Survivor in Death

“We'll take them in separate interviews tomorrow.”

“You might want to send a team over to secure this address tonight. One on West Seventy-third.” Roarke handed her a memo. “I believe you'll find their headquarters.”

She took the memo, and standing in her bloody shirtsleeves now, gri

“Hot damn!”

“E-men first,” she added. “And I want, let me think, I want Jules and Brinkman from Bombs and Explosives. We don't know how they may have that place wired, or what booby traps they might've set inside. I want body armor on everyone, full riot gear. These three may not be it. I'll contact the commander and clear it.”

She turned to Roarke. “You're in if you want it.”

“I can't think of a more entertaining way to spend the evening.”

“Give me five.” She walked away, yanking out her communicator. “That's my weapon, you putz,” she snapped at one of the Crime Scene techs as he bagged it. “Give it back.”

“Sorry, sir, it has to go in.”

“Goddamn it, do you know how long it takes to get-Commander, we have two suspects in custody and one suspect DOS.”

“I'm on my way to the scene now. I'm told four officers, including yourself, are injured.”

“MTs treated on-scene, three are being transported to the hospital. The suspects are secured. We have what we believe is the location for their base of operations. I've called in my team, as well as two members of B and E. As it's more efficiently located to both this scene and the suspected base, I'll be coordinating the maneuver from my home office. With permission, sir.”

“I'll meet you there. How extensive are your injuries, Lieutenant?”

“I'll do, sir.”

“Yes, you will.”

“Okay then,” she muttered when he clicked off. “I want the evidence from this scene so clean I could eat off it,” she told anyone from CSU within hearing. “I want this scene secured so tight a fucking flea couldn't squeeze under a doorway. Any screwups, I'll be eating asses for breakfast.”

She nodded to Roarke, who fell into step beside her. “I love when you snarl. Stirs me up.”

“You'll be plenty stirred before the night's over.” She stepped out, amused when he draped her ruined jacket over her shoulders.

And the smile fell away when she saw Summerset sitting in one of Roarke's vehicles with Nixie in his arms. The window rolled down as she approached.

“I had to promise we wouldn't leave until she'd spoken to you.”

“I don't have time to-” She broke off when Nixie lifted her head. “What?”

“Can I talk to you, just you, for a minute? Please.”

“Sixty seconds and counting. Come on then.”

When Nixie climbed out, Eve started to walk down the sidewalk. Gave a snarl Roarke would've enjoyed as she stared down the gawkers already pressed against the barricades. She detoured to her vehicle, gestured Nixie in.

“You hid in the backseat?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I ought to pound every square inch of you. I won't because my arm still hurts, and because-maybe-by being a stupid ass you helped. I could've taken the three of them.” She pressed a hand to the throb of her shoulder. “But it was handy having Roarke pull down the third.”

“I wanted to go home.”

Eve laid her head back on the seat. Taking down three armed and dangerous was easier than picking through the minefield of a child's emotions.

“You did. What did you find there? It sucks wide, the widest, but that's not home anymore.”

“I wanted to see it again.”

“I get that. It's just a house, building materials. It's what you had there before the bad stuff happened that counts. That's how I see it.”

“You're going to send me away.”

“I'm going to give you a chance, the best I've got to offer.” She lifted her head, shifted in the seat. “You got kicked hard. You can get up, or you can stay down. I'm saying you're going to get up. Elizabeth and Richard are good people. They know about getting kicked hard. They want to give you a place, give you a family. It's never going to be what it was, but it can be something else. You can make it something else and never forget what it was like in that house there, before the bad stuff happened.”

“I'm afraid.”

“Then you're not as stupid an ass as I thought. Another thing you're not is a coward. You've got to give this a chance, see how it goes.”

“Is Virginia really far away?”

“Not all that much.”

“Can I see you and Roarke and Summerset sometimes?”

“Yeah, I guess. If you actually want to see Summerset's ugly face again.”

“If you promise, I know you mean it. You said you'd find them, and you did. You keep promises.”

“I promise, then. I have to go, finish this.”

Nixie knelt on the seat, leaned over, and kissed Eve's cheek. Then she laid her head on Eve's good shoulder, sighed once. “I'm sorry you got hurt helping me.”

“No big.” She found her hand lifting to stroke over the soft, pale hair. “Just part of the job.”

She sat where she was when Nixie got out. Sat and watched the little girl walk to Roarke, and him bend down as they spoke. The way he gave the child a hug when she kissed him.

Summerset put her in the car, secured her himself, brushed those bony fingers gently over her cheek. As they drove away, Roarke got in beside Eve.

“All right?”

She shook her head. “Need another minute.”

“Take all you need.”

“She'll be okay. She's got guts, and heart. Scared ten years off me when she came ru

“She loves you.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“You found her, you protected her, you saved her. She'll love you more for it as her life heals. You were right to let her see his face.”

“I hope, because I wasn't thinking clear yet. The fall down the stairs-” She broke off, hissed. “Not just the fall. The blood, the knife, the pain. I heard her neck snap, and it was like an echo in my head. When I came out and saw you, there was this dull relief. Distant, in another part of me.”

She drew a long breath. “You'd have let me do it. You'd have stood back and let me put that knife in him.”

“Yes. I'd have stood back and let you do what you needed to do.”

“Even cold-blooded murder.”

“Nothing cold-blooded about it, Eve.” He touched her face, turned it to his. His eyes weren't wild and blue now, she thought, but calm and deep and sure. “You couldn't have done it.”

“I nearly did, I could feel the way it punched through his body.”

“Nearly did. And if something had snapped that clean inside of you, we'd have dealt with it. But what's inside of you, what you are down to the bone, wouldn't have allowed it. You needed to kneel there with that knife in your hand, and to know that.”

“Guess I did.”

“Tomorrow, you'll face him, both of them, in Interview. What you do will be worse to him than a knife in the heart. You beat him, you stopped him, you caged him.”

“Cage him, and another crawls out from under the next rock.” She pressed her shoulder, gave her arm a testing turn. “So I guess I'd better get back in shape, so I can go after the next one.”

“I love you, madly.”

“Yeah, you do.” She smiled and, praying nobody was watching, touched her lips to his burned shoulder. “Let's go clean up, and get back to work.”

She flicked a glance in the rearview as they drove away. Just a house, she thought. They'd clean up the blood, sweep out the death. Another family would move in.

She hoped they had a nice life.