The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [29]
“So maybe he’s making women?” She thought of Dolores, absolutely calm before and after a murder. “And one of them turns on him. One of them isn’t happy with her placement, and comes back to off the creator. He agrees to see her because she’s his work. It’s not bad,” she decided. “Out there, but not altogether bad.”
She slept on it, and woke so early Roarke was just out of bed and pulling on sweats.
“You’re awake. Well then, let’s have a workout and a swim.”
“A what?” She blinked groggy eyes at him. “It’s not morning.”
“It’s after five.” He stepped back up to the bed, hauled her out. “It’ll clear your mind.”
“Why isn’t there coffee?”
“There will be.” He bundled her into the elevator and had it heading for the home gym before her brain woke fully.
“Why am I working out at five in the morning?”
“Five-fifteen, actually, and because it’s good for you.” He tossed her a pair of shorts. “Suit up, Lieutenant.”
“When do you leave town again?”
He tossed a top into her face.
She dragged on the clothes, then set her equipment for a beach run. If she was going to work out before the sun came up, at least she could pretend she was at the beach. She liked the feel of sand under her feet, and the sounds and scents and sights of surf.
Roarke set up next to her with the same program. “We could make this a reality after the holidays.”
“What holidays?”
Amused when she picked up her pace, he matched her. “We’re nearly to Thanksgiving. Which is actually something I wanted to discuss with you.”
“It’s on a Thursday. You eat turkey whether you like it or not. I know about Thanksgiving.”
“It’s also an American holiday. A . . . family holiday, traditionally. I thought it might be appropriate to invite my Irish relations here for dinner.”
“Bring them to New York to eat turkey?”
“Essentially.”
She watched him out of the corner of her eye, noted he was slightly embarrassed. A rarity for him. “How many of them are there, anyway?”
“About thirty or so.”
Her breath wheezed in. “Thirty?”
“More or less. I’m not entirely sure, though I doubt all of them could get away, with a farm to run and other work. All those children. But I thought Sinead, at least, with her family, might be able to take a day or two here, and the holiday seemed the right time. We might invite Mavis and Leonardo, Peabody and so on. Whoever you’d like. Make a right bash of it.”
“Gonna need one big-ass turkey.”
“I think the food will be the simplest of the details. How would you feel about having them here?”
“A little weird, but okay. How about you?”
He relaxed. “A little weird, but okay. I appreciate it.”
“As long as I don’t have to bake a pie.”
“God forbid.”
The workout did indeed clear her mind, and she added a stint with weights, polished it off with twenty laps in the pool.
She’d intended to do twenty-five, but Roarke caught her on the twenty-first turn. And she ended the workout with a different sort of water exercise.
She was alert and ravenous by the time she’d showered and grabbed her first cup of coffee.
She went for waffles, exchanged beady eyes with Galahad when the cat tried to slink up to her plate.
“He’s got to have space.”
“Cat’s got the run of the bloody house.”
“Not the cat. Icove,” Eve said and got an absentminded mmm-hmm from Roarke as he scanned the morning stock reports on-screen in the sitting area of their bedroom. “Not in the apartment,” she continued. “Too many patients coming in and out. Lab. Maybe in the Center, maybe someplace else entirely. He’d need privacy. Even if it’s not anything illegal, it’s strange. He didn’t go through all the trouble to private the discs and his unit, then conduct all these exams or experiments or case studies in the open.”
“It’s a big facility, the Center,” Roarke began, and switched to the media bulletins. “But there are a lot of people through there. Patients, staff, visitors, stockholders.