“Do something with his uniform,” she said, already heading up the stairs. “And put him to bed. I want him daisy fresh by seven hundred.”
“Your jacket, Lieutenant.”
She peeled it off, still walking, and tossed it over her shoulder. He probably had some household magic that got cherry fizzy off leather.
She aimed straight for the bedroom, then only stood, rubbing the back of her neck, trying to dissolve the rocks that were forming a small mountain range from that point and out to her shoulders. The bed was empty. If he was still working, and likely on her behalf, she could hardly crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head until morning.
She turned, her hand automatically slapping to her weapon, when she saw the movement behind her.
“Christ on airskates, kid. What is it with you and skulking around in the dark?”
“I heard you come in.” Nixie stood, this time in a yellow nightgown, with those sleep-starved eyes locked on Eve's face.
“No, not yet.” Eve watched the gaze drop to the floor and didn't know whether to curse or sigh. “But I know who they are.”
Nixie's eyes flew up again. “Who?”
“You don't know them. I know who they are. And I know why.”
“Why?”
“Because your father was a good man who did good work. Because he was good, and these people aren't, they wanted to hurt him and everyone he loved.”
“I don't understand that.”
She looked, Eve thought, like a wounded angel with all that tangled blonde hair surrounding a face haunted by fatigue, and worse. “You're not supposed to understand it. Nobody's supposed to understand why some people decide to take lives instead of living decent ones of their own. But that's the way it is. You're supposed to understand that your father was a good man, your family was a good family. And the people who did this to them, to you, are wrong people. You're supposed to understand that I'll find them and put them in a goddamn cage where they'll spend what's left of their miserable, selfish lives. That has to be good enough, because that's all we've got.”
“Will it be soon?”
“Sooner if I'm working instead of standing here in the damn hallway talking to you.”
The slightest flicker of a smile curved Nixie's lips. “You're not really mean.”
Eve hooked her thumbs in her front pockets. “Am, too. Mean as spit, and don't you forget it.”
“Are not. Baxter says you're tough, and sometimes you're scary, but it's because you care about helping people, even when they're dead.”
“Yeah? Well, what does he know? Go back to bed.”
Nixie started toward her room, then paused. “I think, when you catch them, when you put them in a goddamn cage, my dad and my mom, and Coyle and Inga and Linnie, I think they'll be okay then. That's what I think.”
“Then I better get working on it.”
She waited until Nixie was back in her room, then walked away.
She found Roarke still working with the unregistered, and with barely a grunt of greeting crossed over to take the coffee he had on the console and gulp some down.
A second later she was coughing and shoving it back in his hand. “Oh, blech. Brandy.”
“If you'd asked, I'd have warned you there was brandy in it. You look a bit worse for wear, Lieutenant. Brandy might be a good idea.”
She shook her head and got herself a cup, strong and black and without additives. “How's it going here?”
“He's very good-or one of them is very good. Every thread I tug on leads to another knot, which leads to another set of threads. I'll unravel it-I'm bloody determined now-but it won't be quick. But a thought occurred while I've been picking these threads apart. I wonder how he'd feel if his funds were frozen.”
“I've got no forensics, nothing solid tying him to the murders. The best I've got is a composite from a street LC's perspective, which looks nothing like him. I know it's him, but I'll never get the flag to freeze his assets based on nothing much more than my gut.”
“It would be a fairly simple matter for me, at this point, to make a sizable withdrawal from these accounts.”
“Steal the money.”
“Let's say transfer the money. Steal is such a… Well, it's a fine word, isn't it? But transfer would be more to your taste.”
She thought it over. Tempting, tempting, tempting. Still, it wasn't only not by the book, it exploded the book entirely. “Nixie intercepted me, for a change. She said she thought her family would be okay once I caught these guys, once I put them in a goddamn cage.”
“I see.”
“She probably shouldn't swear, I'm a bad influence. Spank me. But-” She broke off at the wide grin that spread over his face, and found herself laughing. She covered her face, rubbed it. “Just stop. Anyway, that kind of thing gives me a nudge to go out of bounds- more out of bounds,” she added, looking around the room. “But say you did. Say it pisses him off enough to make the kind of mistake that opens him up to me. Hooray for our side. But it could, given his profile, piss him off enough to have him taking out a couple of Swiss bankers first, or a lawyer in-what was it? Eden. So let's just hold that in reserve.”
“You make a point.”
“You know, this day has just been crap.” She sprawled in the chair, stretched out her legs. “Making progress, I can feel it, but overall it's been weighed down with big piles of crap. And I finished it up with a cargo ship of shit.”
“Would it have something to do with the blood on your trousers?”
She looked down, saw the streaks and sprinkles of red. “It's not blood. It's cherry fizzy.”
She drank her coffee and began to take him through. “So when I made them, I pulled up at a twenty-four/seven, sent Trueheart inside for drinks, and-”
“Hold.” He held up a hand. “You realized one or more of these people, people responsible for several murders and who are, very likely, hoping to get to you, were trailing you, and you sent your backup off for sodas?”
She didn't squirm under his gaze, one she imagined he aimed at underlings who'd cocked up some deal and were about to be demolished by his iciest wrath.
But it was close.
“I wanted to see what they'd do.”
“You were hoping they'd move on you, and got Trueheart out of the way.”
“Not exactly. Close, but-”
“I asked one thing, Eve. That when you decided to use yourself as bait you'd tell me.”
“I wasn't-it was an immediate sort of…” She trailed off as the headache moved along from the base of her skull to squeeze into the top of her head. “Now you're pissed, at me.”
“What gave you your first clue?”
“You'll have to be pissed, then.” She shoved to her feet to prowl. “You'll just have to be pissed because I can't stop and check every move with you when I'm out there. I can't stop and say, 'Hmm, would Roarke approve of this action, or gee, should I tag Roarke and run this by him?'“
“Don't you swat away my concerns like they're gnats around your ears.” He got to his feet as well. “Don't you dare make light of them, Eve, or what it is to me to sit and wait.”
“I'm not.” But of course she was, a knee-jerk defense mechanism. Before she could say anything else, he was plowing on.
“I bury my own instincts every bloody day to stay out of your way as much as I do. Not to let myself think, every minute of every bloody day you're out there if tonight's the night you don't come back.”
“You can't think that way. You married a cop, you took the package.”
“I did, and I do.”
It wasn't ice in his eyes, she noted. It was fire, strong and blue. And that was somehow worse. “Then-”
“Have I asked you to change what you are, what you do? Have I complained when you're called away in the middle of the night, or when you come home smelling of death?”