Obviously, all was forgiven.
She sat beside him, gave him a belly rub. “I missed you, too. You’d probably have gone for the villa in Greece—luxury’s your speed. But you wouldn’t have gone for the farm, trust me. Too much competition, to start—dogs and cats swarming. Too much outside for you, with big-ass cows and weird-eyed sheep. You’re an urbanite, pal. It takes one to know one.”
“So are we all,” Roarke agreed. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to do what the family does every bloody day. A bit of a lark for me to have a hand at it for a very short time, but the farmer’s life? It’s a hard one. And one they love.”
When he sat, Galahad shifted his affections.
They unpacked and, by tacit agreement, both stayed out of their offices and had pizza on the patio as the sun set.
“Maybe we scratch the popcorn and vid.” She sat back, sipped a little more wine. “It’s barely nine, but it doesn’t feel like it.”
“There’s the earth on its axis moving around the sun again.”
“Yeah, you ought to find a way to fix that. We can skip straight to the sex.”
“How could I argue with that?”
“I figured that would get your vote.” She closed her eyes, lifted her face to the night. “I’m going to have a shitload to catch up on tomorrow. You, too.”
“The price we pay.”
“Worth it. I did miss the cat, and New York pizza, but worth it. What time’s your first meeting?”
He smiled at her. “You’ll still be sleeping.”
“Figured. Then let’s go get this vacation capped off.”
They walked inside, then up to the bedroom, where the cat already stretched across the bed.
“Some things don’t change,” she commented.
And as they turned to each other, the communicator on her dresser signaled.
“No, they bloody don’t.”
“What the serious fuck? I’m not on the roll until oh-eight hundred.”
She snatched it up. “Dallas.”
Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Official request for your assistance from Webster, Lieutenant Donald. Unattended death, 14 Leonard Street, apartment 321. Will you respond as primary?
“Crap. Affirmative. Responding now. Dallas out.”
She looked over at Roarke. “I don’t know why, but he wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Understood. I’ll drive—and don’t wonder if I’m going with you because he once tried putting moves on you, and in our house. That’s all done. We’ll consider it our alternate way of capping off our vacation.”
“Fine.” She strapped on the weapon she’d put on the dresser for the morning. “What the hell is IAB doing at an unattended death?”
“I suppose we’ll find out.”
She grabbed her badge, her ’link, the rest of her pocket paraphernalia. “I’m going to see who lives—and possibly died—there while you drive.”
They left the cat on the bed and went out to the car Roarke had remoted from the garage to the front of the house. She pulled out her PPC, started the search while he sped down the drive, through the gates.
“Shit. Shit. Martin and Elizabeth Greenleaf have that unit. Captain Martin Greenleaf, IAB—retired. I know—or maybe knew—him some. He’s Webster’s guru or mentor, father figure. I know they’re tight. He was tight with Greenleaf and his wife.”
“He requested you because, as you said, it’s important. I assume he didn’t just tag you so as to keep it official?”
“Yeah, yeah. Still stretching it some. And he wouldn’t have stretched it if it’s, or looks like, natural causes, or an accident. Or maybe he would,” she considered. “Because they were tight, and he just reacted.”
“You’ll sort it out.”
“Yeah.” She looked at him again. “Welcome the hell home.”
“Well then, it is our home and our life here, isn’t it then? It’s what we do, who we are. I wouldn’t change it. Would you?”
“No.” That part came easy. “But I didn’t expect to dive right back into murder. And he wouldn’t have asked for me, especially this way, if he didn’t think murder. And I can’t go into whatever this is influenced by what he thinks or feels.”
“He’d know that, wouldn’t he?”
“He should. Crap, crap, Captain Greenleaf, or his wife. Or somebody else in their apartment. But odds of somebody else don’t fly.”
“Because?”
“What I know of Greenleaf is by the book, and the book is sacred. No deviation. And I have to wipe that out, go in blank. That’s how it has to be.
“Webster’s been taking a lot of time off-planet.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Bollocks to that. He’s spending that time at the Olympus Resort, and with Darcia Angelo. Olympus is basically yours, and she’s your top cop there. You know.”
“She does her job, and well. Her off time is her own. And yes, he visits often enough. They made a connection—we saw it for ourselves.”
“Pretty damn quick connection.”
Amused, he shot her a look. “And didn’t we?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe. Yeah, okay. Listen, I’m going to need you to be Peabody,” she said, referring to her partner. “Either assisting me if I need you to, or keeping Webster out of my way. Can you do the second part without punching him in the face?”
“It’s been a bit of time since I punched him in the face, or elsewhere,” Roarke said easily. “We came to an understanding.”
“Great.” When he turned onto Leonard, she felt a wave of relief. “He called in uniforms. That’s a good step. Follow procedure, secure the scene.”
“I’ll get your field kit from the trunk and put on my Peabody.”
A good, solid building, she noted, brick, pre-Urbans. A decent neighborhood, good security on the entrance. And a uniform standing there now.
She badged him as they walked up the short steps to the doors.
“Lieutenant.”
“What do you know, Officer?”
“My partner and I responded to a nine-one-one by Lieutenant Webster. Ambulance also requested, but the victim was DOS. Lieutenant Webster ordered me to take the entrance door, and my partner to remain on scene with him to ensure it remained secure. DB is male, mid-seventies, at a desk in what appears to be a home office. No visible signs of forced entry.”
“Stand by.”
She went in, barely glanced at the pair of elevators before taking the stairs.
“He was smart to have the uniform stay with him on scene,” she commented. “Smarter maybe if he’d just called it in, then stepped back, but smart enough.”
“And smart enough to ask for you if he suspects foul play.”
“We’ll see about that.”
On three, she walked to the apartment. It had a door cam—but Greenleaf was a cop, after all—and a solid set of locks. She pressed the buzzer.
Webster answered, and she thought: Fuck. He’s a mess.
His light blue eyes held nothing but grief and despair, and his body language told her he was using every ounce of self-control to hold it in. Rather than crowning his narrow face, his brown hair looked as if he’d dragged a garden rake through it.