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But she swore she’d make damn sure she didn’t lose the silly red ones.
She made it to her car with warm hands—and maybe a warm brain.
• • •
When Eve walked into a buzzing bullpen she caught the scents of refined sugar, yeast, fat before she spotted Nadine Furst. Doughnuts, Eve thought, the cop’s sweet spot. No one knew that better than the ace reporter and bestselling author.
Nadine, her excellent legs crossed, her well-toned butt perched on Baxter’s desk, chatted amiably with Trueheart, flicked a drop of jelly from the corner of his mouth. And made his young, handsome face flush when she licked it from her finger.
“Pitiful.” Eve said it loud enough to penetrate the din. It quieted the voices, but didn’t stop the scramble to stuff sugary fat in mouths. “Just pitiful. Every one of you.”
Jenkinson swallowed a last bite of cruller. “They’re still warm.”
Okay, warm doughnuts was playing dirty, but still.
“Sanchez, you’ve got crumbs on your shirt. Reineke, for God’s sake, wipe that doughnut cream off your face.”
“It’s Bavarian,” he said with a satisfied smile.
“Peabody.”
Since she’d just taken a big bite of glazed with sprinkles, Peabody shoved it into her cheek like a chipmunk, talked around it. “I, ah, contacted Philadelphia Jones, Lieutenant. She’s coming in this morning. I was, um, about to book an Interview room.”
“Chew that damn thing and swallow it before you do. Nadine, get your ass off Baxter’s desk and into my office. Everybody else. Fight crime, for Christ’s sake.”
She strode off, relieved she’d thought to stuff the gloves in her pocket when she’d come into Central. The dressing-down would’ve been less effective while wearing red wooly gloves.
She considered tossing something over her board to conceal it, but knew very well—sneaky warm doughnuts aside—Nadine could be trusted.
“Saved you one at great personal risk.” Nadine walked in with a little pink bakery box.
“Thanks.” Eve considered trying to hide it, but the scent would guide a cop’s nose straight to the concealment. And she didn’t want to risk a hunt that might turn up her current candy hiding place.
“Those are the girls you’ve ID’d?” At home—and how did that happen?—Nadine tossed her fur-trimmed scarlet coat on Eve’s visitor’s chair, stepped to the board.
She studied it with her sharp green eyes. “All between twelve and fourteen?”
“So far.”
With a sigh, Nadine studied the other faces and notes on the board. She might look glamorous with the streaky blond hair and angled face, both camera-ready, but under the sleek package lived a canny reporter who could dig up tiny pieces of a broken gem and fit them together to make a clean, shiny whole.
“You’ve been keeping a lid on the data pretty well, especially considering Roarke found the bodies.”
“He broke through a wall—ceremoniously mostly—and discovered two of the twelve.”
“I kn
ow the outline. The buzz is who are they, how did they get there—are there more—and the Roarke connection winds through it.”
She’d basically ignored the media messages on her ’link, but there hadn’t been all that many in the big scheme. But suddenly it occurred to her Roarke was probably dealing with more. A lot more.
“His connection’s thin at best. The victims were killed about fifteen years ago, long before he bought the building.”
“It’s Roarke,” Nadine said simply. “And it’s you. I got word you’re working with the fashionable and brilliant Dr. DeWinter.”
“She’s handling the remains.”
With a little smile, Nadine sat on the corner of Eve’s desk. “How’s that working out for you?”
