The In Death Collection Books 6-10 - J. D. Robb [584]
Goddamn it.
“What’s the matter?” She asked, noticing the scowl on his face. “They run out of pepperoni?”
“No, it’s coming.” He held out her glass of wine. “I was thinking . . . about work.”
“Mmm.” She sipped the wine, pursed her lips at its smooth and subtle fruity taste. “This is pretty good. You’re running backgrounds on the Draco case, right?”
“Already done. Dallas should have them by now.”
“Quick work.”
He answered with a shrug. He didn’t have to tell her Roarke had dropped the data in his lap. “We in EDD aim to please. Even after eliminations and probability scans, it’s going to take days to shift the list down to a workable number. Guy gets his heart jabbed in front of a couple thousand people, it’s complicated.”
“Yeah.” Peabody sipped again, then wandered off to drop into a chair. Without being aware of it on a conscious level, she was as comfortable in McNab’s mess of an apartment as she was in her own tidy one. “Something’s going on.”
“Something’s always going on.”
“No, not the usual.” She struggled with herself, brooded into her wine. If she didn’t talk to someone, she’d explode. And hell, he was here. “Look, this is confidential.”
“Okay.” Since the pizza wouldn’t arrive for a good ten minutes more, McNab snagged an open bag of soy chips. He settled on the arm of Peabody’s chair. “What’s the deal?”
“I don’t know. Nadine Furst tagged the lieutenant today, and she was razzed. Nadine, I mean.” Absently, Peabody reached into the bag. “You don’t see Nadine razzed very often. She makes a meet with Dallas—a personal meet. It was serious. They stashed me across the room, but I could tell. And after, Dallas didn’t say a word about it.”
“Maybe it was just personal shit.”
“No, Nadine’s not going to ask for a meet like that unless there’s trouble.” Nadine was her friend, too, and part of Peabody was bruised that she’d been brushed aside. “I think it ties to the case. Dallas should’ve told me.” Peabody crunched on chips. “She should trust me.”
“Want me to poke around?”
“I can do my own poking. I don’t need an E Division hotshot running plays for me.”
“Suit yourself, She-Body.”
“Just lay off. I don’t even know why I told you. It’s just sitting in my gut. Nadine’s a friend. She’s supposed to be a friend.”
“You’re jealous.”
“Bullshit.”
“Yeah, you are.” He was beginning to have an intimate relationship with the feeling. “Dallas and Nadine are playing without you, so you’re jealous. Girl Dynamics one oh one.”
She shoved him off the arm of the chair. “You’re an asshole.”
“And there,” he said as his security bell rang, “is the pizza.”
chapter six
“Don’t touch anything, and stay out of the way.”
“Darling.” Roarke watched Eve slip her master into the security lock on Penthouse A. “You’re repeating yourself.”
“That’s because you never listen.” Before she opened the door, she turned, met his eyes. “Why does a man whose primary residence is New York, whose main source of work is New York, opt to live in a hotel rather than a private residence?”
“First the panache. ‘Mr. Draco keeps the penthouse at The Palace when in the city.’ Next, the convenience. At the crook of a finger, whatever you need or want done for you can be. Is. And lastly, perhaps most tellingly, the utter lack of commitment. Everything around you is someone else’s problem and responsibility.”
“From what I’ve learned of Draco so far, that’s the one I go for.” She opened the door, stepped inside.
It belonged to Roarke, she thought, therefore it was plush and lush and perfect. If you went for that kind of thing.
The living area was enormous and elegantly furnished with walls of silky rose. The ceiling was arched and decorated with a complicated design of fruit and flowers around a huge glass and gold chandelier.
Three sofas, all in deep, cushy red were piled with pillows bright as jewels. Tables—and she suspected they were genuine wood and quite old—were polished like mirrors, as was the floor. The rug was an inch thick and matched the ceiling pattern grape for grape.
One wall was glass, the privacy screen drawn