Roarke handed her a handkerchief, then reached down, lifting Ricker's head off the floor by his throat.

"Don't-"

"Keep back," he snapped as Eve crouched to hold him off. "You'll bloody well keep back till I've finished this."

"If you kill him, it's been for nothing."

He stared at her face, and all the strength, the purpose, all the danger he hadn't shown to Ricker leaped out of them. "It would be for everything, but I don't mean to kill him." To prove it, he handed her the Glock.

But he kept the scalpel and, holding its keen point to the pulse in Ricker's throat, imagined. "You can hear me, can't you, Ricker? You can hear me well enough. I'm the one who took you down, and you'll remember it while you're pacing the box they'll put you in. You'll think of it every day with what's left of your mind."

"Kill you," Ricker choked out, but he couldn't so much as lift his hand.

"Well, you haven't managed that as yet, have you? But you're welcome to try again. Listen to me now, and carefully. Touch her, put your hand on what's mine again, and I'll follow you to hell and peel the skin from your bones. I'll feed you your own eyes. I take an oath on it. Remember what I was, and you'll know I'll do it. And worse."

He straightened again, his body rigid. "Get someone to drag him out of here. This is my place."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

She didn't sleep long, but she slept deeply, knowing Ricker was in a cage. He'd screamed for his lawyer, quite literally, once the effects of the stun had worn off.

Since she'd whipped right around and dumped Canarde in a cage as well, Ricker's lawyer was going to be a very busy boy for awhile.

She'd made two copies of every record disc of the operation in Purgatory. She sealed all of them, and secured one copy in her home office.

There would be no lost evidence, no missing data, no damaged files this time around.

And they had him cold.

She told herself it was enough, would have to be enough, then had tumbled into bed. She switched off like a frayed circuit, then came awake with a jolt when Roarke put a hand on her shoulder and said her name.

"What." Instinctively, she reached down where her weapon would have been had she not been naked.

"Easy, Lieutenant. I'm unarmed. And so are you."

"I was… whoa." She shook her head to clear it. "Out."

"I noticed. I'm sorry to wake you."

"Why are you up? Why are you dressed? What time is it?"

"A bit past seven. I had some early calls to take. And while I was at it, one came in. From the hospital."

"Webster," she whispered. She hadn't checked on him the night before after the operation was complete. And now… too late, she thought.

"He's awake," Roarke continued, "and it seems he'd like to see you."

"Awake? Alive and awake?"

"Apparently both. He improved last night. He's still in serious condition, but stable. They're cautiously hopeful. I'll take you."

"You don't need to do that."

"I'd like to. Besides, if he thinks I'm guarding my territory…" He lifted her hand, nipped the knuckle. "It might cheer him up."

"Territory, my ass."

"Your ass is, I'll point out, my exclusive territory."

She tossed the cover aside, and gave him a good view of that territory as she dashed toward the shower. "I'll be ready in ten minutes."

"Take your time. I don't believe he's going anywhere."

She took twenty, because he bribed her with coffee. And she indulged in a second cup as he got behind the wheel. "Do we take him flowers or something?"

"I think not. If you did that, the shock would likely put him back in a coma."

"You're such a funny guy, and so early in the morning, too." She sipped her coffee, bided her time. "That, urn, phrase-feed you your own eyes? Is that some kind of Irish curse?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"So you just made it up on the spot last night? I've said it before, and I'll say it again: You're scary."

"I'd have killed him for striking you if you hadn't been in the way."

"I know it." So she'd made certain she'd stayed in the way. "You had no business bringing that handgun. Carrying a banned weapon into a public place. You know how much dancing I'm going to have to do on that one?"

"Who says it was loaded?"

"Was it?"

"Of course, but who's to say? Relax, Lieutenant. You brought him down."

"No, I didn't. You did."

"Compromise," he decided. "Which we've neglected to do just lately. We brought him down."

"I'll take that. One more thing. All that business about a man having this right and that right, and wanting your woman when you want her. That was just show, right?"

"Are you going to share that coffee?"

She moved it just a little farther out of reach. "No. It was just show. Right?"

"Well, now, let me think. It might be nice to have the little woman puttering about the house and meeting me at the door of an evening, after a hard day's business, with a smile and a drink. That's a lovely image, isn't it?"

He turned to see her snarling at him and laughed. "How long before we'd be bored brainless with it, do you figure?"

"It's a good thing you said that before I wasted this very nice coffee by pouring it into your lap. But I'm still not sharing it."

When they turned into hospital parking, she shifted on her seat to face him. "It's going to take several days to close this Ricker business and hand it over to the PA. His psych evaluation is going to be one big mess, seeing as he's loon crazy."

"He'll end up in a mental defective prison unit."

"Oh yeah, and believe me, they're no picnic. Anyway, we've got a lot of people to interview, and I can't calculate how many of his businesses and properties to search and seize. I'm letting Martinez take the bulk of it, but I'm still going to be tied up for awhile. If you can put off the trip you need to take to Olympus, I'd like to go with you."

He pulled into a slot, stopped the car. "You'd voluntarily take off several days? Not only that, but go off planet without me having to drug you?"

"I said I'd like to go with you. If you're going to make a big deal out of it, we can just-"

"Quiet down." He leaned over, kissed her sulky mouth. "I'll put it off until we can go together."

"Okay. Good." She climbed out of the car. Stretched. "Look, there's some whattayacallems."

"Daffodils," he said and caught her hand in his. "Daffodils, Eve. It's spring."

"Finally feels like it, too."

She kept her hand in his as they walked into the hospital, and all the way to Webster's tiny room.

His face wasn't gray as it had been the last time she'd been there, but it wasn't pink with health, either. Instead, it was as white as the bandages stretched across his chest.

She felt a trip of alarm cut into her cheerful mood as he lay, silent and still.

"I thought they said he was awake."

Even as she said it, in a sickroom whisper, Webster's eyes fluttered open. They stayed dazed for a moment with the baffled, vulnerable look of the very ill. Then, as they focused the faintest glint of humor shot into them. "Hey."

She had to step closer; his voice was pitifully thin.

"You didn't have to bring the guard dog. I'm too weak to make a half-decent pass at you."

"You never worried me in that area, Webster."

"I know. Damn it. Thanks for coming."

"It's okay. It's not much out of my way."

He started to laugh, lost his breath, then just lay there concentrating on finding it again.

"You stupid bastard." She said it with enough passion to bring that baffled look back on his face.

"Huh?"

"You think I can't handle myself? That I need some idiot IAB moron half-ass to knock me down and stick out his chest for a knife?"