If it came to that it might be best to move away altogether and start over.
She could dump the whole business on Roarke, of course. He actually liked to come across stuff to pick up. The man shopped—something she avoided at all possible costs. But if you were going to end up with all these people in your life, it seemed you should at least spend a half a minute picking something up, personally. Plus, she thought it was another kind of rule.
Relationships were lousy with rules, that much she’d learned. It was just her bad luck that she usually tried to play by them.
One of the rules she enjoyed was verbally bitch-slapping Summerset on her way in or out the door. He was there—of course he was there, the skeleton in a black suit—in the foyer.
“My vehicle better be right where I left it, Nancy.”
His lips thinned. “You’ll find the object you call a vehicle currently embarrassing the front of this house. I require any and all additions or adjustments to your personal guest list for tomorrow’s gathering by two this afternoon.”
“Yeah? Well, check with my social secretary. I’ll be a little busy serving and protecting the city for lists.”
She strolled out, then hissed. List? She was supposed to have a list for this, too? What was wrong with just running into someone and telling them to come on by?
She hunched against the nasty, freezing rain, slid into her car. The heater was already running. Summerset’s work, probably, which would have to go on the list of reasons not to strangle him in his sleep.
At least that was a short one.
She started down the drive, engaged the dash ‘link and tagged Roarke.
“Miss me already?”
“Every second without you is a personal hell. Listen, am I supposed to have a list? Like a guest list for this deal tomorrow?”
“Do you want one?”
“No. No, I don’t want a damn list, but—”
“It’s taken care of, Eve.”
“Okay, good then. Fine.” Another thought wandered into her brain. “I probably have an entire outfit, down to the underwear, all picked out, too, don’t I?”
“Showing exquisite taste—with underwear optional.”
It made her laugh. “I never miss a trick. Later.”
* * *
Peabody was already at her desk when Eve walked into Central. It added another little pinch of guilt. She crossed over, waited until Peabody glanced up from her paperwork.
“Would you mind coming into my office for a minute?”
There was a blink of surprise. “Sure. Right behind you.”
With a nod, Eve headed into her office, programmed two coffees— one light and sweet for Peabody. That got her another blink of surprise when Peabody stepped in.
“Shut the door, will you?”
“Sure. Um, I have the report on… thanks,” she added when Eve handed her the coffee. “On Zero. The PA went in hard, Second Degree, two counts, using the illegals sale as a deadly weapon in the act of committing, with—”
“Sit down.”
“Jeez, am I being transferred to Long Island or something?”
“No.” Eve sat herself, waiting, watched Peabody warily take a seat. “I’m going to apologize for walking out on you yesterday, for not doing my job, and leaving you to deal with it.”
“We were all but wrapped, and you were sick.”
“It wasn’t wrapped, and if I was sick, it was my problem. I made it yours. You called Roarke.”
Eve waited a beat while Peabody got busy looking at the wall and drinking coffee. “I was going to slap you good for that,” she said when Peabody opened her mouth. “But it was probably the sort of thing a partner should do.”
“You were in bad shape. I didn’t know what else to do. Okay now?”
“Fine.” She studied her coffee a moment. Partnership was another thing with rules. “There was a woman in my office when we got back yesterday. Someone I knew a long time ago. It gave me a knock. A big one. She was my first foster mother—loose term on the mother. It was a rough patch, and having her come in like that, after all this time, it… I couldn’t—”
No, Eve thought, you always could.
“I didn’t handle it,” she corrected. “So I ditched. You handled the case, Peabody, and largely alone. You did a good job.”
“What did she want?”
“I don’t know, don’t care. I got her out. Door’s closed. If she wheedles her way through it again, she won’t be taking me by surprise. And I will handle it.”
Rising, she went to her window, shoved it up. Cold and wet spilled in as she leaned out and tore free the evidence bag she’d fixed to the outside wall. In it were four unopened candy bars.
“You have chocolate bars sealed and taped outside the window,” Peabody said with a mixture of awe and puzzlement.
“I did have,” Eve corrected. She was giving up the best hiding place she’d devised from the nefarious candy thief. She unsealed the bag, handed the speechless Peabody a bar. “They’ll be somewhere else after you leave and I lock the door and find a new spot for my cache.”
“Okay. I’m putting it in my pocket before I tell you we didn’t get Murder Two.”
“Didn’t figure you did.”
Not one to take chances with chocolate, Peabody shoved the bar into her pocket anyway. “PA told me we wouldn’t before we went in to pitch the deal. He wanted Zero bad, more than me, I think. Zero’s slipped through his fingers plenty, and the PA wanted to nail him.”
Eve leaned against her desk. “I like a PA with an agenda.”
“It helps,” Peabody agreed. “We spooked them with talk of two consecutive life sentences, off planet penal colony, made noises about eye witnesses.”
Peabody tapped her fingers on her pocket as if to reassure herself the candy was still there. “We got ourselves a search and seize, and popped some illegals from the club and Zero’s residence. Petty stuff, really, and the claim they were for personal use might have been true, but we just kept piling it up. By the time we’d finished, Zero and his lawyer were looking at Man Two as a gift from the Higher Powers. Five to ten, and he probably won’t serve the full minimum, but—”
“You got him in a cage, and that’s a check in the win column. He loses his license, he pays out the butt in fees and fines, his club will likely go tits up. You keep the chocolate.”
“It was great.” And since the candy in her pocket was currently screaming her name, Peabody gave in, took it out, and unwrapped enough to break off a knuckle’s worth. “It was a rush to push it through,” she said with her happy mouth full. “I’m sorry you missed it.”
“So am I. Thanks for covering.”
“No problem. You can put the bag back outside. It’ll be safe from me.” At the narrowed, speculative look in Eve’s eye, she rushed on. “Ah, not that it wouldn’t be safe from me anywhere you put it. I’m not saying that I’ve ever had any part in taking any candy of any sort from this office.”
Eve flattened the look—cop interrogating suspect. “And if we did a quick little truth test on that?”
“What?” Peabody put a hand to her ear. “Did you hear that? Someone’s calling me from the bull pen. There may be crimes being committed even now while we lollygag. Gotta go.”
Eyes still narrowed, Eve walked to the door, shut and locked it. Lollygag? What the hell kind of word was lollygag? A guilty one if she was any judge.
She gave the bag a shake as she considered where her next candy vault might be.
* * *
Between a meeting with the senior staff of one of his manufacturing arms and a lunch he had scheduled in his executive dining room with investors, Roarke’s interoffice link beeped.
“Yes, Caro.” His brow winged up when he noted she’d engaged privacy mode.
“The individual you mentioned this morning is downstairs, lobby level, and requesting a moment of your time.”
He’d bet himself a half mil she’d contact him before noon. Now he went double or nothing she’d show her hand before he booted her out again.
“Is she alone?”