She wondered that it could still amaze her what the man she had married could conjure.
A soaring pine decorated with thousands of white lights and silver stars stood at either end of the ballroom. The floor-to-ceiling windows showed not the nasty sleet that hissed over the city, but a hologram of a dreamy snowscene where couples skated on a silver pond and young children raced down a gentle slope on shiny red sleds.
Such details, she thought, were so utterly Roarke.
"Hey, sweetheart. All alone in this palace?"
She arched a brow when she felt the hand on her bottom and turned her head slowly to stare at McNab.
He went red, then white, then red again. "Christ! Lieutenant. Sir."
"Your hand's on my ass, McNab. I don't think you want it to be there."
He snatched it away as if scorched. "God. Man. Shit. Beg your pardon. I didn't recognize you. I mean…" He jammed the hand he sincerely hoped she'd allow him to keep in his pocket. "I didn't know it was you. I thought… You look…" Words failed him.
"I believe Detective McNab is trying to compliment you, Eve." Roarke slipped up beside them and, because it was too much to resist, stared hard into McNab's panicked eyes. "Weren't you, Ian?"
"Yeah. That is…"
"And if I believed he'd realized it was your ass he was fondling, I'd just have to kill him. Right here." Roarke reached out and flicked at the strings of McNab's snazzy red tie. "Right now."
"Oh, I'd have already taken care of that myself," Eve said dryly. "You look like you could use a drink, Detective."
"Yes, sir. I could."
"Roarke, why don't you take care of him? Mira just came in. I want to talk to her."
"Delighted." Roarke draped an arm around McNab's shoulder and squeezed just a little harder than comfort allowed.
It took longer than Eve liked to make her way across the room. It amazed her how much people wanted to talk at parties. And about nothing in particular. That was delay enough, but she caught sight of Peabody, looking very un-Peabody-like in sweeping evening pants of dull gold and a trim sleeveless jacket. Her bare arm was tucked comfortably through Charles Monroe's.
Mira, Eve decided, could wait. "Peabody."
"Dallas. Wow, the place looks amazing."
"Yeah." Eve shifted her gaze and pinned Charles with angry eyes. "Monroe."
"Fabulous home you've got. Lieutenant."
"I don't recall your name on the guest list."
Peabody colored, stiffened. "The invitation said I was free to bring a date."
"Is that what this is?" she asked, keeping her eyes on Charles's. "A date?"
"Yes." He lowered his voice as a flicker of hurt clouded his eyes. "Delia is aware of my profession."
"Are you giving her the cop's standard discount?"
"Dallas." Horrified, Peabody stepped forward.
"It's all right." Charles tugged her back. "I'm on my own time, Dallas, and hoping to spend a pleasant evening with an attractive woman whose company I enjoy. If you'd rather I leave, it's your house, your call."
"She's a big girl."
"Yes, she is," Peabody murmured. "Just a second, Charles," she added, then gripped Eve's arm and tugged her aside.
"Hey!"
"No, you hey." Fury bubbled into her voice as Peabody boxed Eve into a corner. "I don't have to clear my personal time or relationships with you, and you have no right to embarrass me."
"Wait a minute – "
"I'm not done." Later, Peabody would recall the look of speechless shock on Eve's face, but at the moment she was too revved to notice or react to it. "What I do off duty has nothing to do with the job. If I want to take on table dancing in my personal time, it's my business. If I want to pay six LCs to fuck me blind on Sundays, it's my business. And if I want to have a civilized date with an interesting, attractive man who for some reason wants to have one with me, it's my business."
"I was only – "
"I'm not done," Peabody said between clenched teeth. "On the job, you're in charge. But that's where it ends. If you don't want me here with Charles, then we'll leave."
As Peabody turned on her heel, Eve snagged her wrist. "I don't want you to leave." Her voice was quiet, controlled, and stiff as a petrified board. "I apologize for stepping into your personal life. I hope it doesn't spoil your evening. Excuse me."
Hurt, unbelievably hurt, she walked away. Her stomach was still jittering with it when she found Mira. "I don't want to take you away from the party, but I'd like a few minutes. In private."
"Of course." Concerned by the dark eyes and pale cheeks, Mira reached out. "What is it, Eve?"
"In private," she repeated, and ordered herself to bury her feelings as she led the way out. "We can talk in the library."
"Oh." The minute she stepped inside, Mira clasped her hands in sheer pleasure. "What a marvelous room. Oh, what absolute treasures. Not enough people appreciate the feel and the smell of a real book in their hands any longer. The delight of curling into a chair with the warmth of one instead of the cool efficiency of a disc."
"Roarke's into books," Eve said simply and shut the door. "The testing on Rudy. I question some of your findings."
"Yes, I thought you might." Mira wandered through, admiring, then settled onto a soft leather chair, smoothing the skirt of her rose-pink cocktail suit. "He's not your killer, Eve, nor is he the monster you want him to be."
"It has nothing to do with what I want."
"His relationship with his sister disturbs you on a deep and personal level. She isn't like you, though; she isn't a child, she isn't defenseless, and while I do believe he has an unhealthy measure of control over her, she isn't being forced."
"He uses her."
"Yes, and she him. It's mutual. I agree that he is obsessive when it pertains to her. He is sexually immature. The very thing that eliminates him from your lists, Eve, is the fact that I strongly believe he is impotent with anyone but his sister."
"He was being blackmailed and the blackmailer is dead. A client was hitting on his sister; that client is dead."
"Yes, and I admit that with that evidence I was prepared to find him capable of those murders. He isn't. He has some potential for physical violence. When roused, when threatened. But it's a flash, it's immediate. It isn't in his makeup to plan, to orchestrate, to complete the kind of killings you're dealing with."
"Then we just turn him loose?" Eve walked away. "Let him go?"
"Incest is against the law, but it has to be proven to be coerced. This isn't the case. I understand your need to punish him, and to, in your mind, release his sister from his hold."
"This isn't about me."
"Oh, I know that, Eve." Because it hurt her heart to watch, she reached up to take Eve's hand and stop the restless pacing. "Don't keep punishing yourself."
"I focused on him because of this. I know I did." Suddenly weary, she sank down beside Mira. "And because I did, I might have missed something, some detail, that would have led to the killer."
"You followed very logical, very clear-cut steps. He had to be eliminated from the list."
"But I took too long to do it. And every time my gut told me I was looking at the wrong man, I ignored it. Because I kept seeing myself. I'd look at her and I'd think, way back in my mind, I'd think, That could be me. If I hadn't killed the son of a bitch, that could be me."
She lowered her head into her hands, then dragged them back through her hair. "Christ, I'm messing up. All over the damn place."