Conspiracy in Death (20 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Dreams chased her, memory bumping into memory in a chaotic race. Her first bust and the solid satisfaction of doing the job she'd trained to do. The boy who'd kissed her sloppily when she'd been fifteen and had surprised her because she'd felt no fear or shame, but a mild interest.

A drunken night with Mavis at the Blue Squirrel with so much laughter it hurt the ribs. The mutilated body of a child she'd been too late to save.

The weeping of those left behind and the screams of the dead.

The first time she'd seen Roarke, that dazzling face onscreen in her office.

Then back, always back to a cold room with a dirty red light pulsing against the window. The knife in her hand dripping with blood, and the pain shrieking so wild, so loud, she could hear nothing else. Could be nothing else.

When she woke, it was dark, and she was empty.

Her head throbbed with a dull, consistent ache that was the dregs of weeping and grief. Her body felt hollow, as if the bones had slipped away while she'd slept.

She wanted to sleep again, to just go away.

He moved through the dark, quiet as a shadow. The bed shifted slightly as he sat beside her, found her hand. "Do you want the light?"

"No." Her voice felt rusty, but she didn't bother to clear it. "No, I don't want anything. You didn't have to stay here, in the dark."

"Did you think I'd let you wake alone?" He brought her hand to his lips. "You're not alone."

She wanted to weep again, could feel the tears beating at the backs of her eyes. Hot, helpless. Useless. "Who called you?"

"Peabody. She and Feeney were here; so was Mira. McNab's called several times. And Nadine."

"I can't talk to them."

"All right. Mavis is downstairs. She won't leave, and I can't ask her to."

"What am I supposed to say to her? To anyone? God, Roarke, I'm stripped. The next time I go into Central, it'll be to interview as a murder suspect."

"I've contacted a lawyer. You've nothing to worry about there. If and when you agree to interview, it'll be here, in your own home, on your own terms. Eve."

He could see her silhouette, the way she turned away from him and stared into the dark. Gently, he cupped her face, turned it toward him. "No one you work with, no one who knows you believes you had anything to do with what happened to Bowers."

"I don't even care about that. It's nothing but form. No physical evidence, no clear motive, and the opportunity is slim. I don't care about that," she repeated and hated, hated the way her breath hitched. "They'll have a cloud but no proof, not enough for the PA, but enough to keep my badge away. Enough to keep me out."

"You've people who care about you who'll work to see that doesn't happen."

"It has happened," she said flatly. "And nothing can change it. You can't change it. I just want to sleep." She shifted away, shut her eyes. "I'm tired. Go down with Mavis, I'm better off alone now."

He ran a hand over her hair. He'd give her the night to grieve, to escape.

But when he left her alone, she opened her eyes, stared at nothing. And didn't sleep.

Getting out of bed in the morning seemed like wasted effort.

She shifted, looked up through the glass overhead. The snow was gone and the sky was the dull gray of depression. She tried to think of some reason to get up, get dressed, but could think of nothing, could feel nothing but a low, dragging fatigue.

She turned her head, and there was Roarke in the sitting area, sipping coffee and watching her.

"You've slept long enough, Eve. You can't go on hiding in here."

"It seems like a good idea right now."

"The longer it does, the more you'll lose. Get up."

She sat up, but drew her knees into her chest and rested her head on them. "I don't have anything to do, nowhere to go."

"We can go anywhere you like. I've cleared my schedule for a couple of weeks."

"You didn't have to do that." Anger struggled to surface but turned pale and listless and faded. "I don't want to go anywhere."

"Then we'll stay home. But you're not lying in bed with the covers over your head."

A bubble of resentment worked its way free. "I didn't have the covers over my head," she muttered. And what did he know? she thought. How could he know how she felt? But there was enough pride left to have her getting up, dragging on a robe.

Pleased with the small victory, he poured her coffee, topped off his own. "I've eaten," he said casually, "but I don't believe Mavis has."

"Mavis?"

"Yes, she stayed last night." He reached over, pressed a button in the interhouse 'link. "She'll keep you company."

"No, I don't want -- "

But it was too late as Mavis's face swam on-screen. "Roarke, is she awake yet -- Dallas!" Her smile broke out, a little wobbly, but there, as she spotted Eve. "I'll be right there."

"I don't want to talk to anyone," Eve said furiously when the screen went blank. "Can't you understand that?"

"I understand very well." He rose, laid his hands on her shoulders. It broke his heart as he felt them droop. "You and I went through a large part of our lives without having anyone who mattered or who we mattered to. So I understand very well what it is to have someone." He leaned forward to press his lips to her brow. "To need someone. Talk to Mavis."

"I've got nothing to say." Her eyes filled again and burned.

"Then listen." He squeezed her shoulders once, then turned as the door burst open and Mavis flew in. "I'll leave you two alone," he said, but he doubted either of them heard him as Mavis was already wrapping herself around Eve and babbling.

"Those suck-faced pissheads," he heard her sob out, and he nearly smiled as he closed the door.

"Okay," Eve murmured and buried her face in Mavis's blue hair. "Okay."

"I wanted to go find Whitney and call him a suck-faced pisshead in person, but Leonardo said it was better to come straight here. I'm sorry, so sorry, so sorry." She reared back so abruptly Eve nearly went down. "What the hell's wrong with them!" Mavis demanded, throwing her arms out and sending the diaphanous pink sleeves of what might have been a nighty flapping.

"It's procedure," Eve managed.

"Well, screw that in the ass sideways. No way they're going to get away with this. I bet Roarke's already hired a platoon of hot-shit lawyers to sue their suck-faces off. You'll own the goddamn city of New York when this is over."

"I just want my badge." And because it was Mavis, Eve dropped onto the sofa and buried her face in her hands. "I've got nothing without it, Mavis."

"You'll get it back." Shaken, Mavis sat, draped an arm around Eve's shoulders. "You always make the right thing happen, Dallas."

"I'm locked out." Weary, Eve sat back, closed her eyes. "You can't make things happen when they're happening to you."

"You made them happen for me. When you collared me all those years ago, it changed my life."

It was an effort, but Eve worked up a ghost of a smile. "Which time?"

"The first time -- the other couple were just like, you know, slips. You made me wonder if I could be more than a grifter scamming marks, then you made me see I could. And last year when things were bad for me, when it looked like they were going to put me in a cage, you were there for me. You made the right things happen."

"I had the badge, I had control." Her eyes went bleak again. "I had the job."

"Well, now you've got me and you've got the iciest guy on or off planet. And that's not all. You know how many people called here last night? Roarke wanted to stay up here with you so I asked Summerset if I could, like, take the calls and stuff. They just kept coming in."

"How many from reporters wanting a story?"

Mavis sniffed, then got up to call up the menu on the AutoChef. Roarke had given her orders to see that Eve ate, and she intended to follow them. "I know how to ditch the media dogs. Let's have ice cream.".

"I'm not hungry."

"You don't need to be hungry for ice cream and -- oh yeah there's a God -- chocolate chip cookies. Mag squared."

"Mavis -- "

"You took care of me when I needed you," Mavis said quietly. "Don't make me feel like you don't need me."

Nothing could have worked more completely. Though she sent one longing look toward the bed, to the oblivion she might find there, Eve sighed. "What kind of ice cream?"

Eve drifted through the day, like someone wandering in and out of sweeps of fog. She avoided her office and Roarke's, used a headache as an excuse to crawl away for a few hours. She took no calls, refused to discuss the situation with Roarke, and finally closed herself in the library on the pretense of choosing reading material.

She turned on the search screen so anyone monitoring would think she was browsing through, then ordered curtains closed, lights off, and curled on the couch to escape into sleep.

She dreamed of coiled snakes slithering up a gold staff that dripped with blood. And the blood slipped and slid and beaded over paper flowers tucked into a brown glass bottle.

Someone called for help in a voice thin with age.

She stepped into the dream, into a landscape blinding white with snow, wind that stung the eyes and carried the voice away. She ran through it, her boots skidding, her breath puffing out in visible waves, but there was nothing but that wall of cold white.

"Cunt cop." A hiss in the ear.

"What are you up to, little girl?" Terror in the heart.

"Why'd somebody wanna put a hole in him that way?" A question still unanswered.

Then she saw them, the doomed and the damned, frozen in the snow, their bodies twisted, their faces caught in that shocked insult of death. Their eyes staring at her, asking the question still unanswered.

Behind her, behind that white curtain, came the crack and snick of ice breaking. Of something breaking free with sneaky, whispering sounds that were like quiet laughter.

The walls of white became the walls of a hospital corridor, stretched out like a tunnel with no end in sight, the curves slick as water. It came for her, its footsteps slow with the wet sound of flesh on tile. With her blood roaring in her head, she turned to face it, to fight it, reaching for her weapon. Her hand came up empty.

"What are you up to, little girl?"

The sob ripped at her throat, the fear swallowing her whole. So she ran, stumbling down the tunnel, her breath whistling out in panic. She could smell his breath behind her. Candy and whiskey.

The tunnel split, a sharp right or left. She stopped, too confused by fear to know which way to go. The shambling steps behind her had a scream bubbling in her throat. She leaped right, plunged into silence. Fresh sweat popped onto her skin, rolled down her face. Up ahead a light, dim, and the shadow of shape in it still and quiet.

She ran for it. Someone to help. God, someone help me.

When she reached the end, there was a table, and on the table her own body. The skin white, the eyes closed. And where her heart had been was a bloody hole.

She woke shuddering. On watery legs she got up, lurched toward the elevator. She braced herself against the wall as it took her down. Desperate for air, she stumbled off, hurried outside where the cold bit blood back into her face.

She stayed out for nearly an hour, walking off the horror of the dream, the sticky sweat, the inner shudders. A part of her seemed to stand back, staring in righteous disgust.

Get a hold of yourself, Dallas. You're pathetic. Where's your spine?

Just leave me alone, she thought miserably. Leave me the hell alone. She was allowed to have feelings, wasn't she? Weaknesses? And if she wanted to be left alone with them, it was no one's business.

Because nobody knew, no one could understand, no one could feel what she felt.

You've still got your brain, don't you? Even if you have lost your guts. Start thinking.

"I'm tired of thinking," she muttered and stopped to stand in the snow that was going to slush. "There's nothing to think about and nothing to do."

Hunching her shoulders, she started back toward the house. She wanted Roarke, she realized. Wanted him to hold her, to make it all go away. To beat the demons back for her.

Tears were surging back, and she struggled against them. They made her tired. All she wanted now was Roarke and to crawl into some warm place with him and have him tell her it was going to be all right.

She stepped inside, the old running shoes she'd put on soaked through, her jeans wet nearly to the knees. She hadn't stopped for a jacket before going out, and the sudden warmth had her swaying in mild shock.

Summerset watched her a moment, his lips tight, his eyes dark with worry. Deliberately, he fixed his most arrogant expression on his face and slipped into the foyer.

"You're filthy and wet." He sniffed derisively. "And you're tracking water all over the floor. You might show a bit of respect for your own home."

He waited for the flash of temper, the cold flare of her eyes, and felt the heart she didn't know he had squeeze when she simply stared at him.

"Sorry." She looked down blankly at her feet. "I didn't think." She laid a hand on the newel post, noticed with a kind of distant interest that it seemed cold enough to snap, and started up the stairs.

Unnerved, Summerset moved quickly to the communication center. "Roarke, the lieutenant has just come in from outside. She wore no outer gear. She looks very bad."

"Where is she?"

"She's heading up. Roarke, I insulted her and... she apologized to me. Something must be done."

"It's about to be."

Roarke strode out of his office, made straight for the bedroom. The minute he saw her, wet, white, and trembling, fury sprang up to join concern. It was time, he decided, to lead with the fury.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I just went out for a walk." She sat but couldn't quite get her frozen fingers to work well enough to peel off her wet shoes. "I needed some air."

"So you go out without a coat. Making yourself sick's next in your master plan for dealing with this."

Her mouth fell open. She'd wanted him, wanted him to comfort and soothe, and he was snapping at her, yanking off her shoes as if she were a child about to be spanked. "I just wanted some air."