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Thirty minutes later, she stumbled out of the shower and into the drying tube. He was a quick change artist when it came to mood, she thought dizzily. From lazy to amused to hot, steamy, mind-numbing sex, all in one short morning.
Because her system was still frazzled, she braced a hand against the curve of the tube as warm air blew around her. When he stepped out of the shower, she jabbed out a finger.
“Stay away from me. You grab me again, I’ll have to take you down. I mean it. I’ve got work.”
He hummed a tune and used a towel. “I like making love to you in the morning. You only wake up fast if you get a call from dispatch or if I seduce you.”
“I’m awake now.” She stepped out, pushed a hand through her hair. Giving herself safe distance, she reached for a robe. “Go look at the stock reports or something.”
“I intend to. You’ll want breakfast,” he added as he left the room. “I’ll order it up.”
She started to tell him she wasn’t hungry. She wasn’t. But she knew without fuel she wouldn’t make it through the day.
When she joined him in the bedroom, he was slipping into a shirt, his gaze focused on the table monitor where he could view the headlines and financial reports. She walked past him to her closet, chose plain gray trousers.
“I’m sorry I lost it last night.”
He lifted his gaze, noted she kept her back to him as she pawed out a shirt. “You were upset. You had a right to be.”
“Anyway, I appreciate you not making me feel like an idiot.”
“How do you feel now?”
She jerked a shoulder. “I’ve got a job to do.” She’d come to that end while she’d tossed her way into sleep. “I’m going to do it. Maybe…Well, maybe if I do it right, Feeney won’t hate me so much when it’s over.”
“He doesn’t hate you, Eve.” When she didn’t answer, he let it drop. He’d already programmed their meal in the recessed AutoChef. “I thought ham and eggs would do the trick this morning.”
He got the coffee first, brought it to the table in the sitting area.
“It’ll do the trick any morning.” She pasted on a determined smile, went over to get the food herself. He ordered the viewing screen on Channel 75 while she shoveled in creamy eggs.
She scowled as the on-air reporter, glossy as a china doll at seven thirty in the morning, recited the data on the Wineburg homicide.
“Though Lieutenant Eve Dallas, assigned to the homicide division of NYPSD, was on the scene, only yards away from the murder site, the police have no solid leads. The investigation continues. This is the second stabbing death connected with Lieutenant Dallas in as many days. When asked if the cases are linked, Dallas refused to comment.”
“A ten-year-old kid with a vision defect could see they’re linked, for Christ’s sake.” She had been eating on automatic, and now shoved the plate aside. “That Cross bitch is sitting in her hell house, laughing.”
Springing up, she began to pace. Roarke took it as a good sign. If she was angry, she wasn’t feeling sorry for herself. He chose some fresh strawberry jam for his croissant.
“I’m going to nail her, I swear to God, I’m going to nail her. For all of them. I need to connect Wineburg to her. If I can do that, I can harass her some more. May not be enough to get me a warrant to toss her place, but I can keep on her ass.”
“Well, then.” Roarke wiped his fingers with a pale blue linen cloth, set it aside. “I should be able to help you with that.”
As she continued to pace and mutter, he rose, walked to a dresser, took a sealed disc from a drawer. “Lieutenant?”
“What? I’m thinking.”
“Then I won’t interrupt your train of thought with the list of membership from Cross’s cult.” With a half smile on his face, he tapped the disk against his palm and waited for her eyes to clear and shoot to him.
“The list? You got the membership roster? How?”
He cocked his head. “You don’t really want to know how, do you?”
“No.” She said it immediately. “No, I guess I don’t.
Just tell me he’s on it.” She closed her eyes briefly. “Just tell me Wineburg’s on the list.”
“He certainly is.”
