Loyalty in Death

He was driven to own buildings like this. Symbols and structures. For profit, certainly, he thought, reaching down to pick up a chunk of concrete. For business, for pleasure. But it didn't take a session with Mira to understand why a man who'd spent his childhood in dirty little rooms with leaking roofs and broken windows was compelled to own, to possess. To preserve and to build.

A human weakness to compensate, he supposed, that had become power.

He had the power to see that this was rebuilt, that it was put back as it had been. He could put his money and his energies into that and see it as a kind of justice.

And Eve would look to the dead.

He walked away, and went home to wait for his wife.

– =O=-***-=O=-

She drove home in the damp, frigid chill of predawn. Billboards flashed and jittered around her as she headed uptown. Buy this and be happy. See that and be thrilled. Come here and be amazed. New York wasn't about to stop its dance.

Steam spilled out of glida grills, belched out of street vents, pumped out of the maxibus that creaked to a halt to pick up a scatter of drones who'd worked the graveyard shift.

A few obviously desperate street LCs strutted their stuff and called out to the drones.

"I'll give you a ride, buddy. Twenty, cash or credit'll buy you a hell of a ride."

The drones shuffled on the bus, too tired for cheap sex.

Eve watched a drunk stumble along the sidewalk, swinging his bottle of brew like a baton. And a huddle of teenagers pooling money for soy dogs. The lower the temperatures fell, the higher the price.

Free enterprise.

Abruptly, she pulled over to the curb, leaned over the wheel. She was well beyond exhausted and into the tightly strung stage of brittle energy and racing thoughts.

She'd gone to a tidy little home in Westchester and had spoken the words that ripped a family to pieces. She'd told a man his wife was dead, listened to children cry for a mother who was never coming back.

Then she'd gone to her office and written the reports, filed them. Because it needed to be done, she'd cleaned out A

And after all that, she thought, she could drive through the city, see the lights, the people, the deals, and the dregs, and feel… alive, she realized.

This was her place, with its dirt and its drama, its brilliance and its streak of nasty. Whores and hustlers, the weary and the wealthy. Every jittery heartbeat pumped in her blood.

This was hers.

"Lady." A grimy fist rapped on her window. "Hey, lady, wa

She looked at the face peering through the glass. It was ancient and stupid and if the dirt in its folds were any indication, it hadn't seen a bar of soap in this decade.

She put the window down. "Do I look like I want to buy a flower?"

"It's the last one." He gri

"Five? Get a handful of reality." She started to brush him off, put the glass between them. Then found herself digging in her pocket. "I got four."

"Okay, good." He snatched the credit chips and pushed the flower at her before heading off in a shambling run.

"To the nearest liquor store," Eve muttered and pulled away from the curb with the window open. His breath had been amazingly foul.

She drove home with the flower across her lap. And saw, as she headed through the gates, the lights he'd left on for her.

After all she'd seen and done that day, the simple welcome of lights in the window had her fighting tears.

She went in quietly, tossing her jacket over the newel post, climbing the stairs. The scents here were quiet, elegant. The wood polished, the floors gleaming.

This, too, she thought, was hers.

And so, she knew, when she saw him waiting for her, was Roarke.

He'd put on a robe and had the screen on low. Nadine Furst was reporting, and looked pale and fierce on the scene of the explosion. She could see he'd been working – checking stock reports, juggling deals, whatever he did – on the bedroom unit.

Feeling foolish, she kept the flower behind her back. "Did you sleep?"

"A bit." He didn't go to her. She looked stretched thin, he decided, as if she might snap at the slightest touch. Her eyes were bruised and fragile. "You need to rest."

"Can't." She managed a half smile. "Wired up. I'm going to go back soon."

"Eve." He stepped toward her, but still didn't touch. "You'll make yourself ill."

"I'm okay. Really. I was punchy for a while, but it passed. When it's over, I'll crash, but I'm okay now. I need to talk to you."

"All right."

She moved around him, shifting the flower out of sight, going to the window, staring at the dark. "I'm trying to figure out where to start. It's been a rotten couple of days."

"It was difficult, telling the Malloys."

"Jesus." She let her brow rest against the glass. "They know. Families of cops know as soon as they see us at the door. That's what they live with, day in and out. They know when they see you, but they block it. You can see it in their faces – the knowledge and the denial. Some of them just stand there, others stop you – start talking, making conversation, picking up around the house. It's like if you don't say it, if you just don't say it, it isn't real.

"Then you say it, and it is."

She turned back to him. "You live with that."

"Yes." He kept his eyes on hers. "I suppose I do."

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about this morning. I – "

"So you've said already." This time when he crossed to her, he touched, just a hand to her cheek. "It doesn't matter."

"It does. It does matter. I've got to get through this, okay?"

"All right. Sit down."

"I can't, I just can't." She lifted her hands in frustration. "I've got all this stuff churning inside me."

"Then get rid of it." He stopped her by putting a hand to hers, lifting the flower. "What's this?"

"I think it's a very sick, mutant rose. I bought it for you."

It was so rare to see Roarke taken by surprise, she nearly laughed. His gaze met hers and she thought – hoped – it might have been baffled pleasure she saw there before he looked down at the rose again. "You brought me a flower."

"I think it's sort of traditional. Fight, flowers, make up."

"Darling Eve." He took the stem. The edges of the bud were blackened and curled from the cold. The color was somewhere between the yellow of a healing bruise and urine. "You fascinate me."

"Pretty pitiful, huh?"

"No." This time his hand cupped her cheek, skimmed into her hair. "It's delightful."

"If it smells anything like the guy who sold it to me, you might want to have it fumigated."

"Don't spoil it," he said mildly, and touched his lips to hers.

"I do that – spoil things." She backed away again before she gave in and grabbed on. "I don't do it on purpose. And I meant what I said this morning, even if it pisses you off. Mostly, I think cops are better off going solo. I don't know, like priests or something, so they don't keep dragging the sin and sorrow home with them."

"I have sin and sorrow of my own," he said evenly. "It's washed over you a time or two."

"I knew it would piss you off."

"It does. And by God, Eve, it hurts me."

Her mouth dropped open, trembled closed again. "I don't mean to do that." Hadn't known she could do that. Part of the problem, she realized. Her problem. "I don't have the words like you do. I don't have them, Roarke, the kind you say to me – or even think, and I see you thinking them and it – my heart just stops."

"Do you think loving you to excess is easy for me?"

"No. I don't. I think it should be impossible. Don't get mad." She hurried on when she saw that dangerous flash in his eyes. "Don't get mad yet. Let me finish."