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“Educated guess.”
“She’s lucky she made it in at all. She looks like she’d been thrown off a cliff.”
Eve took the nurse’s arm before she could move on. “A fall? Not a beating?”
“I can’t tell you. If she beats the odds, she’ll tell you herself.”
She frowned as the nurse hurried away. And the frown deepened when she saw Roarke coming toward her.
“I heard. I thought I should come.”
“Are the partners in there?”
“Yes. Peabody’s with them now.”
“Impressions?”
“Shocked, scared—as you’d expect. Propping each other up you could say.”
“Did either of them ask you about your game in development?”
“No. I don’t think that’s on their scope at the moment.”
Eve shifted her gaze toward the waiting area. “It is for at least one of them.”
“You believe one of them beat that girl—from what I understand—to pieces?”
“No question about it. Not anymore. The only question is how to nail it down. Buy a little time, change the focus, tug the heartstrings. She was the short end of the triangle, hotheaded, impulsive, the weak spot. So she’s a logical sacrifice in the game. She—”
“Christ Jesus, Eve. The girl’s shattered like glass, and it’ll take a bloody miracle to put her together again. And you’re standing here talking about fucking games?”
She met fire with ice. “Obviously your heartstrings are playing a tune.”
“It might be because I have them,” he shot back. “Because I’m not so caught up trying to win some shagging game that I consider a young woman a logical sacrifice. She’s still alive, Lieutenant. She’s not on your side of the board yet.”
“Why don’t you go back to the waiting area. You can all join hands. Maybe hold a prayer meeting. You go ahead and do that while the one who put her in the OR is chuckling up his sleeve. I’ve got better things to do.”
She strode away, steeling both her heart and her belly against the hurt. It wasn’t just the body, she thought, that could shatter. And it wasn’t only fists and pipes and bats that could shatter it.
She found an empty restroom, leaned against the wall, and gave herself a moment to settle. She checked in with Feeney, updated Whitney, consulted with Mira.
This is how it worked, she reminded herself. How she worked. Sitting around patting heads, stroking hands didn’t get the job done. It wouldn’t bring Bart’s killer to justice or save Cill.
She’d be damned if she’d apologize for doing her job the way she saw fit to do it.
Calmer, she found another nurse, badged her, and arranged for a setup in a private observation room. She stood, alone, drinking hideous coffee, and watching as the medical team struggled to put that shattered glass back together again.
Even if she lived, Eve thought, those pieces would never fit quite the same way.
Not on her side of the board yet? Fuck that, she thought. Cill had moved to her side of the board the minute she fell to the floor.
She glanced back as the door opened, saw Roarke come in, then turned her attention back to the screen.
“I have no excuse for that,” he began. “Absolutely no excuse for saying those things to you. I’m unspeakably sorry, Eve.”
“Forget it.”
“I can’t. I won’t.” He walked to her, stood with her, but didn’t touch. “And still I hope you’ll forgive me.”
