Roarke was kicked back in a lounge chair, the cat in his lap, a glass of wine in his hand.

She should go to work, she told herself. Do more research on the Boston Strangler, keep digging for a connection between Wooton andGregg. Though she was dead sure there would be no connection.

She should hound the sweepers, the ME, the lab. None of whom, she knew, would pay much attention to her at nearly ten on a Sunday night. But she could harass them anyway.

She could run probabilities, go over her notes, her suspect lists, stare at her murder board.

Instead, she walked over, plucked the cat off Roarke’s lap. “You’re in my seat,” she told him, and set him on another chair.

She slid into Roarke’s lap, took his wine. “What’s this one about?”

“It seems water is the commodity in fashion. This particular planet in the Zero quadrant-”

“There isn’t any Zero quadrant.”

“It’s fictional, my darling, literal-mindedEve.” He snuggled her in, pressing an absent kiss to her head as he watched the action. “Anyway, this planet’s all but out of water. Potable water. And there’s a rescue attempt being made to get the colony there a supply, and the means to clean up what they have. But there’s this other faction who wants the water for themselves. There’ve been a couple of bloody battles over it already.”

Something exploded on-screen, a shower of color, an ear-splitting boom of sound.

“Nicely done,” Roarke commented. “And there’s a woman, head of the environmental police-the good guys-who’s reluctantly in love with the rogue cargo captain who’s helping deliver the goods-for a price. It’s about thirty minutes in. I can start it over.”

“No, I’ll catch up.”

She intended to sit with him for a few minutes only, let her mind rest. But she got caught up in the story, and it was so nice, so simple to stay, stretched out in the chair with him while fictional battles raged.

And good overcame evil.

“Not bad,” she said when the credits began to roll. “I’m going to get another hour or two of work in.”

“Are you going to tell me about it?”

“Probably.” She climbed out of the chair, stretched, then blinked like an owl when he turned on the light.

“Well, damn it,Eve, what have you done to your face now?”

“It wasn’t my fault.” Sulking a little, she touched fingers gingerly to her jaw. “Somebody knocked me into this guy’s fist when I was trying to stop him from beating this other guy who was whacking off in the subway to a bloody pulp. I couldn’t blame the guy, the guy with the fist, because he wasn’t aiming it at me. But still.”

“My life,” Roarke said after a moment, “was gray before you walked into it.”

“Yeah, I’m a rainbow.” She wiggled her jaw. “My face anyway. You up for some drone work?”

“I might be persuaded. After we put something on that bruise.”

“It’s not so bad. You know, the transit cop told me that guy’s a regular on that line. They call himWilly the Wanker.”

“That’s a fascinating bit ofNew York trivia.” He pulled her toward the elevator. “It makes me yearn to ride the subway.”

Chapter8

InPeabody ’s cramped apartment, McNab ran her through a series of intense computer simulations. He’d proven himself,Peabody had discovered in the last few weeks, a strict and fairly irritating instructor.

With her shoulders hunched, she carefully picked her way through a murder scene, selecting her choices and options in a field investigation of a double homicide.

And cursed when her selection resulted in a blasting buzz-McNab’s personal addition to the sim-and a stern-faced figure of a robed judge shaking his finger at her.

Ah-ah-ah-improper procedure, scene contamination. Evidence suppressed. Suspect gets a free walk due to detective investigator’s screw-up.

“Does he have to say that?”

“Cuts through the legal mumbo,” McNab pointed out, and stuffed potato chips in his face. “Digs down to the point.”

“I don’t want to do any moresims.” Her face fell into a pout that had McNab’s libido jiggling. “My brain’s going to leak out of my ears in a minute.”

He loved her, enough to mostly ignore the image of peeling her out of her clothes and doing her on the rug. “Look, you’re aces on the written. You’ve got a memory for details and points of law, blah blah. You get thumbs-up on the oral, once your voice settles down from a squeak.”

“It does not squeak.”

“Sort of like how it does when I bite your toes.” He grinned toothily when she scowled at him. “And while I like how it sounds myself, the test team’s going to be less romantically inclined. So you’re going to want to oil the squeaks.”

She continued to pout, then her mouth dropped open in shock when he slapped her hand away from the bag of chips. “None for you until you get through a sim.”

“Jesus, McNab, I’m not a puppy performing for a biscuit.”

“No, you’re a cop who wants to make detective.” He moved the bag out of her reach. “And you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared; I’m understandably anxious about the testing process and proving myself ready to…” She hissed out a breath as he merely studied her with patient green eyes. “I’m terrified.” Because his arm came around her, she snuggled into his bony shoulder. “I’m terrified I’ll blow it, and I’ll letDallas down. And you, and Feeney, the commander, my family.Jesus.”

“You’re not going to blow it, and you won’t let anyone down. This isn’t aboutDallas, or anybody else. It’s all about you.”

“She trained me, she put me up for it.”

“So she must figure you’re ready. It ain’t no snap, She-Body.” He gave her cheek a quick nuzzle. “It’s not supposed to be. But you’ve got the training, you’ve got the field time, the instincts, the brains. And, honey, you’ve got the guts and heart, too.”

She turned her head to look up at him. “That’s so damn sweet.”

“It’s a fact, and here’s another one, here’s what you don’t have right now. You don’t have the balls.”

Her gooey affection toward him transformed into brittle insult. “Hey.”

“And because you don’t have the balls,” he continued calmly, “you’re not trusting your gut, or your training. You’re second-guessing yourself. Instead of going with what you know, you keep wondering what you don’t know, and that’s why you keep messing up on thesims.”

She’d pulled away from him. Her breath hissed out. “I hate you for being right.”

“Nah. You love me because I’m so damn good-looking.”

“Asshole.”

“‘Fraidy cat.”

“‘Fraidy cat.” Her lips twitched into a reluctant smile. “Jeez. Okay, set up another one. Make it tough. And when I nail it, I not only get the chips, but…” Her smile widened. “You wear the hat.”

“You’re on.”

She rose to pace and clear out her head while he programmed the sim. She’d been afraid, she admitted. Afraid she wanted it too much. So she hadn’t used the hunger, but had let it eat away at her confidence. That had to stop. Even if her palms were damp and her stomach in knots it had to stop.

Dallasnever let nerves get in the way, she thought. And she had them, nerves and something deeper, darker. It had peeked through on theGregg scene, for just a moment that afternoon. Now and again on a sexual homicide, it peeked through. It turned her lieutenant’s cheeks pale. Took her back,Peabody was sure, to something horrible. Something personal.

Rape,Peabody was sure, just as she was sure it had to have been brutal. And she’d have been young. Before the job.Peabody had studiedEve ’s career with the NYPSD like a template, but there’d been no report of a sexual assault onDallas.

So it had been before, before the Academy. When she was a teenager, or possibly younger. In automatic sympathy,Peabody ’s stomach roiled. It would take guts, and balls, to face that, to revisit whatever had happened every time you walked into a scene that reverberated with sexual violence.