The In Death Collection Books 6-10 - J. D. Robb [397]
“Thank you, darling.”
“That’s sir to you, ace.”
She streamed through the smoke of a corner glida grill and headed south. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I must be crazy. I must have lost my mind. I keep crossing lines.”
“Think of it this way. The lines keep moving. You’re just keeping up.”
“I continue keeping up this way, I’ll end up wearing security bracelets. I used to go by the book. I believe in the book. Now I just rewrite the pages.”
“Either that or go back to bed and pull the covers over your head.”
“Yeah, well . . . we make choices. I’ve made mine.”
She found a second-level spot four blocks north of the Canal Street Clinic and tucked the car between a sky scooter and a dented utility truck. If anyone bothered to look, she mused, Roarke’s elegant two-seater would stick out like a swan among toads, but it wasn’t against the law to drive a hot-looking car in this sector.
“I don’t want to park any closer. This thing has antitheft and antivandalism features, right?”
“Naturally. Engage all security,” he ordered as they climbed out. “One more thing. He reached in his pocket. “Your clutch piece . . . sir.”
“What the hell are you doing with this?” She snatched it from him.
“Giving it to you.”
“You’re not authorized to carry and neither am I.” She hissed out a breath as he met that information with another smirk. “Just shut up,” she muttered and jammed the weapon into her back pocket.
“When we get home,” he began as they walked down to street level, “you can . . . reprimand me.”
“Keep your mind off sex.”
“Why? It’s so happy there.” He laid a casual hand on her shoulder as they moved briskly down the block. The few doorway lurkers faded back, intimidated either by the steely look in Eve’s eyes or the warning glint in Roarke’s.
“The place is a dump,” she told him. “No palm plate, no camera. But the locks are decent. They’ve got to meet code because of the drugs. They’ll be standard Security Reds, maybe with timers. Antitheft alarms. Cartright caught the scene here, and she’s a straight cop. There’ll be a seal. I don’t have my master anymore.”
“You have better.” He gave her shoulder a quick rub. “You have me.”
“Yeah.” She tossed him a look, saw in that fabulous face the glint that told her he was enjoying himself. “Seems like.”
“I could teach you how to get through locks.”
It was tempting, much too tempting. God, she missed the weight of her weapon, her badge. “I’ll just keep a lookout for beat droids and other nuisances. If you trip the alarm, we just walk away.”
“Please. I haven’t tripped an alarm since I was ten.” Insulted, he turned to the door of the clinic while Eve cruised the block.
She made two passes, lost in her own thoughts. One event, she decided, had built on another. An old resentment from academy days, a dead sleeper, a conspiracy of death, and here she was, stripped of her badge and playing lookout while the man she’d married coolly broke into a building.
How the hell was she going to get back? How could she get back, if she didn’t get started? She turned, ready to tell him to stop. And he stood, watching her, his eyes calm and blue, with the door open at his back.
“In or out, Lieutenant?”
“Fuck it.” She strode past him and went inside.
He locked up behind them, turned on the narrow beam of a penlight. “Where’s the office?”
“Through the back. This door works on a release from inside.”
“Hold this.” He passed her the light, gestured for her to aim it at the lock. Crouching, he gave it a quick scan. “I haven’t seen one of these in years. Your friend Louise was very optimistic with her half million bid.”
He took out what appeared to be a pen, unscrewed it, then flicked a finger over the tip of the long, thin wire he exposed.
She’d known him nearly a year, had been as intimate with him as one person could be with another, and he still managed to surprise her. “You carry burglary tools around with you all the