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“Oh, he had a fitting. He’s picking up some yums on the way home.”
“With who, a regular client?”
“Ah, yeah.” Mavis bent, scooped up Belle and the red mammal. “Carrie Grace, the screen queen. You need him?”
“No. But I’m working on a case—”
“Shockamundo! Right, Bella?” Bella giggled, much like her mother, and waved the red thing in the air by its drooled-on ear.
“The thing is somebody
’s killing people who provide what we’ll call fancy or exclusive services. Expensive services, and at the top of their line.”
“I don’t—oh. Oh! Like my honey bear?”
“Yeah, like your honey bear, and like you, Mavis. Just do me a favor, and don’t take any solo appointments or meetings until I close this up. Same for your honey bear. No new clients.”
“You got that squared. Our Bellarina needs her mommy and her daddy. I’ve got that gig in London at the end of next week. We were kind of thinking about adding on some hoot time.”
“Hoot time?”
“Time for having a hoot. Fun. Vacation.”
“Why don’t you do that? Go have a hoot. Let me know one way or the other.”
“Hell, I’m packed five minutes from now. Do you really think somebody could try to hurt us?”
“Probably not. But I don’t take chances with you guys.”
“Aw, I love you, too.”
“Why is that? Why do we love each other?”
“Because we are what we are, and we’re both okay with it.”
And that, Eve thought as she drove through the gates, pretty well nailed it.
When she opened the car door, the heat knocked her back on her heels. And when she had to brace a hand on the door because her head spun, she had to admit sleep had to be the first order of business. She steadied herself and walked inside to the blissful, quiet cool.
“Have you been brawling again?” Summerset wondered. “Or is this some kind of fashion statement?”
She remembered the bandage on her arm, and the lack of a jacket to conceal it. “Neither. I lost a bet and had to get your name tattooed on my arm. So I carved it out with a penknife.”
A little lame, she thought as she went upstairs, but the best she could do when her brain wanted so desperately to check out.
Two hours, she told herself. Two hours down to recharge, then she’d go at the whole thing fresh.
In the bedroom she didn’t bother to remove her weapon and harness but simply dropped facedown on the bed. She barely felt the thump on her ass when the cat landed there.
Forty minutes later, Roarke came home.
“The lieutenant’s sporting a bandage on her left forearm,” Summerset reported. “It doesn’t look serious.”
“Ah, well.”
“You need sleep.”
“I do. Block the ’links for the next couple of hours, would you? Unless it’s an emergency or her dispatch.”
