“I don’t doubt you.”
“There’s heat between them. I can feel it.”
“Memories, Eve, are powerful forces. You know that. But remembering feelings doesn’t make them viable.”
“He had lunch with her.”
“Hmm.”
“He was all open about it and everything. No sneaking around behind my back, no sir. And he said she asked him for some business advice. But she said—She came to my office.”
“She came to see you?”
Eve had to stand again, had to move again. “She said she wanted to buy me a drink, have a chat. All smiles and let’s-be-buddies. But what she said wasn’t what she was thinking, not what she had in mind. God, that sounds stupid.”
“It doesn’t,” Mira disagreed in that same calm tone. “You’re trained to hear what’s not said. And even when it’s this intensely personal, you’d hear.”
“Okay.” Eve let out a breath. “Okay. She was scoping me out, dropping little tidbits. She made it sound as if she and Roarke were going to work together. She’s playing me, and I can’t find the rhythm to kick her the hell off the field.”
“However satisfying that might be, kicking her off the field won’t solve this for you. He has to do that. Have you told him this is hurting you?”
“I feel stupid enough. He hasn’t done anything. The fact that they have this heat and history between them, well, he can’t do anything about that. It is. She knows it, and she’ll use it. Then…I guess he’ll have to make a choice.”
“Do you doubt he loves you?”
“No. But he loved her first.”
“Do you want my advice?”
“I guess I must, since I dumped all this on you.”
Mira rose, took Eve’s arms. “Go home, get some sleep. Take something if you must, but get a couple of hours of sleep. Then tell Roarke how you feel. Tell him you feel stupid, that you feel hurt, that you know he hasn’t done anything. Feelings aren’t always rational and reasonable. That’s why they’re feelings. You’re entitled to yours, and he’s entitled to know what yours are.”
“Sounds good in theory. Even if I could work up the chops for that, I can’t do it. I have that goddamn deal with Nadine tonight.”
“Oh, of course. Now’s premiere. Dennis and I will both be watching.” She did something then she rarely did, or Eve would rarely allow. Mira brushed her hand over Eve’s hair, then leaned in, kissed her cheek. “You’ll be wonderful, and when it’s done, when you’ve had a decent night’s sleep, you’ll talk to Roarke. Maybe he does have a choice to make, but everything I feel, everything I know, says absolutely that choice will always be you.”
“She speaks French and Italian.”
“That bitch.”
Eve managed a laugh, then did something she’d never done. She simply lowered her brow to Mira’s and closed her eyes. “Okay,” she said quietly. “Okay.”
The churning and airing of all those emotions might have given her a drilling headache, but despite it, she felt better.
When she walked back into her division, she saw Peabody sitting at her desk in the bull pen talking to a small, dark-haired woman. Peabody patted the woman on the arm, rose.
“Here’s the lieutenant now. Dallas, this is Laina Sanchez. We’ve been talking. Maybe we can use the lounge?”
“Sure.” She saw now, as Laina levered to her feet, that the woman was several months into gestation.
“I thought I should come in.” Laina’s voice was faintly accented and throaty. “I talked with Hallie after you interviewed her. Detective Peabody interviewed me at the school the day…the day Craig died. So I came in to see her.”
“Fine.” In the lounge she saw Baxter and Trueheart—the slick and the innocent—at a table in a corner with a skinny, jittery guy wearing sunshades.
Funky-junkie, Eve decided. Probably one of Baxter’s weasels. She flipped through her mental files to try to pin down what cases the pair was working while Peabody offered Laina a drink.
Underground homicide, she remembered. Dead tourist who, it appeared, had been trying to score in one of the nasty holes under New York’s streets.