own devices up until now.” Roarke drained the rest of the whiskey, set the glass down with a snap of glass on wood. “You know very well Summerset killed no one.”

“It doesn’t matter what I know, it matters what I can prove.” Temper straining, she dragged her hands through her hair, fisted them there a moment until her head began to throb. “By not giving me all the data, you put me a step behind.”

“What would you have done with the data that I wasn’t doing myself? And, with my contacts and equipment, doing more quickly and more efficiently?”

That, she thought, tore it. “You better remember who’s the cop here, ace.”

His eyes glinted once, like blue steel in moonlight. “I’m unlikely to forget.”

“And whose job it is to gather evidence and information, to process that evidence and information. To investigate. You do whatever it is you do with your business, but you stay off my turf unless I tell you different.”

“Unless you tell me?” She saw the quick and vicious flare of violence in his eyes, but stood her ground when he whirled on her, when he closed a fist over her shirt to haul her up to her toes. “And what if I don’t do what I’m told, Lieutenant, what I’m ordered? How do you handle that? Do you walk away and lock the door again?”

“You better move your hand.”

He only yanked her up another inch. “I won’t tolerate locked doors. I’ve got my limit, and you reached it. If you don’t want to share our bed, if you don’t want me near you, then you say so. But I’m damned if you’ll turn away and lock the door.”

“You’re the one who screwed up,” she shot back. “You pissed me off and I didn’t want to talk to you. I’m the one
who has to deal with what’s going on here, what’s gone on before. I have to overlook the laws you’ve broken instead of carting you off to a cell.” She lifted both hands, shoved hard, and was both surprised and furious when she didn’t budge him an inch. “And I’ve got to make dinner conversation with a bunch of snooty strangers every time I turn around, and worry about what the hell I’m wearing when I do it.”