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“All those lives cut off. An adventurous woman, girl with a boyfriend who wanted to make up, a husband and father, a woman about to start the next phase of her life, an old woman who’d spread beauty and culture around the world. And then to another husband and father who’d turned a bad beginning into a solid now, and a woman who’d once given another woman the chance to escape a monster.
“All on this board because they decided they wanted a new thrill. A new form of entertainment. The same as somebody else turning on the screen or going to a vid.”
“No. It’s like a new, stronger drug.”
“Yeah.” Exhausted, sickened, she rubbed her eyes. “You’re right, it’s more that. And that’s going to help me stop them. That need, that addiction, it’ll push them.”
“Come to bed now. You need to sleep.” He turned her, slid an arm around her. “Let it rest a few hours, Eve, so you can.”
“Can’t think anymore, anyway.” She walked out with him.
It was after three hundred hours, she realized, and no call from Dispatch. Maybe she wouldn’t be too late. Maybe she wouldn’t put another face on her board.
17
AT FIRST, SHE THOUGHT THE LION GNAWING greedily on her leg woke her—which was bad enough. But when she struggled through the surface of the dream, her communicator sent out its sharp, insistent beep.
“Fuck. Just fuck.”
Roarke’s hand ran up and down her arm in comfort as she pushed up in bed. He ordered lights on at ten percent.
“Block video,” she said as she snatched the communicator from the night table. “Dallas.”
Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.
As Dispatch ordered her to report to the house on the Upper East Side, relayed the basics, she shifted to sit on the side of the bed, dropped her head in her hands. And acknowledged.
“Before you beat yourself up,” Roarke told her, “tell me what else you could have done.”
“I don’t know. That’s the problem. If I knew what else I could’ve done, I’d’ve done it. Then I wouldn’t be going to look at a body.” She scrubbed her hands over her face before she lifted her head. “And I guess I knew I would be.”
“You’re tired, and you’re pissed off. I’m right there with you. We haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since we got back from holiday.” He raked a hand through his hair as he shoved himself up to sit. “I had a dream there was a bloody lion prowling through the house looking for a handy snack.”
She turned her head, pointed at him. “He found it. I had a dream the bitch was chowing down on my leg.” And for some odd reason, the solidarity of their unconsciouses made her feel better. “I’ve got to grab a quick shower, clear my head. Fucking lions.”
“I want one, too. The shower, that is, not the fucking lion.”
She slitted her eyes at him.
“Please. I think I can resist you. This once. I’ll go with you. Your scene’s not far.”
“We barely clocked three hours down,” she pointed out. “You can go back to sleep. You’re not—”
But he was already sliding out of bed. “I’ll be your Peabody until the real one gets there. She’s a lot farther to go than we do.”
She dragged a hand through her hair, considered. “I could use a Peabody until Peabody shows up. And some freaking coffee.”
“Then let’s get moving.”
When they went downstairs fifteen minutes later, Summerset stood, dressed in his habitual and spotless black suit. Eve wondered if he slept in it, like a vampire in a coffin. But she refrained from saying so as he held a tray with two go-cups of coffee and a bag that smelled like cinnamon bagels.
“Perhaps, at some point in the future, the two of you might consider actually living here.”
“In this dump?” Eve snagged a coffee before he could change his mind.
Roarke took the other coffee and the bag. “Thank you. If you’d contact Caro. She can handle the eight o’clock holo. I’ll be in touch with her if anything else needs to be shifted.”
“Of course. Perhaps I should suggest she put ‘police assistant’ on your official bio.”
