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“Ah, no. No, sir. I thought it more efficient to enter the new data directly into yours.”
“That’s a good story, Peabody, you stick with it.” Eve walked to her AutoChef and programmed coffee for herself. It was Roarke’s blend rather than the poison served in the bull pen area, which explained Peabody cozying up at her superior’s desk.
“What new data?”
“Captain Feeney pulled all communications on Devane’s ’links. Doesn’t appear to be anything that relates, but it’s all here. We have her personal datebook with all appointments and the most current data from her last health exam.”
“She have any problems there?”
“Not a one. She was a tobacco addict, registered, and took regular anticancer injections. She had no sign of disease: physical, emotional, or mental. Tended toward stress and overwork, which was counteracted with soothers and tranqs. She was cohabitating, happily, by all reports. Her partner is currently off planet. You have the name of next of kin, her son from a previous partnership.”
“Yeah, I contacted him. He’s based at the Tattler offices in New L.A. He’s coming in.” Eve angled her head. “Comfortable, Peabody?”
“Yes, sir. Oh, sorry.” She got up quickly from behind the desk and resettled in the ratty chair beside it. “Your meeting with the commander?”
“We’ve got a week,” Eve said briskly as she sat. “Let’s make the most of it. ME’s report on Devane?”
“Not yet available.”
Eve turned to her ’link. “Let’s see if we can give him a little shove.”
By the time she got home, she was staggering. She’d missed dinner, which she thought was just as well since she’d ended the day at the morgue viewing what was left of Cerise Devane.
Even the stomach of a veteran cop could turn.
And she would get nothing there, nothing at all. She doubted even Roarke’s equipment could reconstruct enough of Devane to be of any help.
She walked in, nearly tripped over the cat who was stretched at the threshold, and drummed up the energy to bend down and lift him. He studied her, annoyance gleaming in his bicolored eyes.
“You wouldn’t get kicked, pal, if you draped your fat ass somewhere else.”
“Lieutenant.”
She shifted the cat, looked over at Summerset who, as usual, had appeared out of nowhere. “Yeah, I’m late,” she snapped. “Give me a demerit.”
He didn’t add his normal withering remark. He had seen the clips on the news channel, and he had watched her on the ledge. He had seen her face. “You’ll want dinner.”
“No, I don’t.” She wanted bed and headed for the stairs.
“Lieutenant.” He waited for her bad-tempered oath, waited until she’d turned her head to scowl at him. “A woman who steps out on a ledge is either very brave or very stupid.”
The scowl turned into a sneer. “I don’t have to ask what category you put me in.”
“No, you don’t.” He watched her climb up and thought her courage was terrifying.
The bedroom was empty. She told herself she’d run a house scan for Roarke’s location in just a minute, then fell facedown on the bed. Galahad wiggled out of the crook of her arm and climbed onto her butt to circle and knead his way to comfort.
Roarke found her there minutes later, sprawled out in exhaustion, a sausage-shaped cat guarding her flank.
He simply studied her for a while. He, too, had seen the news clips. They had paralyzed him, dried the saliva in his mouth, and turned his bowels to water. He knew how often she faced death—others’ and her own—and told himself he accepted it.
But that morning he had watched, helpless, while she’d teetered on the brink. He’d looked into her eyes, seen the grit and the fear. And he had suffered.
Now she was here, home, a woman with more bone and muscle than curves, with hair that badly needed tending and boots worn out at the heels.
He walked over, sat on the edge of the bed, and laid a hand over the one curled loosely on the spread.
“I’m just getting my second wind,” she murmured.
