The in Death Collection Books 11-15 - J. D. Robb [477]
“You’re thinking by Dallas dude, she means me.”
“It’s a strong possibility, one I passed by Mira on the way home. She agrees with me. I’m the only woman who had a part in taking her down, and that makes me her competition. No, more like her opposition. She comes back to my turf, kills here, and shows me she’s back and ready to rumble. But she takes you out, she beats me. Whatever happens in the battles before or after, she wins the war.”
“A reasonable theory, and an interesting one.” He swirled brandy. Unlike the rest of the group, he hadn’t touched a drink at the D and D. “I wonder how she expects to get through my security, to get close enough to me to cause me any harm.”
“Roarke—”
He smiled, leaned in as she had. “Eve.”
“Cut it out. Look, I know you’ve got ace security, the best money can buy. I know your instincts are better yet. But she’s smart, she’s thorough, and she’s very, very good at what she does.”
“So are you. Which,” he continued, “would add another edge for her. How to kill me when I’m so completely, even intimately protected.”
“You’ll add to your security,” she said briskly. “We’ll work out the logistics of that, get some input from Feeney. I’ll put cops on you, mix some in with your people at your midtown office. I’ll need to know your schedule, down to the last detail so I can have men planted wherever you have meetings set up. If you’re going out of the city, using any transpo, it needs to be scanned and swept first—coming and going.”
He sat back, sipped his brandy. “We both know I’m not going around with cops on my heels.”
“You’d prefer protective custody and me keeping you locked in this house?”
He angled his head. “You know my lawyers will tear any attempt at that into tiny shreds, so let’s save both of us the time and trouble.”
“You hard-headed son of a bitch. I’ll chew your lawyers up and spit them back out on your thousand-dollar shoes.”
“You can try.”
She sprang to her feet. “I pick up that ’link, I’m getting authorization to lock you up, at a location I see fit, and slap a goddamn bracelet on your wrist until I’m sure your ass is safe.”
He got to his feet as well. “Then I pick up the ’link, make my call, and have a restraining order trumping your bloody authorization before it’s printed. I won’t be caged, Eve, not by you or anyone. And I won’t hide or run, so put your considerable temper and energies into tracking your woman, and I’ll see to my own ass very well.”
“It’s not just your ass anymore. It belongs to me, too. Goddamn it, I love you.”
“And I love you right back.” As his temper ebbed, he laid his hands on her shoulders. “Eve, I’ll have a care. I promise you.”
She shrugged his hands off, paced away. “I knew you wouldn’t do it my way.”
“Do you think I’d be where I am if every time there’s a threat I bolt into some safe house? I face what comes at me. I deal with it. I deal with it a bit different than I once did.”
“I know. I know you’re more savvy about security than anyone, but will you let Feeney look things over?”
“I’ve no problem with that.”
“I’m asking for you to give me your schedule, where you’ll be, when and with who. I won’t throw cops at you.” She turned back now. “You’d make them and ditch them anyway. But I’d feel better if I knew.”
“I’ll copy you.”
“Okay. I’m going to have to go to Dallas.” She said it very fast, as if the words might burn her tongue. “I’m going to need to talk to the step-father. I’m not sure when I can manage it, but within the next two days. She’ll be moving in on someone else before much longer. He could be a target, too. You know, Texas, cowboys. Maybe that’s the sheep angle, too. They’ve got sheep in Texas, I think. I—”
He’d come to her while she’d rambled, and cut her off by gently taking her arms. “I’ll go with you. You won’t do this without me.”
“I don’t think I could.” She relaxed deliberately, muscle by muscle. “I’m okay. I’ve got work.”
Chapter 9
Eve spent hours doing probabilities, running scans on names that linked to sheep and cowboy.
While the computer worked, she read