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“You live with him.”
“I live with me, too, and I don’t even know what I’m wearing tomorrow.” But Roarke would, she thought. Jesus, was she supposed to know what he was wearing? Was that another damn marriage rule?
“Did he wear one last year?” How was she supposed to remember? But she tried. “I don’t think so. I can ask him not to if that helps you out.”
“Do that. You do that.” With a righteous nod, Feeney smoothed a hand down his wrinkled jacket. “Bad enough to have to get all fancied up without that.”
“Tell me,” she said, with feeling. “I’m the one who’ll have to have glop all over my face while I walk around on stilts.”
“What you get for being female.”
“It’s not right.”
“The wife likes the fancy, and the stilts. Looks good on her, too. Anyway.” He scratched at his ear. “Anyway, I’m going to tell you she made you guys a bowl in her pottery class. It’s not bad—doesn’t even wobble. Much.”
“Ah . . . that was nice of her,” Eve said cautiously.
“I figure how many bowls can somebody use, but that’s not something you say when you’re married to somebody who keeps making them. Unless you want to hit a rough patch.”
“I get it.”
“So I got this.” He reached into the inside pocket of his ugly jacket, took out a small, slim square wrapped in shiny red paper.
“Oh,” Eve said when he shoved it at her.
She was lousy at giving gifts; she was worse at getting them.
“I didn’t want to give it over tomorrow, with the party and the people and all that.”
“Okay. Thanks.” After an awkward pause, she deduced she was meant to open it on the spot.
She pulled off the paper, crumpled it, shot it into her recycler. She lifted the lid, just stared.
Small reproductions of the medals she and Roarke had been awarded the month before floated inside clear glass. Etched beneath each were their names, the award, and the date presented.
“This is . . .” Her throat closed up on her. “A lot,” she managed. “This is a lot.”
“I figured you could put it somewhere you could take a look at when the job gets heavy. Maybe not here. It’s a little like bragging if you put it in here.”
“Yeah. It should be at home. It’s Roarke’s, too.”
“The highest honor given a cop.” There was a light in his voice that had her throat clogging on her. “The highest given a civilian. I was real proud of both of you.”
She struggled for composure before she risked looking up at him. “That’s a lot, too.”
“Can’t get a little sentimental at Christmas, when can you? Well.” He gave her a light punch on the arm, settled them both. “I gotta get back. No monkey suit,” he reminded her.
“I’ll tell him. Thanks, Feeney.”
She stayed where she was when he walked out, ran her fingertip over her name, over Roarke’s.
She looked up at her board, at the image of Trey Ziegler propped in bed, that mocking note pinned to his chest with a kitchen knife.
“You were an asshole, Ziegler. A user, a whore, a rapist. I wish you were alive so I could toss you in a cage. But since you’re dead, you’re going to get the best I’ve got.”
Carefully she put the lid back on the box, set it aside.
She sat down with what was left of her coffee, and went to work.
