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"Private security, families." Her eyes filled and stung again. "Just how much do you want to dump on me when I'm down?"
"I expected better of you," he said coolly and had the tears drying up.
"Better? Better of me?"
"A great deal better. What have you done the last thirty-odd hours, Eve, but cry and hide and feel sorry for yourself? Where do you expect that to get you?"
"I expected you to understand." Her voice broke and nearly undid him. "To give me some support."
"To understand you crawling away, to support your self-pity." He sipped brandy again. "No, I don't think so. It gets tiring, watching you wallow in it."
It stole her breath away, the light disgust in his voice, the disinterest in his eyes. "Just leave me alone then!" She s
houted it, tossed the brandy aside so that the glass bounced and rolled as the liquor soaked the carpet. "You don't know how I feel."
"No." Finally, he thought, finally here was her fury. "Why don't you tell me?"
"I'm a goddamn cop. I can't be anything else. I busted my ass at the academy because it was the answer. It was the only way I knew to make something of myself. To finally be something that wasn't another number, another name, another victim the system sucked up and struggled with. I did it," she said furiously. "I made me so that nothing, nothing that happened before had to matter."
She whirled away. There were tears again, but these were hot and potent and full of rage. "What I didn't remember, what I did, none of it could change where I was going. Being a cop, being in control, using the system that had, by God, used me all my fucking life. From the inside, with a badge, I could believe in it again. I could make it work. I could stand for something."
"Why have you stopped?"
"They stopped me!" She spun back, her hands fisted. "Eleven years, the years that matter, when I trained and I learned and I worked to make a difference somewhere. The bodies stacked up in my mind, the blood I've waded through, and the waste. I see it in my sleep, every face of the dead. But it didn't stop me, never would have stopped me, because it matters too much. Because I can look at them and know what I have to do. And I can live with everything that happened to me, even the things I don't remember."
He nodded coolly. "Then fight back, and get what you need."
"I've got nothing. Goddamn it, Roarke, can't you see? When they took my badge, they took everything I am."
"No, Eve. They didn't take what you are unless you let them. They only took your symbols. If you need them," he continued, stepping to her, "pull yourself together, stop whining, and get them back."
She jerked away from him. "Thanks for the support." Her voice cracked like ice under a pick as she turned and walked out of the room.
Driven by temper, she stormed through the house, down to the gym. She stripped off the robe, dragged on a unisuit. Her blood blazing, she activated the combat droid and beat the shit out of it.
Upstairs, Roarke sipped brandy and grinned like a fool as he watched her on a monitor. He imagined she'd replaced the droid's face with his. "Go ahead, darling," he murmured. "Pound me into dust." He winced a little when she jammed her knee hard into the droid's crotch, felt a sympathetic twinge in his own balls.
"I guess I had that coming," he decided and made a mental note to order a new combat droid. This one was toast.
It was good progress, he mused after she'd left the mangled droid on the mat, stripped off her sweat-soaked suit, and stomped into the pool house. He counted thirty strong, steady laps when Summerset hailed him.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, but a Detective Baxter is at the gate. He wishes to see Lieutenant Dallas."
"Tell him she remains unavailable. No." On impulse, Roarke shifted gears. He was more than a little tired of doing nothing himself. "Let him in, Summerset. I'll see him. I have a few words for the NYPSD. Send him to my office."
"I'll be happy to."
• • • •
Baxter was doing his best not to gawk. His mood was glum, his nerves on edge, and he'd already dealt with the wave of reporters at the gate. Beating on the windows of an official vehicle, for Christ's sake, he thought. Where was the respect and the good healthy fear for cops these days?
And now he found himself being led through a fucking palace by a stiff-assed butler type. The place was like something out of a video. One of his favorite pastimes had been to razz Eve about the unlimited credit well she'd fallen into with Roarke. Now he had all this new material and didn't have the heart to use it.
He got another eyeful when he walked into Roarke's office. The equipment alone was enough to make his eyes want to pop out of his head, and the setting, acres of treated glass, miles of glossy tiles, made him feel shabby in his off-the-rack suit and well-broken-in shoes.
Just as well, he decided. He felt pretty damn shabby all around.
"Detective." Roarke remained seated behind the desk, the position of power. "Your identification?"
