More than happy to turn the wheel over to Roarke, Eve kicked back in her seat as they drove home.
He gave her leg an affectionate rub.
“It meant a lot to them, having you stay for wine and burgers.”
“I figured we’d stay five minutes, and it ended up closer to three hours. But it meant a lot to me, too. It’s the happiest damn unfinished house.”
“Another six to eight weeks, it will be finished, and I expect happier yet.”
“Mavis pulled carrots out of the ground. She knew they were carrots even though the carrot part’s in the ground, and knew how to yank them out. Of the ground. Then what to do with them after that.”
It both baffled and amazed.
“When I first met her, the closest she’d have come to a carrot would’ve been sliding by them in a market on her way to steal a candy bar.”
Eve considered. “After she’d lifted somebody’s wallet.”
“It was a lovely salad.”
“She put those flowers in it. The nasty ones.”
“Nasturtiums.”
“Right, those. It’s weird eating flowers even though they’re, well, tasty. And you’re showing Leonardo how to cook burgers, Peabody’s making fries from potatoes, McNab’s dancing around with the kid on his shoulders.
“Where does she get that laugh?” Even now, Eve could hear it. “It’s like somebody on happy juice in an asylum.”
She started to close her eyes, then realized if she did, she’d be asleep before she opened them again.
“The victim’s bedroom? Peabody called it a music studio with a bed, and that’s accurate.”
“She was serious about the music then?”
“Deeply. And, Jesus, Roarke, the kid had a voice. Peabody went through her equipment, her recordings. Jake wants to listen to the demo she made. The one she brought to the club, hoping to get it to him.”
“Of course he does.”
Of course for Jake, Eve agreed. But plenty of others would want just the opposite. Self-preservation.
“It’ll cut at him. Listening to her today cut at me, and I know better. It’ll cut sharp at him.”
“Tell me about her. You know her now.”
“Young for her age. Part of that’s the parental shield, and part’s her focus on music. At the same time a maturity. She had her goals lined up. She liked boys, but wasn’t interested in hookups. Tight with her two friends and their families.
“She wanted a tat,” Eve remembered. “Musical notes—she drew three of them in her notebook. On her wrist.” Eve tapped the inside of her wrist. “Big no from the parental shield on that, which pissed her off. She wasn’t a wheeze or a weeb or a tot or a flaker or a bruiser.”
“What language are you speaking?” Roarke asked as he approached the gates.
“Teenage. She got decent grades, stayed out of trouble, liked cherry fizzies. She wished she had longer legs and bigger boobs. The usual complaints about the parents being too strict or the little brother bugging her, but it comes across she loved them.
“She had a serious talent and big dreams for building on it.”
Because the towers and turrets of home had a big bed inside them, she let the fatigue wash over her again.
“I think, I really think, she’d have grabbed those dreams if some dooser hadn’t killed her.”
“Translate dooser.”
“Combo of dick and loser.”
“That’s a good one.”
“What I said.”
“How do you know he was a dooser, specifically?”
“One of the friends caught a glimpse of a guy—black baggies, black tee—strutting off the dance floor in the direction of the johns right after Jenna got jabbed.
“Can’t give it a hundred percent,” she said as she pushed out of the car into air that felt as if it floated like a slow-moving river.
Or maybe she floated in it.
“I’m giving it a solid ninety. The timing just locks. It’s still Sunday, right?”
“It is.”
“Why is it Sundays when you just laze around don’t last as long as Sundays when you don’t?”
“Hardly fair, is it?”
“Bites.”
He led his exhausted wife into the house where Summerset waited with the cat at his feet.
“I hope you enjoyed your time with friends after a difficult weekend.”
“We did. It was just the thing to lift a hard load for a bit of time.”
“I heard Jake’s statement earlier. Brief and compassionate while keeping the focus on the child. I sensed your touch at least around the edges, Lieutenant.”
“More Nadine’s,” she said, and kept going toward the stairs.
The bed was up there.
Then she thought: He’d lost a child. A daughter, brutalized and murdered.
And the cops did nothing. The cops did less than nothing.
She turned, met his eyes. “I’m going to get him. I’m going to put him away.”
“I have no doubt of it.”
As the cat raced up the steps ahead of them, Roarke scooped her up.
“I can walk. Jesus, I … Okay.” And giving in, she dropped her head on his shoulder.
It felt too good, too damn good to finally let her brain go fuzzy and her body limp.
“What do you say to a nap?”
“Affirmative.”
The cat had already claimed the bed when Roarke carried her in, set her on the side of it. He stopped her before she could just twist and flop over on her face.
“You won’t need your weapon.”
“You didn’t get any more sleep than I did,” she said as he unhooked her harness.
“So I’ll have a bit of a nap with you. Let’s have the boots.”
“Is it really still Sunday?”
“It is, yes, and for several hours more.”
“Good. That’s good.” As he set her weapon and boots aside, she rolled and flopped on her face. “Wake me when it’s Monday.”
After shedding his shoes, he stretched out beside her with Galahad guarding her other flank.
“No dreams, darling Eve,” he murmured. “No dreams now. Just sleep.”
She woke disoriented in dim, dying light. She heard Roarke’s quiet murmur, and blinking, watched him give the cat a few of the treats Galahad craved like a junkie craved the funk.
After rolling over, she stared through the sky window over the bed, trying to gauge the time.
Gave up, sat up.
“Yes,” Roarke said. “It’s still Sunday.”
“How long was I out?”
“Nearly as long as we were at Mavis’s, and you look considerably better for it.”
“Did you sleep?”
“I had a solid, recharging hour.”
She swept her hands over her face and back over her hair. “I should have coffee, update the board.”
“Tell me, will updating it now change anything for your investigation or your victim?”
“No.”
“Then let’s try this. Why don’t we cap off that much-needed nap with a swim? After that, if you’re still anxious about the updates, I’ll give you a hand with them.”
“That’s a good deal.” Maybe, marginally, even better than coffee. “I could use a swim.”
“Grab something more comfortable than your work clothes to change into after.”
“Is that like that old line?” She slid out of bed. “Putting on something more comfortable?”
He looked at his wife, her whiskey-colored eyes alert again, her body loose instead of limp.
“It could be, though that wasn’t the original intent. I had in mind a T-shirt and lounging pants.”
She pulled both out. “Like these?”
“There you are.”
Taking her hand, he drew her to the elevator.
Inside, she leaned companionably against him. “Have you ever pulled carrots?”
“You’re oddly stuck on that, aren’t you?”
“Well, it was so weird. Have you?”
“I have not.” He shot her a cautious look. “Are you telling me you’d like to plant carrots so you can harvest them? Or, as you said, yank them out of the ground?”
“Jesus God, no.” The idea of it, and the accompanying image of the two of them doing just that, made her laugh. “We planted that tree by the pond, right? I think that covers us for the duration.”
“I enjoyed planting that tree, but agree. It covered us.”
They stepped into the tropical air of the pool house with its potted palms and brilliantly blossoming vines.
The water sparkled, a perfect blue.
“If I don’t work in a swim every few days, I forget how good it feels in here.” She shed her vest. “I figured on hitting the gym, then the dojo, then the pool today. But one out of three’s not bad.”
“Should I feel guilty I managed all three?”
She glanced back as they both undressed. “No. I’ll catch up eventually. I bet you worked, too.”
“A little here, a little there. The progress on shoring up the infrastructure of your building’s coming along well.”
On that, she rolled her eyes and dived into the water.
On her first lap, she heard him dive in. He swam beside her, an easy pace. While sleep had been a desperate need, the swim, the cool water around her, her muscles warming and stretching, relaxed her, body and mind.
After six laps, she surface dived and did the last two underwater.
Then, she came back up, sucking in air before rolling over to float.
“I could do a cop bar.”
Rather than float, he lazily treaded water beside her. “You could, as it’s yours, but it’s more than a bar, isn’t it? The space is a music venue, a club. I’ll add you have the Blue Line only so many blocks away for brews and fake burgers and such.”
“Yeah. Well, cops like music. And not just for cops.”
“Which would limit your patronage.”
“Clubs are noisy. You wouldn’t go there—a cop wouldn’t—to bounce around the sticky parts of a case like you do at a bar like the Blue Line. Same with civilians. They’re not going to brainstorm a work problem, or talk shop, right? People go to a club to blow off steam or look for somebody who wants to get laid. So…”
She rolled again, treaded water with him. “Off Duty.”
“Clever. I like it. Your waiter who’s put in a long day serving others is off duty there as much as the cop who’s spent the day on the job. Your admin, store clerk, and so on. They’re all Off Duty.”
“Great. Now I don’t have to think about it anymore.”
“I’ll have some design options tweaked to suit for you to look over in a few days.”
At that, she just sank beneath the surface.
On a laugh, he went under, grabbed her. And pulling her to him, met her mouth with his. Still locked together, they surfaced.
Legs lazily kicking in tandem with his, she studied him.
“You didn’t want me in something more comfortable. You wanted me naked.”
“I’d be mad not to.”
“And your cap off to the nap included pool sex.”
“Well now, naturally.”
“Plus, it’s still Sunday.”
“With more than enough time for Sunday pool sex before it’s Monday.”
“How long can you hold your breath?” On the question, she fixed her mouth to his, and pulled him under.
Long enough, she thought, to pump heat into her blood. Long enough for him to take them both deep, into the water, into the kiss, then push off the bottom so, wrapped together still, they shot back up into the air.
“How long can you?” On another kiss, he took them both back under, where they rolled together, a playful dance, hands sliding and seeking. Sliding and seeking still as they kicked up together.
“We could time it.” She fixed her teeth on the side of his throat. “See who has more lung power.”
“Winner takes all?”
“Win or lose, we’re taking all.”
“In that case.”
He pulled them under again, and slipping a hand between her legs, shot her to a fast, unexpected peak.
She surfaced, weak and gasping. “That’s cheating.”
“I heard no mention of rules.”
Fair enough, she thought, and kept her eyes on his as she stroked her hand down all that wet, sleek black hair. “You’d break them anyway.”
“To have you? I’d break every one of them.”
But when he started to draw her close, she shot away, went deep, pulled out the speed, and aimed for the far end.
She swam like a fish, he thought, and gave chase as he knew she intended. No, a mermaid, he corrected, with all that grace and power in the water.
The chase stirred his blood as much as the feel of her skin under his hands, the taste of her on his tongue.
When he caught her—no simple feat—he heard her laugh bubble out. When they surfaced again, they were both breathless.
“I’d say we’re even.”
He felt her heart race against his. “I’ll take a draw.”
“Then you take me; I’ll take you.”
Now she wrapped her legs around him and stole the rest of his breath with her lips.
She bewitched him, delighted and enchanted him. And aroused him beyond all comprehension.
When he gripped the edge of the pool, he pressed her back to the wet wall. “Mine.” He touched his finger to the little dent in her chin, then skimmed it down, and down. “You’re all mine.”
“Same goes. Now show me. Show me how much you want me.”
He took her mouth first, let the hunger come, let it fill him to aching while she answered with equal fervor. And when her arms locked around his neck, she filled him.
He drove into her and watched the pleasure rush into her eyes, heard the echo of it in the catch and release of her breath.
“Show me,” he said.
Wanting to, wanting him, she kept her arms locked tight. Her hips moved, meeting and matching his thrusts while the water sparkled around them.
His eyes, bluer, deeper than the water, held hers as everything in her opened for him, opened to him. It built and built, that glorious thrill, the dazzling and welcome heat rising, spreading until the long, slow climb took her to the peak.
Then spilled her over.
Still, she held him. She gave him more.
“I love you.” On her words, the return of that love swirled into his eyes. When she tried it in Irish, his lips met hers with such tenderness her heart all but wept.
“A ghrá.”
He pressed his lips to her shoulder, to the side of her throat. And on love, took them both over.
Blissful, she clung to him. She could feel his heartbeat slow again, as hers did. Whatever she’d faced during the long day, whatever she’d face on the next, she had right now.
“That was a really good cap.” Sighing, she stroked his hair. “And we’ve probably still got some Sunday left.”
“We do.”
He’d have given the rest of his to help her set up her board, to let her bounce theories, timelines, whatever she needed.
And for right now, knowing he would was enough.
“Why don’t we get some popcorn, more wine, and finish that vid?”
He eased back, looked at her face. “That sounds perfect.”
When they stretched out on the sofa, with popcorn, wine, and the cat, Eve thought: Everything else can wait until Monday.
The annual Battle of the Bands in Memorial Park drew a solid crowd. It lacked headliners, but the music was free, and it gave a chance for bands—usually garage or basement bands—to play to a real audience.
By the time they got to this summer night, most of the seriously crap ones had been weeded out, so the half dozen finalists could hold their own.
Most had some paying gigs in their pockets—school dances, backyard parties—that barely covered the subway fare and a fizzy.
But tonight, the big prize was ten thousand actual dollars, and more, a guest shot on Here’s Talent, a professional production of a vid/disc, plus Internet exposure.
Each group performed three songs. An original, unless it blew, usually chalked up extra points from the panel of three judges.
You had your rockers, your poppers, your thrashers, and your hick stompers.
And every one who walked onto the stage knew the crowd’s reactions played into the judges’ scoring.
They played hard.
Arlie hooted and cheered along with the crowd. Some of the bands—three so far—were better than she expected. Better yet? Being here on a summer night with her boyfriend of four entire months.
His friend played bass guitar and did vocals in Arrow, the last band of the night. She and Moses, her friend Nikki, and Nikki’s girlfriend, Dawn, were going to scream like crazy for Arrow.
As much as she loved the free music, the night out, she really enjoyed judging the costumes and outfits.
She’d just turned seventeen two weeks before. One more year of high school, and hey, senior year, and she’d head off to college to study design.
She had a small college fund, and had saved what she could working summers, a lot of weekends, and breaks at her mother’s shop.
Since her mother was a tailor, and a damn good one, it was solid experience. But she didn’t want to fix clothes. She wanted to design them.
She hoped for a scholarship, so she didn’t have to work every damn break and every damn weekend in college. Unless she got a solid internship.
But all that was down the road, like her mother said. Right now, the music blasted, and like most of the others she was on her feet, dancing or clapping.
She’d heard Arrow, and they were pretty mag. But she worried they wouldn’t beat the band onstage now. The all-girl band Sisters, who rocked it into fricking orbit.
She didn’t want Moses—she was just wild for Moses—to be disappointed.
To prove it, she tempered her applause, and kissed Moses. Kissed him under the stars with the music blasting.
He so did it for her! And they’d done IT four times now.
Tonight, since his parents were out of town visiting friends, and her mom said she could spend the night with Nikki, would be the big fifth.
An all night long, since Nikki would cover for her and she’d spend the whole night with Moses.
They’d never actual slept-slept together before, or woken up together. The thought of it had Arlie’s romantic heart soaring.
When Sisters rolled into their third song, Arlie lifted her arms high, waved them.
“They’re good, Mose.”
“Yeah, can’t lie. But Arrow’s going to bring it. And they’re going to take it.”
He turned to say something to Dawn, and Arlie gave her attention back to the band.
If she’d designed their outfits, she’d have put the lead vocalist in red leather skin pants. She had the body for it. She’d have paired that with—
Something stung her arm. Her first thought was wasp, and in reaction she squealed. But the sound didn’t reach over the music and shouts.
She hated wasps, actively feared them. So she had to brace herself to look down, with her teeth gritted as she braced more to flick it away.
She only saw a red mark, which relieved her even as she thought: Bastard. Go sting somebody else.
As she rubbed at it, she saw some jerk grinning at her.
“You think it’s funny?” As she shouted it, Moses turned back to her.
“What? What’s funny?”
“Nothing. I got stung by a frigging wasp, I think, or a bee, I guess, and that guy—”
She broke off as, when she started to point him out, he wasn’t there.
“Forget it. Doesn’t matter. Just some jerk.”
“You got stung? Let me see.”
“It’s no big.” She didn’t want to spoil things because she was a baby about stupid wasps. But she pressed her hand to the mark, tried to ease the nagging pain.
“Come on, let’s have a look.” Moses nudged her hand away, turned her arm. “Whoa, that was some wasp. I bet it really hurts.”
“Yeah, feels hot, too.”
“I’m going to go get you some ice for it.”
“You’re so sweet.” It had her kissing him again. “Wait till the break between bands. It’s just a sting.”
But when the song ended to wild cheers, her legs didn’t feel right.
She had to sit on the ground while Moses went to get the ice. Ice would help because she felt really hot.
“Let me see.” Nikki, with her eye on medical school, took her arm. “Holy shit, Arlie, that looks infected. And it doesn’t look like a wasp or bee sting.”
Now her head didn’t feel right. It felt like it could roll right off her shoulders. Her arm was on fire. She thought she saw flames coming right out of it.
“There’s a rabbit over there. Where did a rabbit get those clothes?”
One look at her friend’s eyes had Nikki’s heart thumping.
“Dawn, call nine-one-one. Call an ambulance.”
“Is she allergic to bees?”
“No, but I think it’s a needle stick. Nine-one-one, Dawn. Fucking now. Here, Arlie, lie down.”
“I don’t feel right. I can’t breathe right.”
She gagged. Nothing much came out before she went all the way down. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”
“Take it slow. Dawn, go up there, have them use the mic to see if there’s a doctor.”
Because her friend’s lips were turning blue, and she began to seize.
“Hurry! Hurry!”
With thoughts of the media reports of the girl at Club Rock It, tears spilled as she started CPR.
“We need help.” She shouted it as she continued compressions. “We need a doctor!”
One came even before the MTs arrived.
But it was too late.