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“I don’t think so. We need to sit down and figure who would go after you this way, and why.”
“All right, when I can. I’ve some arrangements to put into motion just now. We’re having some people over for dinner.”
“Tonight? Roarke—”
“I can make your excuses if it’s not convenient for you. Magda and her son, and a few key people will be here. It’s important to smooth out feathers ruffled by the incident last night, and to reassure everyone involved in the upcoming auction that security and publicity are under control.”
“No point in asking you to postpone the whole deal.”
“None at all,” he said cheerfully. “I can hardly put the hotel, or any of my projects or my life for that matter, on hold because it’s believed that someone’s hoping to upset me.”
“The next move might be on you.”
His smile never dimmed. In fact, it sharpened. “I’d prefer it. I don’t want another innocent life on my conscience. In any case, I have the most reliable of bodyguards very close at hand.”
And she intended to be closer. “What time’s the dinner thing?”
“Eight.”
“Then I’d better get some work done. I guess I have to put on some fancy deal.”
“Leave that to me.” He took her hand, kissed it. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah, save it. I want some of your time before tomorrow,” she added, jogging up the stairs.
“Darling Eve, I want a great deal of yours.”
She snorted, kept going, and when she reached the second floor paused as Mick came out of one of the countless guest rooms. He’d removed his suit jacket and looked, to her eye, casual and at home.
He gave her a quick, crooked smile. “Ah, Lieutenant. Nothing more annoying than an unexpected houseguest, is there? And add on to that an old boyhood friend of your husband’s who’s a stranger to you, and you have tedium on top of it. I hope you’re not too inconvenienced by my staying.”
“It’s a big house,” she said, then realized that was probably not the most polite of responses. But he received it with such a huge, rollicking laugh she had to grin back at him. “Sorry, I’m a little distracted. Roarke wants you here, so that’s fine with me.”
“Thanks for that. I’ll try not to bore the ears off your head with stories of our youthful escapades.”
“Actually, I like hearing that kind of thing.”
“Well now, that’s opening the worm can.” He winked at her. “Some house,” he said, letting his gaze wander the generous hall and stairs. “House isn’t the word, I suppose, not near to grand enough for this palace. How do you find your way about?”
“I don’t always.” She noticed his gaze shifting again, resting contemplatively on her weapon harness. “Problem?” she said, coolly now.
“No, indeed, though I’m not shamed to say I’m not one to care for that sort of weapon.”
“Really.” Idly, she laid her hand on it. “What kind of weapon do you prefer?”
He lifted his arm, cocked it at the elbow, and bunched his fist. “This always did fine enough for me. But in your line of work, well . . . And speaking of that, I was just thinking this is one of the rare pleasant conversations I’ve experienced with a person in your profession. Roarke and a cop. Begging your pardon, Lieutenant, there’s a brain rattler. Maybe you’d sit and tell me the story of how that came to be one of these days. God knows I’d love to hear it.”
“Ask Roarke. He’s better at stories than I am.”
“I’d like your version all the same.” He hesitated, then appeared to come to a decision as he approached her. “Roarke wouldn’t have settled for less than smart, so I figure you for a smart cop, Lieutenant. And as one, you’d know the likes of me when you look. But maybe you don’t know that Roarke’s my oldest friend in this world. I hope I can work a truce, if nothing better than that, with the woman my friend married.”
When he held out a hand, Eve came to a decision of her own. “I’ll take a truce with a friend of the man I married.” She clasped his hand. “Keep it clean in New York, Mick. I don’t want any trouble for him.”
“Nor do I.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Or for meself for that matter. You work in the homicide part of things, don’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“I can say, looking you in the eye, that I’ve never had occasion to kill anyone, and have no plans to begin. That might help things along here.”
