She looked over at Trueheart, and for one moment her heart stopped. His face, his uniform jacket, his hair were covered with red.

Then she let out a breath. “Told you to hold on to that damn fizzy.”

20

SUMMERSET GLANCED UP FROM HIS BOOK WHEN Roarke tapped on the jamb of his open parlor door. It was rare for Roarke to come into his private quarters, so he put the book aside, rose.

“No, don't get up. I… have you got a minute?”

“Of course.” He looked over at the monitor, saw that Nixie was in bed, sleeping. “I was about to get a brandy. Would you like one?”

“Yes. I would, yes.”

As he picked up the decanter, Summerset pondered over the fact that Roarke continued to stand, trouble written on his face. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Yes. No.” Roarke let out a frustrated laugh. “Well now, I've been stepping on my own feet quite a bit the last days. I've something I want to say to you, and I'm not sure quite how to start it.”

Stiffly now, Summerset handed Roarke a snifter of brandy. “I realize the lieutenant and I have had a number of difficulties. However-”

“Christ, no, it's nothing to do with that. If I came around every time the two of you locked horns I'd put in a bleeding revolving door.” He stared down at the brandy a moment, decided maybe it would be better done sitting.

He took a chair, swirled the brandy while Summerset did the same. And the silence dragged on.

“Ah, well.” It annoyed him that he had to clear his throat. “These murders. This child-the children-they've made me think about things I'd rather not. Things I make a point of not thinking of. My father, my own early years.”

“I've gone back a few times myself.”

“You think of Marlena.” Of the daughter, the young, pretty girl who'd been murdered. Raped, tortured, murdered. “I told Nixie the pain lessens. I think it must. But it never goes completely, does it?”

“Should it?”

“I don't know. I'm still grieving for my mother. I didn't even know her, and I'm still grieving when I thought I'd be done. I wonder how long that little girl will grieve for hers.”

“In some part of her, always, but she'll go on.”

She's lost more than I ever had. It's humbling to think of. I don't know how… You saved my life,” Roarke blurted out. “No, don't say anything, not until I manage this. I might have lived through that beating, the one he gave me before you found me. I might have survived it, physically. But you saved me that day, and days after. You took me in, and tended to me. You gave me a home when you had no obligation. No one wanted me, and then… You did. I'm grateful.”

“If there was a debt, it was paid long ago.”

“It can never be paid. I might have lived through that beating, and the next, and whatever came after. But I wouldn't be the man I am, sitting here now. That's a debt I'm not looking to pay, or one you're looking to collect.”

Summerset sipped brandy, two slow sips. “I would have been lost without you, after Marlena. That's another debt that's not looking for payment.”

“There's been a weight inside me,” Roarke said quietly. “Since this began, since I found myself faced with the blood of children I didn't know. I could shift it aside, do whatever I needed to do, but it kept rolling back on me. I think, like grief, it might stay there awhile. But it's less now.”

He drank down the brandy, got to his feet. “Good night.”

“Good night.” When he was alone, Summerset went into his bedroom, opened a drawer, and took out a photograph taken a lifetime ago.

Marlena, fresh and sweet, smiling out at him. Roarke, young and tough, with his arms slung around her shoulder, a cocky grin on his face.

Some children you could save, you could keep, he thought. And some you couldn't.

She got home late enough to consider just going up and dropping fully dressed onto the bed. A headache clamped the back of her neck, digging its hot fingers into the base of her skull. To avoid increasing it with sheer irritation, she pushed Trueheart at Summerset the minute they came in the door.

“Do something with his uniform,” she said, already heading up the stairs. “And put him to bed. I want him daisy fresh by seven hundred.”

“Your jacket, Lieutenant.”

She peeled it off, still walking, and tossed it over her shoulder. He probably had some household magic that got cherry fizzy off leather.

She aimed straight for the bedroom, then only stood, rubbing the back of her neck, trying to dissolve the rocks that were forming a small mountain range from that point and out to her shoulders. The bed was empty. If he was still working, and likely on her behalf, she could hardly crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head until morning.

She turned, her hand automatically slapping to her weapon, when she saw the movement behind her.

“Christ on airskates, kid. What is it with you and skulking around in the dark?”

“I heard you come in.” Nixie stood, this time in a yellow nightgown, with those sleep-starved eyes locked on Eve's face.

“No, not yet.” Eve watched the gaze drop to the floor and didn't know whether to curse or sigh. “But I know who they are.”

Nixie's eyes flew up again. “Who?”

“You don't know them. I know who they are. And I know why.”

“Why?”

“Because your father was a good man who did good work. Because he was good, and these people aren't, they wanted to hurt him and everyone he loved.”

“I don't understand that.”

She looked, Eve thought, like a wounded angel with all that tangled blonde hair surrounding a face haunted by fatigue, and worse. “You're not supposed to understand it. Nobody's supposed to understand why some people decide to take lives instead of living decent ones of their own. But that's the way it is. You're supposed to understand that your father was a good man, your family was a good family. And the people who did this to them, to you, are wrong people. You're supposed to understand that I'll find them and put them in a goddamn cage where they'll spend what's left of their miserable, selfish lives. That has to be good enough, because that's all we've got.”

“Will it be soon?”

“Sooner if I'm working instead of standing here in the damn hallway talking to you.”

The slightest flicker of a smile curved Nixie's lips. “You're not really mean.”

Eve hooked her thumbs in her front pockets. “Am, too. Mean as spit, and don't you forget it.”

“Are not. Baxter says you're tough, and sometimes you're scary, but it's because you care about helping people, even when they're dead.”

“Yeah? Well, what does he know? Go back to bed.”

Nixie started toward her room, then paused. “I think, when you catch them, when you put them in a goddamn cage, my dad and my mom, and Coyle and Inga and Linnie, I think they'll be okay then. That's what I think.”

“Then I better get working on it.”

She waited until Nixie was back in her room, then walked away.

She found Roarke still working with the unregistered, and with barely a grunt of greeting crossed over to take the coffee he had on the console and gulp some down.

A second later she was coughing and shoving it back in his hand. “Oh, blech. Brandy.”

“If you'd asked, I'd have warned you there was brandy in it. You look a bit worse for wear, Lieutenant. Brandy might be a good idea.”

She shook her head and got herself a cup, strong and black and without additives. “How's it going here?”

“He's very good-or one of them is very good. Every thread I tug on leads to another knot, which leads to another set of threads. I'll unravel it-I'm bloody determined now-but it won't be quick. But a thought occurred while I've been picking these threads apart. I wonder how he'd feel if his funds were frozen.”

“I've got no forensics, nothing solid tying him to the murders. The best I've got is a composite from a street LC's perspective, which looks nothing like him. I know it's him, but I'll never get the flag to freeze his assets based on nothing much more than my gut.”