Page 157 of Fury In Death

“We stopped long enough to watch your part of the media conference.” He touched his lips to her cheek. “You make me proud.”

“Stealing my line. Anyway, I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s my best shot.”

“Will he try for Banner and O’Brian?”

“I don’t think so. It goes against his nature. He went after them because they took his family, and all the rest. And didn’t pay. They’re paying now. At least that’s how I see it. And him.”

“You could go home, rest a few hours.”

“I’ve got paperwork on this, and I want it done. I’m good. Better.”

“Better yet when you’ve eaten something. Chicken noodle soup should go down nicely.”

So she ate, and it did go down nicely. She dealt with paperwork, talked with Teasdale.

At the next four-hour mark, Roarke returned to put her through the process again.

“We heard it’s done now.”

“Senator Hawley flipping added some nice weight, add a Supreme Court justice is now under investigation and yadda yadda. Banner thinks he can manipulate things from inside. He’s wrong. He lost it all.”

“Can you close it out, for tonight anyway?”

“I’m going to.”

“Then I say we finish this, and go get started. It’ll give us a bit of time to see Phoebe and Sam, meet more of the families before the rest get there.”

“I guess we can do that. By the way, Mira said no sex for two days unless you do all the work.”

He smiled, helped her get back into the brace. “It’s not work when you enjoy it, is it now?”

By that criteria, Eve supposed neither of them ever worked.

Still, she took another update from Reo on the way to the garage.

“So,” she told Roarke, “the fancy lawyers with brains convinced the evil bloodsucker that going to trial would end in conviction and be worse. Even if they managed to get some of his accounts unfrozen, those legal fees and fines would eat that right up. He gets multiple lifetimes, concurrent, in prison, off-planet. Concurrent because he’s agreed to flip on others. Apparently a lot of them globally.”

She settled back. “Now I’m putting it away.”

“Well done, Lieutenant.”

“Back at you, Consultant.”

As he drove, she took off her weapon harness, locked it in the glove box.

They drove through the gates of the big, happy house, where the residents had added a bouquet of fall flowers. Party lights, ready to glow at dusk, danced along the roof and rails of the covered porch.

“Months ago, this was big, overgrown, half-dilapidated weirdness.” Still amazed at the transformation, Eve got out of the car. “Now it’s not.”

As they walked to the porch, the front door opened. August, the manny—former military—came out with Bella on his hip.

She wore a short pink dress that stopped at the calves over white leggings, sparkling pink shoes, pink-and-white candy-striped ribbons in her sunny hair, and a huge smile.

The smile faded, the big blue eyes teared up, when she saw Eve’s face.

“Das,” she said in a voice drenched in sorrow as she reached out.

“Hey, hey, don’t do that. It’s okay. I’m okay.”