There was a woman sitting in her visitor’s chair. Red hair, green eyes, lips curved in a smile of sweet sentiment. Eve saw a monster, fanged and clawed. One that didn’t need to wait for the dark.
“You need to go. You have to go now.”
“You must be busy as a one-armed paper hanger, and here I am just babbling on. You just tell me where you want to have dinner, and I’ll get on, have Bobby make some reservations.”
“No. No. I remember you.” A little, some. It was easy to let it haze. It was necessary. “I’m not interested. I don’t want to see you.”
“What a thing to say.” The voice registered hurt, but the eyes were hard now. “What a way to be. I took you into my home. I was a mama to you.”
“No, you weren’t.” Dark rooms, so dark. Cold water. I set store by a clean kitchen.
No. Don’t think now. Don’t remember now.
“You’re going to want to go now, right now. Quietly. I’m not a helpless child anymore. So you’re going to want to go, and keep going.”
“Now, Eve, honey—”
“Get out, get out. Now.” Her hands were shaking so that she balled them into fists to hide the tremors. “Or I’ll put you in a fucking cage. You’ll be the one in a cage, I swear it.”
Trudy picked up her purse, and a black coat she’d hung over the back of the chair. “Shame on you.”
Her eyes as she walked by Eve were wet with tears. And hard as stone.
Eve started to close the door, to lock it. But the room was overwhelmed with the scent of roses. Her stomach clenched, so she braced her hands on her desk until the worst of the nausea passed.
“Sir, the woman who was… Lieutenant? Sir, are you all right?”
She shook her head at Trueheart’s voice, waved him back. Digging for control, she straightened. She had to hold on, hold onto herself, until she got out. Got away. “Tell Detective Peabody something’s come up. I have to go.”
“Lieutenant, if there’s anything I can do—”
“I just told you what to do.” Because she couldn’t bear the concern on his face, she left her desk, the unanswered ‘link, the messages, the paperwork, arrowed straight through the bull pen, ignoring the hails.
She had to get out, outside. Away. Sweat was sliding down her back as she jumped on the first glide down. She could swear she felt her own bones trembling, and the cartilage in her knees sloshing, but she kept going. Even when she heard Peabody call her name, she kept going.
“Wait, wait! Whoa. What’s the matter? What happened?”
“I have to go. You’ll have to handle Zero, the PA. Next of kin of the victims may be calling in for more answers. They usually do. You have to deal with them. I have to go.”
“Wait. Jesus, did something happen to Roarke?”
“No.”
“Will you wait one damn minute!”
Instead, feeling her stomach revolt, Eve sprinted into the closest bathroom. She let the sickness come—what choice did she have? She let it come, the bitter bile of it, pouring through the fear and panic and memory, until she was empty.
“Okay. Okay.” She was shaking, and her face ran with sweat. But there were no tears. There wouldn’t be tears to add to the humiliation.
“Here. Here you go.” Peabody pushed dampened tissues into her hand. “It’s all I’ve got. I’ll get some water.”
“No.” Eve let her head fall back on the wall of the stall. “No. Anything goes in now is just going to come up again. I’m okay.”
“My ass. Morris has guests in the morgue that look better than you.”
“I just need to go.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I just need to go. I’m taking the rest of the day, comp time. You can handle the case, you’re up to it.” I’m not , she thought. I’m just not. “Any problems, just… just stall ‘til tomorrow.”
“Screw the case. Look, I’ll get you home. You’re in no shape to—”
“Peabody, if you’re my friend, back off. Let me be. Just do the job,” Eve said as she got shakily to her feet. “And let me be.”
Peabody let her go, but she pulled out her pocket ‘link as she headed back up to Homicide. Maybe she had to back off, but she knew someone who didn’t.
And wouldn’t.
* * *
Eve’s first thought was to set her vehicle on auto. But it was better to be in control, better to concentrate on navigating the trip uptown. Better, she thought, to deal with the traffic, the snags, the time, the sheer bad temper of New York than her own misery.
Going home, that was the object. She’d be okay once she was home.
Maybe her stomach was raw and her head pounding, but she’d been sick before, and unhappy before. The first eight years of her life had been a slow ride through hell, and the ones following it hadn’t been a damn picnic at the beach.
She’d gotten through, she’d gotten by.
She’d get through, she’d get by again.
She wasn’t going to be sucked back in. She wasn’t going to be a victim because some voice from the past panicked her.
But her hands shook on the wheel nonetheless, and she kept all the windows down to the harsh air, the city smells.
Soy dogs smoking on a glide-cart, the sour belch of a maxibus, a curbside recycler that hadn’t been serviced in recent memory. She could take the stench of all that, and the sheer weight of aromas layering the air from the mass of humanity that thronged the streets and glides.
She could take the noise, the blats and the beeps that thumbed their collective noses at noise pollution laws. The tidal wave of voices rolled toward her, through her, past her. Thousands crammed the streets, the natives clipping along, tourists gawking and getting in the way. People juggling and hauling boxes and shopping bags.
Christmas was coming. Don’t be late.
She’d bought a scarf off the street from a smart-ass kid she’d enjoyed. Green and black checks, for Dr. Mira’s husband. What would Mira have to say about her reaction to today’s ugly flashback?
Plenty. The criminal profiler and psychiatrist would have plenty to say in her classy and concerned way.
Eve didn’t give a rat’s bony ass.
She wanted home.
Her eyes blurred when the gates opened for her. Blurred with weariness and relief. The great, grand lawn flowed, acres of peace and beauty in the center of the chaos of the city she’d made hers.
Roarke had the vision, and the power, to create this haven for himself, and for her the sanctuary she hadn’t known she’d wanted.
It looked like an elegant fortress, but it was home. Just home, for all its size and fierce beauty. Behind those walls, that stone and glass, was the life they’d created together. Their lives, their memories, spilled out into all those vast rooms.
He’d given her home, she needed to remember that. And to remember that no one could take it from her, no one could rip her back to when she’d had nothing, had been nothing.
No one could do that but Eve herself.
But she was cold, so cold, and the headache was tearing through her skull like demon claws.
She dragged herself out of the car, swayed on a hip that now ached horribly. Then she put one foot in front of the other until she’d made it up the steps, through the door.
She barely registered Summerset, Roarke’s majordomo, glide into the foyer. She didn’t have the energy to spar with him, hoped she had enough to get up the stairs.