Survivor in Death (In Death 20)

Her belly churned but she kept her eyes steady. If the kid could maintain, by God, so could she. “She’s not mad. I swear. I couldn’t let you go say good-bye to Linnie, so that’s on me. It wasn’t safe, and it was my call.”

“Because of the bad guys?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s on them,” Nixie said simply. “I want to see my mother now. Will you come with me?”

Oh Christ, Eve thought, but she took Nixie’s hand and stepped toward the drawer Morris pulled out.

Eve knew the face well now. Pretty woman who’d passed the shape of her mouth on to her daughter. White as wax now, with that faint tinge of unearthly blue, and soft as wax as well, in the way the dead go soft.

Nixie’s fingers trembled in hers as the girl reached down to touch that soft, white face. And the sound she made as she lay her head on the sheet over her mother’s breast was a low, painful keening.

When it quieted to whimpers, Mira stepped forward, stroked her hand over Nixie’s hair. “She’d be glad you came to see her, proud that you could. Can you say good-bye to her, Nixie?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Oh, baby, I know, and so does she. It’s so hard to say good-bye.”

“Her heart doesn’t thump. If I sat in her lap and leaned my head here, I could hear her heart thump. But now it doesn’t.” She lifted her head, whispered good-bye, and stepped off the stool for the last time.

“Thank you for taking care of them,” she said to Morris.

He merely nodded, then walked to the door to hold it open. When Eve passed behind Mira and Nixie, he murmured to her, “You think you can handle anything in this job.” His voice was thick and raw. “Stand anything, stand up to anything. But my sweet Christ, that child almost had me on the floor.”

“ ‘Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love.’ ”

Looking at Roarke now, Morris managed a small smile. “Well said. I’ll get you out.”

“What was that from?” Eve asked. “What you just said.”

“Paradise Lost. Written by a poet named Milton. It seemed apt as what we just witnessed was a wrenching form of poetry.”

She drew in a breath. “Let’s get her back.”

When they returned, Mira sent Nixie upstairs with Summerset and the promise to be up in a moment.

Gauging the ground, Roarke excused himself and went back to work.

“I know that was difficult for you,” Mira began.

“It’s not about me.”

“Every case is about you, to some extent, or you wouldn’t be able to do what you do so well. You have the gift of being able to mate your objectivity with compassion.”

“That’s not the way I hear it.”

“She needed what you gave her. She’ll heal. She’s too strong not to. But she needed this to begin.”

“She’ll need a hell of a lot more since the Dysons won’t take her.”

“I’d hoped . . . well, it may be for the best on all sides. She would remind them of their loss, and they of hers.”

“It’s not best for her to end up a ward of the court. I may have another possibility. I know some people who’d qualify to take her on. I was thinking maybe we could contact Richard DeBlass and Elizabeth Barrister.”

“It’s a good thought.”

“They took that kid, the boy, we found on a murder scene last year.” Eve shifted, not entirely comfortable with the role of family planner. “I figure they decided to foster him because their daughter was murdered. Though she was an adult, and—”