"These eggs" -Baxter swallowed, forked up another bite-"are from chickens. Chickens."

"Cluck-cluck." Eve walked over to snag a piece of bacon.

"You fell into gravy with this guy, Dallas. No offense," Baxter said to Roarke, and shoveled in more eggs.

"None taken." Amused, he nodded toward the meat platter. "Have you tried the ham? It's from pig."

"Oink-oink," Jamie said, cracking himself up.

"If we've finished visiting the farm animals, you've got ten minutes to slurp the rest of this up." Eve polished off the slice of bacon. "And Baxter, if you spread it around Central about me falling into gravy, I'll see to it that you never have another chicken egg as long as you live."

She scowled at her wrist unit. "Why aren't Peabody and McNab in here?" She turned, intending to use the house 'link to roust them. Roarke stopped her with a hand to her shoulder.

"Eve." He said it quietly, nudging her around until she faced the door.

Her throat snapped closed. Her hand went to Feeney's shoulder in turn, squeezed hard. They watched McNab walk slowly into the room.

He used a cane. It looked almost stylish somehow-glossy black, silver-tipped. He was sweating. She could see the beads of effort popping out on his face, even as he grinned from ear to ear.

His steps were unsteady, obviously labored. But he was on his feet. Walking.

Peabody was just behind him, struggling not to cry.

Eve felt Feeney's hand come up, close tight over hers.

"It's about time you got up off that lazy ass of yours." His voice was thick, but Feeney was afraid to lift a cup and drink to clear it. His hand was far from steady. "Team's been carrying you long enough."

"I thought about trying to pull it off for one more day." McNab was out of breath when he reached the table. Still, he reached out with his right hand, closed his fingers over a slice of bacon, lifted it to his mouth. "But I smelled food."

"You wanted breakfast, you should have come in twenty minutes ago." Eve waited until he looked at her. "Better eat fast," she ordered. "We've got work."

"Yes, sir." He tried to sidestep to a chair, wobbled. Eve caught his elbow, held it until he had his balance again.

"Dallas?"

"Detective."

"I figure this is the only chance I'll ever have at this." He gave her a hard, noisy kiss on the mouth that had Baxter applauding.

Eve choked back a laugh and looked at him coolly. "And you think I won't knock you on your ass for that?"

"Not this time." Exhausted, he dropped into a chair. Caught his breath. "Hey, kid, pass those eggs over here before Baxter licks the damn platter."

After breakfast, after the briefing, Eve dismissed her team but for Peabody.

"He looks good," Eve began. "A little worn out, but good."

"Didn't get any sleep. He was pulling the 'woe is me, you've got to go' routine when-"

"The what?"

"He was feeling low and he'd gotten into his head he wanted me to walk so he wouldn't feel like a burden, or I wouldn't feel like it, whatever. We were arguing, and it started. His arm starting itching, then his legs, and then… Sorry, I get messed up when I talk about it."

"Okay, then let's not talk about it. Except to say I'm glad he's-" She broke off, pressed her fingers to her eyes and breathed deep.

"Messes you up, too." Peabody sniffled, dug out her handkerchief. "That's so nice."

"We're all glad he's back. Let's leave it alone for now."

She sighed once, then switched gears. "Data has come into my hands through an alternate source. I'm not going to name this source. I intend to act on this data, which includes names and info in sealeds that I do not, as yet, have authority to open."

Peabody sat quietly. She knew what Roarke and her lieutenant had been working on now. She didn't know how the hell they'd gotten into sealeds. Probably didn't want to know.

"Yes, sir. It seems to me that acting on this data, which came into your hands by an alternate source, would be correct procedure. To ignore the data during an investigation labeled priority would be dereliction of duty."

"Want to be my rep if they bust me for this?"

"I figure Roarke can hire us the best going."

"You won't be in the line of fire. You can elect to take another assignment."

"Dallas-"

"Or," Eve continued, "you can accompany me, as my aide. And as my aide, your ass will not go in the sling on this. You're just following orders."

"Respectfully, sir, my ass is with yours. If you expect it any other way, you've got the wrong aide."

"I haven't got the wrong aide. We might catch a little heat for this, Peabody, but I don't think it'll burn very hot or very long. I'll fill you in on the way."

Donald and Sylvia Dukes lived in a tidy, two-story townhouse. Eve noted frilly curtains at the windows and identical white pots of regimented red flowers standing on either side of the front door. Like soldiers, she thought, guarding the fort.

She rang the buzzer, took out her badge.

The woman who answered was small, slim, and as ordered as her flowers. She wore a blue-and-white checked dress and there was a white apron tied at her waist. She wore pale rose lip dye, earrings fashioned of three small pearls in a triangle, and spotless white canvas shoes.

Without the apron, she would have looked like a woman about to head out for a day of running errands.

"Mrs. Dukes?"

"Yes. What's wrong? What do you want?" Her cautious gaze darted from Eve's face to the badge and back again. Eve could hear the breathy sound of nerves in her voice.

"Nothing's wrong, ma'am. I'd like to ask you some questions. Is it all right if we come in?"

"I'm in the middle of… I'm very busy. This isn't a good time."

"I could make an appointment, at your convenience. But I'm here now, and I'll try not to keep you very long."

"Who is it, Sylvia?" Donald Dukes came to the door. He towered over his wife, an athletically lean man of six feet two inches. His sandy hair was fashioned into a short military cut.

"The police," Sylvia began.

"Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD, and my aide, Officer Peabody. I have some questions, Mr. Dukes. If I could have a few minutes of your time."

"What's this about?"

He'd already shifted his wife aside, and stood blocking the doorway. It wasn't only flowers guarding the fort now, Eve decided.

"It's regarding the deaths of Chadwick Fitzhugh and Louis K. Cogburn."

"That has nothing to do with us."

"Sir, at one time you filed charges, on behalf of your son Devin, against both of these men."

"My sonDevin is dead."

He said it so flatly, so coldly, he might have been speaking of the loss of his favorite tie.

"I'm sorry." Eve heard his wife choke off a sob behind him. Dukes didn't bat an eyelash. "Mr. Dukes, is this something you want to discuss in the doorway?"

"This is something I don't want to discuss at all. Devin's files are sealed, Lieutenant. How did you get our name?"

"Your names came up during the course of my investigation." Hard-ass to hard-ass then, Eve decided, staring at him coldly. "Files can be sealed, Mr. Dukes, but people talk."

"Dad?" A boy walked halfway down the stairs. He was tall like his father, his hair as rigidly shorn. He wore blue trousers, a blue shirt, both knife-edge sharp. Like a uniform, Eve decided.

"Joseph, go back upstairs."

"Is something wrong?"

"This doesn't concern you." Dukes glanced back briefly. "Go upstairs immediately."

"Yes, sir."

"I won't have you disrupting my home," he said to Eve.

"Would you prefer taking it down to Central?"

"You have no authority to-"

"Yes, sir. I do. And the fact that you're reluctant to answer a few routine questions leads me toward exercising that authority. This can be simple or complicated. That's your choice."