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"Fine." He stopped by her car, angling his head as he studied it. "Actually, this suits you better now."
"Bite me," she said with a laugh, then put on her official face for the bomb squad.
• • •
When she returned to Cop Central, Eve hit the showers and washed off the stink and soot. She remembered the gash in her leg when the hot water stung. Setting her teeth, she cleaned the wound herself, dug out a first-aid kit, and went to work on it. She figured she'd watched the med-techs poke around her body often enough to handle a few cuts.
Satisfied, she rooted through her locks for her spare set of clothes and made herself a memo to bring more in. Those she'd been wearing went straight into the recycler as a dead loss.
She found Roarke in her office, having a cozy chat with Nadine Furst from Channel 75.
"Scram, Nadine."
"Come on, Dallas, a cop nearly gets blown up when her husband's building is destroyed by person or persons unknown, it's news." She offered Eve one of her pretty cat smiles, but there was concern in her eyes. "You okay?"
"I'm fine, and I wasn't nearly blown up. I was yards away from the building at the time of the explosion. I've got nothing official to give you at this time."
Nadine merely re-crossed her legs. "What were you doing at the building?"
"Maybe I was scoping out my husband's property."
Nadine snorted and managed to make the sound ladylike. "Yeah, and maybe you've decided to retire and raise puppies. Give a little, Dallas."
"The building was abandoned. I'm homicide. There was no homicide. I suggest you stroll on up to Explosives and Bombs."
Nadine's eyes slitted. "It's not your case?"
"Why would it be? Nobody died. But if you don't get out of my chair, somebody might."
"All right, all right." With a shrug, Nadine rose. "I'll go charm the boys in E and B. Hey, I caught Mavis's video yesterday. She looked fantastic. When's she due back?"
"Next week."
"We'll have a welcome home party for her," Roarke put in. "I'll let you know the details."
"Thanks. You're so much nicer than Dallas." With a cocky grin, Nadine strolled out.
"I'm going to remember that crack the next time she wants a one-on-one," Eve muttered and closed her door.
"What didn't you tell her?" Roarke asked.
Eve dropped into her chair. "It's going to take time for E and B to scan and sweep the site. At this point, they have some pieces and suspect there were at least six explosive devices, likely on timers. It'll be a couple of days before I have a cohesive report."
"But it's your case."
"At this point, it appears the explosion is linked to a homicide I'm investigating." Fixer was hers now. She'd arranged it. "The people responsible for both contacted me. I have a meeting with Whitney shortly, but yeah, until he says differently, it's mine. Did you ever have any dealings with Fixer?"
Roarke stretched out his legs. "Is that an official question?"
"Shit." She closed her eyes. "That means you did."
"He had magic hands," Roarke said, examining his own.
"I'm getting really tired of hearing that from people who should know better. Give."
"Five, maybe six years ago. He worked on a little device for me. Security probe, a very cleverly designed code breaker."
"Which I suppose you designed."
