Born In Death

More, he’d actually worked with the cops, the very element that had once been the enemy. He’d offered his resources to the department countless times. The fact that doing so amused, intrigued, and satisfied him didn’t change the principle of the thing.

Infuriating, insulting, unacceptable.

With his hands jammed in his pockets, he stood at the window, glowering out at the sparkling lights of the city he’d made his home.

He’d made himself, he thought again. He’d carved out this life, and he loved this woman above everything else. To have anyone, anyone suspect he would use her – that she would allow herself to be used – was enraging.

Well, they could have someone else work themselves to the bone, labor into exhaustion to find their bloody murderer. And if they thought somewhere down the road they could tap him again to play expert consultant, civilian, they could shag a monkey.

He heard the door open between his office and Eve’s, but didn’t turn.

“I said all I have to say on this,” he told her. “It’s done.”

“Fine, you can just listen then. I don’t blame you for being upset.”

“Upset?”

“I don’t blame you for being murderously pissed off. I felt the same way.”

“Fine. We’re in tune.”

“I don’t guess we are. Roarke – ”

“If you think this is a tantrum or something I can be sweetened out of, you’re wrong. It’s a line. We’ve reached my line in this, Eve. I expect you to respect my stand on this matter.” He turned now. “I expect you to put me first, and that’s all.”

“You get both of those. But you’ve got to hear me out. Line or no line, you can’t just go around flinging orders at me.”

“It was a statement.”

“Screw this, Roarke. Just screw this.” Her own anger was rising, but there was a layer of sick fear over it. “I’m pissed, you’re pissed, and if this keeps up, we’re going to be seriously pissed at each other, maybe enough to cross some other line we can’t come back over easily, when we’re the ones getting slapped by outside parties.”

“When has the department been an outside party to you?”

“I have to prove something to you now?” And there was hurt, churning through the anger, and the sick fear. “To you? What needs to be proven here? My loyalty? The pecking order of that loyalty?”

“Maybe it does.” He angled his head, spoke coolly. “I wonder where I’ll come in that order.”

“Yeah, seriously pissed.” But she took a deep breath before she lost what was left of her temper. Or worse, lost the fight to hold back the tears that were stinging the back of her eyes. “I’ve got things to say, goddamn it, and I’m saying them. If when I’m done, you want me to pass the investigation, it’s passed.”

Something inside him clenched and released, but he only shrugged. “Have your say, then.”

“You don’t believe me,” she said slowly. “I can see it. You think, or wonder at least, if I’m just snowing you so I win on this. And that’s insulting, and I’ve had enough insults for the day, damn it. So you listen. When someone kicks at you, they kick at me. That’s the way it is. And not just because I’m your wife, because I’m not some stupid bimbo who takes orders from her husband. ”

“I don’t believe the word bimbo came out of my mouth.”

“It sounds like bimbo, occasionally, when you say ‘wife’.”

“Oh, bollocks to that.”

“And right back at you, ace. They slap at you, they slap at me because we’re a unit. Because I may not get all this being married crap right, but I’ve damn well got that one nailed. So, believe me when I tell you the department knows just how I feel about this business.”

“Fine, then – ”

“I’m not finished,” she spat out. “Sweeten you up, what a crock. But you want some oil on the water? When I spewed this business out on Feeney, then out on Baxter and Peabody, they had the same take. That it was insulting bullshit. And I’m damned, Roarke, if I want to put my tail between my legs and pass this ball. Not just for the victims – and they matter, they matter a hell of a lot to me now. But for my own pride, and for yours. Screw that, for ours. I’m not going to back off because the mayor or the chief or the commander – whoever – needs to cover their chicken-shit asses because some jerks are whining because you’re just better and smarter and slicker then they are in the first damn place.

“And I’m pissed!” She kicked his desk. “Pissed, pissed, pissed about being disrespected. Like I’m some idiot female who’d compromise an investigation for her man’s gain. Or that my man is some callous cheat who can’t bury his competitors without breaking a sweat. They’re not getting away with it. We’re not going to let them shove us back from this. We’re not going to let them put two i

She kicked his desk again, and felt calmer for it. “You’ve done more than stand by me on the job. And you deserve better from the department. So I’ll do more than stand by you, and if stepping back from this is what you need, that’s what I’ll do.”

She caught her breath. “That’s what I’ll do, because if you don’t know you come first, you’re just stupid. But it’s not the way to stick it to the ones who deserve to have it stuck to them. Staying on it is, putting you on in an official capacity as consultant is. Finding the person or persons who killed those two people is. I want to close this case, and I want you with me when I do. But on this one, you get to decide.”

She tu

He said nothing for a long, humming moment. “You’d do this, pass this case, because I asked you?”

“No. I’d do this, pass this case, because in these circumstances I figure you’ve got the right to ask me. I don’t lift off when you say jump, ace, any more than you do for me. But when it matters, it matters. Is that what you want me to do?”

“It was, before you came in here.” He crossed to her now, and took her face in his hands. “It was, I’m forced to admit, when I was near certain you’d refuse, and given me a handy outlet where I could blame you for the whole mess of it. Then I could have worked off some of this mad with a good, bloody row with you.” He kissed her brow, her nose, her lips. “You didn’t, so I guess that good, bloody row is out of the question.”

“I’m always up for one.”

Now he smiled. “Hard to work up the energy for one when I’m also forced to admit you’re right. Actually, thinking about it, that’s a considerable irritation. Everything you just said bull’s-eyed the entire ugly situation. The victims deserve you, and I’m damned if the department gets the satisfaction of having you toss this one back because of me. And damned again if I’ll have fingers pointed at me as a cheat who’d use his wife. I’ve done plenty in my time to deserve finger-pointing, but not this.”

“Are we square?”

He gave her shoulders a light rub before he stepped back. “It seems we are. But the term wife is not synonymous with bimbo. I love my wife very much. I’ve only slept with bimbos – occasionally. In the past.”

He was still seething mad though, she noted. However cool and collected he might seem, she knew him, and saw the black temper bubbling under the surface. She couldn’t blame him. But there were other ways to work off a rage than a sweaty session in the gym, or a good, bloody row.

“I still need that shower.” She headed for the door, glancing over her shoulder on the way out. “Wouldn’t mind some company.”

She ordered the jets on full, at a temperature of 101, and let the heat punch its way into her bones. With her eyes closed and the water pulsing over her head, the worst of the headache she’d been carrying eased off.