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“We should eat.”
He turned to look at her as he stopped the car. “Now you’re stepping on my lines.”
“You could start the search for the weapon, and I’ll put something together.”
“Will you now?”
She couldn’t really fault his skepticism. “I won’t program pizza.”
He got out of the car, waited for her, took her hand. “What’s the occasion?”
“You have good taste in houses.”
“I have good taste in all manner of things. Especially wives.” He lifted her hand to his lips as they walked up the steps and into the house.
She gave Summerset a good, long study as he stood exactly where she’d expected, like a harbinger of doom in the foyer with the chub of cat at his feet.
“I saw your evil twin today,” she told him. “Wait, you’re the evil twin. I think he has the same tailor, too. I. M. Funereal.”
“Well, that was clever,” Roarke said and pinched the hand he’d just kissed. “We’ll be eating upstairs tonight,” he told Summerset.
“Hardly breaking news. There’s some very nice grilled swordfish, if the pair of you choose to eat like adults.”
“Swordfish,” Eve considered. “Might be lucky, considering. You didn’t have to pinch me,” she added as they continued up and the cat, his mind very likely on food, raced ahead of them. “I really did see his evil twin today. You can ask Peabody. Of the droid variety, and it had one of those fake-sounding upper-class Brit accents, but it was a ringer. I bet you could buy it cheap if you ever want to replace dour with droid.”
“You’re asking for another pinch.”
“Probably a bad idea, about the switch. As much as I hate to say it, I think the droid’s worse. Did Summerset ever tell you not to drink too many fizzies because they’re not really good for you?”
“Possibly. Probably,” Roarke said as they turned into the bedroom. “I want to change out of this suit.”
“And while he was doing that, he taught you how to steal.”
“I already knew how to steal. He taught me how to steal with a bit more finesse. Dinner,” he said as she shed her own jacket. “And if it’s the swordfish, open a ’fifty-seven Lautrec. It should be a nice complement.”
“No pointers,” she told him and changed her boots for skids. “Otherwise it doesn’t count in my column.”
She strolled out, still wearing her weapon harness, which he assumed she’d forgotten she had on as it was as much a part of her as the shallow dent in her chin.
Wanting the ease and comfort, he changed into jeans and a T-shirt before making the ’link calls he preferred to address in private. There had been too many eyes and ears on him throughout the day, he thought now. Cops’ eyes, cops’ ears. They might have been his wife’s, his friends’, but there were some matters easier done without the weight of the law on his shoulders.
Eve’s law, he thought, could be particularly heavy at times, so he programmed a series of runs, scans, and searches by remote before continuing on to his office, which intersected with hers.
He could hear her talking to the cat, ordering her computer to run a variety of probabilities, then her movements around the room.
Setting up her murder board, he concluded while he programmed searches from different angles and apexes for a sword that may or may not exist.
A fairly typical evening for them, Roarke supposed, and he had no complaints. He would have to devote several hours of what might have been free time to his own business due to the interruption of the day—and likely days more. But he liked his work, so that wasn’t a true sacrifice.
In any case, the interruption had been his call, his choice.
The boy had sparked something in him in life—all that enthusiasm and discovery. And the boy had touched something in him in death—the waste, the cruelty of the waste.
It had touched deep because Bart had trusted him—a competitor—and one with the means and experience to betray that trust and crush a young company like a hatching egg under a boot.
Perhaps that explained why he felt obligated to help find out who’d do so. Not to the company, but to the boy himself.
Eve had called Bart simple, Roarke recalled. He wasn’t sure he agreed entirely, but certainly Bart had been uncomplicated. Open, eager, honest, brilliant, and making a mark doing what he loved with people he loved.
