Big Jack Part 10

"I don't have to. It's a restaurant. Italian place down in Little Italy. Inexpensive, good food. Noisy, usually crowded, slow service, terrific pasta."

"He didn't know she was keeping tabs, little tabs like this. He didn't understand her. He didn't get her. He thought he was safe. None of the places we're finding are anywhere near here. Get her away from where she lives, where people she knows might see them. See him. Take her to places where there are lots of people. Who's going to notice them? But she's picking up souvenirs to mark their dates. She left us a nice trail, Peabody."

Chapter 6.

After dropping Eve at home, Peabody drove off in the sauna on wheels. And Eve let herself into the blessed cool. The cat thumped down the steps, greeting her with a series of irritated feline growls.

"What, are you standing in for Summerset? b.i.t.c.h, b.i.t.c.h, b.i.t.c.h." But she squatted down to scrub a hand over his fur. "What the h.e.l.l do the two of you do around here all day anyway? Never mind. I don't think I want to know."

She checked with the in-house and was told Roarke was not on the premises.

"Jeez." She looked back down at the cat, who was doing his best to claw up her leg. "Kinda weird. n.o.body home but you and me. Well . . . I got stuff. You should come." She scooped him up and carted him up the stairs.

It wasn't that she minded being home alone. She just wasn't used to it. And it was pretty d.a.m.n quiet, if you bothered to listen.

But she'd fix that. She'd download an audio of Samantha Gannon's book. She could get in a solid workout while she listened to it. Take a swim, loosen up. Grab a shower, take care of some details.

"There's a lot you can get done when n.o.body's around to distract you," she told Galahad. "I spent most of my life with n.o.body around anyway, so, you know, no problem."

No problem, she thought. Before Roarke she'd come home to an empty apartment every night. Maybe she'd connect with her pal Mavis, but even if she'd had time to blow off a little steam after the job with the woman who was the blowing-off-steam expert, she'd still come home alone.

She liked alone.

When had she stopped liking alone?

G.o.d, it was irritating.

She dumped the cat on her desk, but he complained and b.u.mped his head against her arm. "Okay, okay, give me a minute, will you?" Brus.h.i.+ng the bulk of him aside, she picked up the memo cube.

"h.e.l.lo, Lieutenant." Roarke's voice drifted out. "I thought this would be your first stop. I downloaded an audio of Gannon's book as I couldn't visualize you curling up with the paper version. See you when I get home. I believe there are fresh peaches around. Why don't you have one instead of the candy bar you're thinking about?"

"Think you know me inside out, don't you, smart guy? Thinks he knows me back and forth," she said to the cat. "The annoying part is he does." She put the memo down, picked up the headset. Even as she started to slip it into place, she noted the message light blinking on her desk unit.

She nudged the cat aside again. "Just wait, for G.o.d's sake." She ordered up the message and listened once again to Roarke's voice.

"Eve, I'm running late. A few problems that need to be dealt with."

She c.o.c.ked her head, studied his face on the screen. A little annoyed, she noted. A little rushed. He wasn't the only one who knew his partner.

"If I get through them I'll be home before you get to this in any case. If not, well, soon as possible. You can reach me if you need to. Don't work too hard."

She touched the screen as his image faded. "You either."

She put on the headset, engaged, then much to the cat's relief, headed into the kitchen. The minute she filled his bowl with tuna and set it down for him, he pounced.

Listening to the narrative of the diamond heist, she grabbed a bottle of water, took a peach as an afterthought, then walked through the quiet, empty house and down to the gym.

She stripped down, hanging her weapon harness on a hook, then pulled on a short skinsuit.

She started with stretches, concentrating on the audio and her form. Then she moved to the machine, programming in an obstacle course that pushed her to run, climb, row, cycle on and over various objects and surfaces.

By the time she started on free weights, she'd been introduced to the main players in the book and had a sense of New York and small-town America in the dawn of the century.

Gossip, crime, bad guys, good guys, s.e.x and murder.

The more things changed, she thought, the more they didn't.

She activated the sparring droid for a ten-minute bout and felt limber, energized and virtuous by the time she'd kicked his a.s.s.

She snagged a second bottle of water out of the mini-fridge and, to give herself more time with the book, added a session for flexibility and balance.

She peeled off the skinsuit, tossed it in the laundry chute, then walked naked into the pool house. With the audio still playing in her ear, she dove into the cool blue water. After some lazy laps, she floated her way over to the corner and called for jets.

Her long, blissful sigh echoed off the ceiling.

There was home alone, she thought, and there was home alone.

When her eyes started to droop, she boosted herself out. She pulled on a robe, gathered up her street clothes, her weapon, and took the elevator up to the bedroom before she thought of missed opportunity.

She could have run naked through the house. She could have danced danced naked through the house. naked through the house.

She'd have to hold that little pleasure in reserve.

After a shower and fresh clothes, she went back to her office. She turned off the audio long enough to handle some details, to make new notes.

Top of her list were: Jack O'Hara, Alex Crew, William Young and Jerome Myers. Young and Myers had been dead for more than half a century, with their lives ending before the first act of the drama.

Crew had died in prison, and O'Hara had been in and out of the wind until his death fifteen years ago. So the four men who'd stolen the diamonds were dead. But people rarely got through life without connections. Family, a.s.sociates, enemies.

A connection to a thief might consider himself ent.i.tled to the booty. A kind of reward, an inheritance, a payback. A connection to a thief might know how to gain access to a secured residence.

Blood tells, she thought. People often said that. She, for one, had reason to hope it wasn't true. If it was true, what did that make her, the daughter of a monster and a junkie wh.o.r.e? If it was all a matter of genes, DNA, inherited traits, what chance was there for a child created by two people for the purpose of using her for profit? For whoring her. For raising her like an animal. Worse than an animal.

Locking her in the dark. Alone, nameless. Beating her. Raping her. Twisting her until at the age of eight she would kill to escape.

Blood on her hands. So much blood on her hands.

"d.a.m.n it. d.a.m.n it, d.a.m.n it." Eve squeezed her eyes shut and willed the images away before their ghosts could solidify into another waking nightmare.

Blood didn't tell. DNA didn't make us. We made ourselves, if we had any guts we made ourselves.

She pulled her badge out of her pocket, held it like a talisman, like an anchor. We made ourselves, she thought again. And that was that.

She laid her badge on the desk where she could see it if she needed to, then, reengaging the audio, she listened as she ordered runs on the names of her four thieves.

Thinking about coffee, she rose to wander into the kitchen. She toyed with programming a pot, then cut it back to a single cup. One of the candy bars she'd stashed began to call her name. And after all, she'd eaten the d.a.m.n peach.

She dug it out from under the ice in the freezer bin. With coffee in one hand, frozen chocolate in the other, she walked back into the office. And nearly into Roarke.

He took one look, raised an eyebrow. "Dinner?"

"Not exactly." He made her feel like a kid stealing treats. And she'd never been been a kid with treats to steal. "I was just . . . s.h.i.+t." She pulled off the headset. "Working. Taking a little break. What's it to you?" a kid with treats to steal. "I was just . . . s.h.i.+t." She pulled off the headset. "Working. Taking a little break. What's it to you?"

He laughed, pulled her in for a kiss. "h.e.l.lo, Lieutenant."

"h.e.l.lo back. Ignore him," she said when Galahad slithered up to meow and beg. "I fed him already."

"Better, no doubt, than you fed yourself."

"Did you eat?"

"Not yet." He slid a hand around her throat, squeezed lightly. "Give me half that candy."

"It's frozen. You gotta wait it out."

"This then." He took her coffee, smirked at her scowl. "You smell . . . delicious."

When the hand at her throat slid around to cup the nape of her neck, she realized he meant her, not the coffee. "Back up, pal." She jabbed a finger into his chest. "I've got agendas here. Since you haven't eaten, why don't we go try this Italian place I heard about downtown."

When he said nothing, just sipped her coffee, studied her over the rim, she frowned. "What?"

"Nothing. Just making certain you really are my wife. You want to go out to dinner, sit in a restaurant where there are other people."

"We've been out to dinner before. Millions of times. What's the bfd?"

"Mmm-hmm. What does an Italian restaurant downtown have to do with your case?"

"Smarty-pants. Maybe I just heard they have really good lasagna. And maybe I'll tell you the rest on the way because I sort of made reservations. I made them before I realized you'd be this late and might not want to go out. I can check it out tomorrow."

"Is there time for me to have a shower and change out of this b.l.o.o.d.y suit? It feels as though I was born in it."

"Sure. But I can cancel if you just want to kick back."

"I could use some lasagna, as long as it comes with a great deal of wine."

"Long one, huh?"

"More annoying than long, actually," he told her as she walked with him to the bedroom. "A couple of systemic problems. One in Baltimore, one in Chicago, and both required my personal attention."

She pursed her lips as he undressed for the shower. "You've been to Baltimore and Chicago today?"

"With a quick stop in Philadelphia, since it was handy."

"Did you get a cheese steak?"

"I didn't, no. Time didn't allow for such indulgences. Jets full," he ordered when he stepped into the shower. "Seventy-two degrees."

Even the thought of a shower at that temperature made her s.h.i.+ver. But, somehow, she could still enjoy standing there watching him drench himself in the cold water. "Did you get them fixed? The systemic problems?"

"Bet your gorgeous a.s.s. An engineer, an office manager and two VPs will be seeking other employment. An overworked admin just copped herself a corner office and a new t.i.tle-along with a nice salary boost-and a young man out of R and D is out celebrating his promotion to project head about now."

"Wow, you've been pretty busy out there, changing lives."

He slicked back that wonderful and wet mane of black hair. "A little padding of the expense account, that's a time-honored tradition, corporately speaking. I don't mind it. But you don't want to get greedy, and sloppy, and f.u.c.king arrogant about it. Or next you know, you're out on your ear and wondering how the h.e.l.l you're going to afford that condo on Maui and the side dish who likes trinkets that come in Tiffany's little blue boxes."

"Hold it." She stepped back as he walked out of the shower. "Embezzlement? Are you talking embezzlement?"

"That would be Chicago. Baltimore was just inept.i.tude, which is, somehow, even more annoying."

"Did you have them charged? Chicago?"

He flipped a towel, began to dry off. "I handled it. My way, Lieutenant," he said before she could speak. "I don't call the cops at every b.u.mp in the road."

"I keep hearing that lately. Embezzlement's a crime, Roarke."

"Is it now? Well, fancy that." With the towel hooked over his hips, he brushed by her and went to his closet. "They'll pay, you can be sure of that. I imagine they're even now drinking themselves into a sweaty stupor and weeping bitter tears over their respective career suicides. Be lucky to cop a job sweeping up around a desk now much less sitting behind one. b.u.g.g.e.ring sods."

She thought it over. "The cops would've been easier on them."

He glanced back, his grin fierce and cold. "Undoubtedly."

"I've said it before, I'll say it again. You're a very scary guy."

"So . . . " He pulled on a s.h.i.+rt, b.u.t.toned it. "And how was your day, darling Eve?"

"Fill you in on the way."

She told him so that by the time they arrived at the restaurant he was thoroughly briefed.

Peabody, Eve noted, had given an accurate description. The place was packed and noisy and the air smelled amazing. Waitstaff, with white bib ap.r.o.ns over their street clothes, moved at a turtle pace as they carried trays loaded with food to tables or hauled away empty plates.

When waitstaff didn't have to bust a.s.s for tips, Eve had to figure it all came down to the food or the sn.o.b factor. From the looks of the process here, and the simplicity of decor, the food must be superior.

Someone crooned over the speakers in what she a.s.sumed was Italian, just as she a.s.sumed the almost childlike murals that decorated the walls were of Italian locales.

And she noted the stubby candles on each table. Just like the one Tina Cobb had kept among her mementos.

"I booked in your name." She had to raise her voice, aim it toward Roarke's ear to be heard over the din.

"Oh?"