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“No. We talked about art, we talked about theater. She’s had three glasses of wine and half a pack of herbals. Her hands stopped shaking about twenty minutes before you got here. She’s an emotional wreck who’s trying to hold on.”
“Okay. I appreciate it.” She jammed her hands in her pockets. “Peabody’s going to see the report.”
He could feel his own hackles rise. “Delia knows what I do.”
“Right.” It stuck in her craw like barbed wire.
“She’s a grown woman, Dallas.”
“Grown, my ass.” She gave up and kicked the wall. “She’s out of her league with an operator like you. Damn it, her family’s Free-Agers. She grew up out in bumfuck somewhere.” A vague gesture took care of the Midwest. “She’s a good cop. She’s a solid cop, but she’s still got blind sides. And she’s going to get really pissed off when she finds out I said anything to you about it. She’ll jam that stick up her ass and freeze me out, but damn it—”
“She matters,” he shot back. “She matters to you. Doesn’t it occur to you that she could matter to me?”
“Women are a business to you.”
“When they pay me to be my business. It isn’t like that with Delia. For Christ’s sake, we don’t even have sex.”
“What? She can’t meet your fee?” As soon as it was out, she hated herself. Hated herself more when she saw those cool eyes register simple hurt. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That was wrong. That was way off.”
“Yeah, it was.”
Suddenly tired, she scooted down and sat on the floor with her back against the wall. “I don’t want to know this stuff. I don’t want to think about this stuff. I like you.”
Intrigued, he lowered to the floor, his back to the counter so their knees almost brushed. “Really?”
“Yeah, mostly. You’ve been seeing her since before Christmas, and you haven’t…What’s wrong with her?”
He laughed, and this time it was easy and rich. “Jesus, Dallas, which way do you want it? I have sex with her, I’m a bastard. I don’t, I’m a bastard. Roarke was right.”
“What do you mean
, Roarke was right?”
“You can’t figure women.” He took a drink of his wine. “She’s a friend. It just happened that way. I don’t have many friends who aren’t clients or in the business.”
“Watch yourself. They start to multiply when you’re not paying attention. It complicates your whole damn life.”
“You’re a good friend. One more thing,” he said and gave her foot an easy pat. “I mostly like you, too, Lieutenant Sugar.”
• • •
The nightmare came. She should have expected it. Areena’s talk of dreams and blood and terror triggered it. But even knowing, she could never stop it once it slid into her mind.
She saw him come into the room. Her father. That nasty little room in Dallas, so cold, even with the temperature gauge stuck on high. But seeing him, smelling him, knowing he’d been drinking, but not drinking enough, had sweat popping out on her chilled arms.
She dropped the knife. She’d been so hungry, so hungry it had been worth the risk of finding a snack. Just a little piece of cheese. The knife fell out of her hand, took days, years, centuries to reach the floor. And in the dream, the clatter of it was like thunder that echoed. Echoed. Echoed.
Across his face as he walked to her, the red light from the sign washed red, then white, then red.
Please don’t please don’t please don’t.
But it never did any good to beg.
It would happen again and again and again. The pain of his hand smashing almost casually across her face. Hitting the floor so hard it rattled her bones. And then his weight on top of her.
“Eve. There now. Eve, come back to me. You’re home.”
Her breath burned in her throat, and she struggled, bucking, shoving against the arms that held her. And Roarke’s voice seeped into the dream, warm, calm, lovely. Safe.
