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She’d need to deal with Rouche, and needed to discuss that deal with the DA’s office. Well, ADA Cher Reo was sleeping off a night of drunken revelry like the rest of them, so that would be handy.
Plus, she had Mira right on-site, too. Mira would be good with additional profiling.
They wanted brunch? she thought. Fine. But they were going to work for it.
She slid her gaze right and noted that Peabody was slumped against the door and out like a light.
Okay, they’d work for it as soon as they woke up.
Dawn pearled the air as she approached the house. Probably just as well they were sleeping, Eve decided. It would give her time to recharge, think, pace, work on some angles without a bunch of distractions.
Quiet, she thought. She could definitely use the quiet.
She shoved Peabody’s shoulder and got a shocked snort out of her partner. “Wake up, go in, go up, go to bed.”
“I’m awake. I’m g
ood. Where . . . oh. Home again.”
“Don’t get used to it. Take a couple hours down. You can eat when you get up, then you’re on the roll until I say otherwise.”
“Okay. All right.” She rubbed her eyes as she followed Eve to the door. “Are you going down?”
“I want to take advantage of the quiet until—”
She opened the door, and the high-pitched scream had her reaching for her weapon. Peabody grabbed Eve’s arm. “Don’t draw down. It’s the baby.”
Eve kept her hand on her weapon while her ears rang with wails and screams. “That’s not possible. Nothing that small can make those sounds.”
But she followed the sounds to the parlor, where a pajama-clad Mavis walked a shrieking, red-faced Bella.
“Hey!” Mavis walked, patted, swayed. “You’re back. Sorry, she’s a little fussy.”
“It sounds like she’s being hacked up with an axe.” More, Eve thought, like she wanted to hack somebody else up with an axe.
“She’s got good lungs.”
Eve jolted as Mira—a Mira in a peacock blue robe—rose from the sofa. “Here, sweetie, let me take her awhile. Come to Aunt Charley, baby girl. Yes, there we are.”
“Whew.” Mavis grabbed a mug off the table, glugged. “I brought her down here to keep from breaking eardrums upstairs. She sure is pissed.”
“Why? What did you do? That can’t be normal. You’re a doctor,” Eve added, pointing at Mira. “You should do something.”
“I am.” Mira walked, stroked, crooned. “She’s just teething and feeling mad, aren’t you, poor thing? Poor Belle. I bet you could use some coffee.”
“I bet she could,” Eve muttered.
Mavis rose, handing Mira some pink-and-blue device that Mira plugged in Belle’s mouth, then Mavis poured another mug of coffee. “Here you go. Peabody?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Since whatever Belle gnawed on took the shrieks down to sucking sounds and whimpers, Eve drank. “So . . . everybody else is asleep.”
“As far as I know,” Mavis told her. “Some conked downstairs watching vids. Others crawled off to their assigned rooms. Everyone had a mega-blast. Sorry you got called away.”
Eve kept a wary eye on Belle, whose eyes were going glassy as she sucked. “Is that thing tranq’d? Is it legal?”
“No, it’s not tranq’d; yes, it’s legal. It’s cold. The cold makes her inflamed gums feel better.” Mira stroked Belle’s cheek with her own. “She’s worn herself out. Haven’t you, sweetheart, just worn yourself out. The call was connected to the Coltraine case?”
