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“Har-har.” She took the glass, downed the remaining contents. “There must be a way to make this taste less like sewage.”
“Certainly.” He set the glass back on the tray, then got to his feet. “But I’m entitled to my small pleasures. I might suggest you try some moderate exercise now.”
She didn’t have time, but she took it anyway and went down to the gym. He wasn’t using the machines, he rarely did, but was steadily, sweatily, working his way through bench presses. He had the screen on, with the audio set to spew out the various stock reports.
She found she didn’t understand the words any more than she did the symbols.
She went to him, knelt by his head. “I’m sorry.”
He continued to lift, set, lower. “Feeling better?”
“Yeah. Roarke, I’m sorry. I was an idiot. Don’t be mad at me. I don’t think I could handle it right now.”
“I’m not mad at you.” He lifted the bar into the safety, then slid out from under. “The situation occasionally rips my throat out.”
“I can’t do anything else. I can’t be anything else.”
He reached down for his towel, rubbed it over his face. “I wouldn’t want you to do or be anything else. It’s beyond my capabilities not to react as I do when you run yourself into the ground.”
“You usually drag me back out before the ground closes over my head.”
He looked at her face. Still so pale, he thought. Nearly transparent. “Doesn’t seem I was quite quick enough this time.”
“Let’s go to Mexico.”
“Excuse me?”
“The house in Mexico.” She figured if she could surprise him, she was still in reasonable shape. “It’s been a while. Why don’t we take a long weekend once this is over?”
Considering her, he drew the towel between his hands, then hooked it behind her head to bring her closer. “Who’s dragging who back out now?”
“Let’s drag each other. Give me time to close this down, and you do whatever it is you do to clear a few days. Then we’ll run away. We’ll lie on the beach, we’ll get drunk and have monkey sex. We’ll watch film discs until our eyes fall out.”
“Go back to the monkey sex.”
She laid her hands on his cheeks. “I’ve got to get ready for the briefing. We’ve got a deal, right?”
“Yes.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, relieved to find it cool again. “We definitely have a deal.”
She got up, but when she reached the door, turned back to look at him. He still sat on the bench, lean and sweaty in a black muscle shirt. He’d tied his hair back and had yet to bother with shoes.
And he watched her through eyes so brilliantly blue, it seemed she could dive through them, and into him.
“There was never anybody before you,” she said. “I just wanted to say that. And when I did what I do, and it opened a crack in me like it did last night, there was nobody there to hold on to me. I didn’t want anyone to hold on to me. Until you. And I got through and I got by, and it was okay. But I think, maybe, if I’d just kept getting through and getting by, I’d have come to a point where I couldn’t do it anymore. And if I couldn’t do it anymore, it’d be the end of me, Roarke.”
She took a steadying breath. “So when you hold on to me, you’re helping me stand up, one more time. And the dead, you’re standing for them, too. I just wanted to say that.”
She went out quickly, and left him staring after her.
When she strode into her office at six minutes after six, she was heavy-eyed, pale, but clear-headed. She found McNab and Peabody had already raided the AutoChef. And Feeney, just arrived, was helping himself to the spread set out across her desk.
“What the hell do you think this is, the Breakfast Barn?”
“Gotta have fuel.” Feeney munched into a strip of bacon. “Mother Mary, it’s pig meat. Know how long it’s been since I had a slice of real pig?”
She nipped it out of his fingers, ate it herself. “Then get a damn plate. You can eat while I bring you up to speed. Peabody, it appears there’s no cup of coffee in my hand. I can only assume I’ve somehow stepped into an alternate universe.”
Peabody swallowed a heaping forkful of ham and eggs. “Maybe in this one I’m the lieutenant, and you’re . . .” She hopped up, propelled by Eve’s fri
