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“Can’t. Don’t talk to me.”
“You can’t work around it.” He only tightened his grip when she tried to jerk away. “Let it out. Let it out,” he said in a gentler tone. “I know what she means to you.”
“God.” She wrapped her arms around him, curling her hands up over his shoulders as she pressed her face into his neck. “Oh, God. Hold on. Just for a minute, hold on.”
Her body shook, one hard wave of shudders after another. She didn’t weep, but her breath hitched as he held her close. “I can’t think about what he might do to her. If I think about it, I’ll lose it.”
“Then remember she’s strong, and she’s smart. She’ll know what she has to do.”
“Yeah.” Her ’link signaled incoming data. “That’ll be the financials.”
“I’ll start on them.” He eased her back. “He won’t win this round.”
“Damn right.”
She worked until her eyes and mind went blurry, then fueled up with coffee and worked some more. At just after two A.M. Feeney shot her more data. It told her that he, Peabody, and McNab were all still on the job.
“Basically,” Roarke said, “this is just
confirming what we already have. The accounts, the transfers. You need to find more. You need to look from a different angle.” He glanced up to see Eve all but swaying on her feet. “And you need to sleep.”
She would have argued, but it would have wasted time. “We both do. Just a little while. We can share the sleep chair. I want to stay close to this unit.”
The caffeine in her system couldn’t fight off exhaustion. Moments after closing her eyes, she fell into sleep. Where nightmares chased her.
Images of Mira trapped in a cage mixed and melded with memories of herself as a child, locked in a room. Horror, pain, fear lived in both places. He would come—Palmer, her father—he would come and he would hurt her because he could. Because he enjoyed it. Because she couldn’t stop him.
Until she killed him.
But even then he came back and did it all again in her dreams.
She moaned in sleep, curled into Roarke.
It was the smell of coffee and food that woke her. She sat up with a jerk, blinked blindly in the dark, and found herself alone in the chair. She stumbled into the kitchen and saw Roarke already taking food from the AutoChef.
“You need to eat.”
“Yeah, okay.” But she went for the coffee first. “I was thinking about what you said, looking at a different angle.” She sat, because he nudged her into a chair, and shoveled in food because it was in front of her. “What if he bought or rented this place he’s got before he got to New York? A year ago, two years ago?”
“It’s possible. I still haven’t found any payments.”
“Has to be there. Somewhere.” She heard the ring of her palm-link from the other room and was on her feet. “Stay in here, do what you can to trace.”
Deliberately she moved behind her desk, sat, composed her face. “Dallas.”
“Good morning, Lieutenant. I hope you slept well.”
“Like a top, Dave.” She curled a hand under the desk.
“Good. I want you rested up for our date tonight. You’ve got, oh, let’s see, just over sixteen and a half hours to get here. I have every confidence in you.”
“You could tell me where you are, we can start our date early.”
He laughed, obviously delighted with her. “And spoil the fun? I don’t think so. We’re puzzle solvers, Dallas. You find me by midnight and Dr. Mira will remain perfectly safe. That’s providing you come to see me alone. I’ll know if you bring uninvited guests, as I have full security. Any gate-crashers, and the good doctor dies immediately and in great physical distress. I want to dance with you, Dallas. Just you. Understood?”
“It’s always been you and me, Dave.”
“Exactly. Come alone, by midnight, and we’ll finish what we started three years ago.”
