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“Yeah. I just left the first victim’s parents and her fourteen-year-old sister smashed to bits.”
“The most brutal part of a brutal job. I’m sorry for it.”
“Me, too.”
He tipped her face back, brushed those lips over her forehead. “You’ll tell me. I think a glass of wine first—there’ll be plenty of coffee later, but a moment to settle for now.”
“Don’t really have one. Lowenbaum’s on his way over. I need him to look at the security disc. I need a consult. He’s SWAT,” she began.
“Yes, I remember him, quite well, from the Red Horse investigation last year. Why him, particularly?”
“They were laser strikes, one strike for each vic, and each one lethal. And I think they came from outside Central Park.”
“Outside? I see.”
Because he did, because he could, it relieved her of long explanations.
“Maybe one of them was a specific target, the other two cover. Maybe I’ll find a connection linking the three of them. But . . .” She shook her head. “I need to set up my murder board, start the book.”
“I can help you with that.”
“Yeah, thanks. Maybe if you—” She turned, and once again her heart stopped. But not in a good way.
On her wall screen lived a pink and purple nightmare.
Pink walls with purple squiggles framed a room filled with worse. Some sort of S-shaped seat sat in the middle of it all, carrying pink squiggles on purple, and that mounded with pillows in every color, with dizzying designs. And fringe.
A chair angled toward it—pink again, with big green dots, and—were those feathers? Feathers rising up from the back in a bright rainbow fan
.
Under the window—framed in more feathers—a bright green glossy table stood flanked by two pink chairs—purple dots. The table held a huge purple vase full of weird flowers.
Her heart started up again with a sputter as she spotted a U-shaped workstation, candy pink with a purple border.
“This can’t be real.”
“Charmaine put it together as a joke.” Roarke shifted so he could cup Eve’s face in his hands. “Which we’d both have enjoyed more if you didn’t have murder on your brain.”
“A joke.”
“Designing what we’ll call the polar opposite of what you want and need in the remodel here.”
“Opposite.”
“Completely opposite. I’ll add when she sent this, and the three actual designs, she said she thought the shock of this would smooth the way to the others.” He smiled now, traced a finger down the shallow dent in her chin. “Let’s take a moment, just scan the others, and see if she’s right. Just a quick glance. Then you won’t worry I’ve nudged you into doing something you’ll hate.”
“You couldn’t nudge me into that with a stunner on full. But I don’t know if—”
“Computer, Design One, on screen. As I said when we talked about updating your space, nothing you don’t want.”
She started to argue, then saw the image. One of quiet colors, simple lines—and what had turned her tide in the first place—a big, kick-ass command center.
“Not a trace of pink—not a single feather or flounce,” Roarke said. “Design Two, on screen.”
Stronger colors, but rich rather than bright. Maybe a few more curves, maybe a little plush on the seating, but not embarrassing.
“And Design Three, on screen.”
