New York to Dallas - J. D. Robb [53]
She stepped to him, laid her hands on his face and her lips on his.
“That’s just like home,” she murmured. Then because it felt so damn good, hugged him hard. “Let’s have a bloody drink.”
9
She sat on the terrace, drinking some wine, ignoring the view. Roarke was prettier to look at anyway. And looking at him, she saw the signs she’d missed in her hurry to get to the hotel.
“You’re pissed off.”
He lifted his shoulders in a careless shrug. “Not at you, at the moment.”
“At who? Or what?”
“Let’s just say I’ve had enough of cops—but again, not you. At the moment.”
She tracked back out of her own work to his end of it. EDD.
“If EDD’s that annoying, don’t go back. You don’t need to go in when you’ve got your setup here. You can coordinate with Feeney if and when you want.”
“As you’ll be going in there’s every reason. I’m with you as long as we’re in this place,” he reminded her. “And a bit of annoyance isn’t much in the larger scheme, is it?”
“Depends. What’s the annoyance, specifically? It’s not just being around cops.”
“Believe me, it’s no champagne picnic for someone with my . . . predilections.”
He could read her, often too well for comfort. Tit for tat, she thought, reached over, took his hand. “Roarke.”
“Ah, bugger it. It’s nothing, really. Ricchio’s father—another cop—had a part in the investigation on mine. He made a point of telling me, with the Texas version of the beady eye you’re so fond of.”
Her hackles rose. “Out of line.”
“Was it? Wouldn’t you have done the same in his place?”
“Maybe. Probably. I’d have been out of line. You’re here to help, a consultant duly designated by the NYPSD. And Patrick Roarke has dick-all to do with it. One of Ricchio’s consultants is being held by a violent predator. That’s his fucking focus, and he’s got no business messing with your head when lives are on the line.”
“Well then, we can agree in part. But there’s always going to be a smudge, isn’t there? It’s the way of things.”
“Things suck.”
“Often. But now that you’re annoyed along with me, I feel better. I want food.”
Not in the least mollified, she shoved up, paced away. “This fucking place. I hate it. I don’t care if it’s unfair. Probably there’s good things about it, good people in it. I don’t care. They met up here, your father and mine.”
“Eve, Ricchio has no reason, and no accessible data to make a connection between Patrick Roarke, Richard Troy, and Lieutenant Eve Dallas.”
“But it’s there. It’s always going to be there, that smudge.” She swung back toward him, letting out what had been grinding inside her since they’d touched down.
“We’re never going to get out from under it, not all the way. No matter what we do, who we are, what we make, they’re part of it. We can’t change that. It’s always there, and it’s more there here.”
“It is, yes. It is.” He rose, went to her. “So, we’ll have to find Melinda Jones quickly, deal with McQueen, and go home.”
She closed her eyes when he rested his brow against hers. “Sounds like a plan. Simple, straightforward.”
“I have every faith.”
“Then I’d better get back to it. Tell you what, to make up for cop bullshit, I’ll deal with your dinner before I write up my reports. How do you feel about Texas beef, burger style?”
“I could feel very agreeable to that.” But he took her hands. “Think about this. Without the smudge we wouldn’t be just who we are, and wouldn’t be so damn determined to keep scrubbing at it. In our own ways.”
“I guess not. Still . . .” She stopped when her ’link signaled. “Peabody,” she said with a glance at the readout.
“Deal with it. I can handle getting my own dinner.”
“Good. Sorry. Peabody. Did you get him?”
He went in, kept an eye on her as he selected from the AutoChef. She paced, one hand jammed in her pocket. Talking fast, eyes narrowed, cop flat.
Back to scrubbing at the smudge, he thought.
When she came in, fresh energy came with her.
“They picked Civet up, got him cold with his pockets lined with baggies of poppers, Zing, zoner, and what all. Collared him within a block of a youth center, which adds weight. Adding up how many