“Yeah. It’s pretty damn lucky.”
When the happy couple left, Eve walked back up with Roarke. “One question,” she began. “Does having a wedding here mean I have to do stuff?”
“Stuff, as in?”
“Screw around with caterers and florists and decorators.”
“I believe Louise will want full control there.”
“Thank God.”
“Of course, as matron of honor, you’ll have certain duties.”
“What? Duties? You stand there in a fancy dress, probably holding a bunch of flowers.”
He patted her shoulder as they turned into her office. “You keep thinking that, darling, for as long as it comforts you.”
She scowled, pulled at her hair. “It’s like Mavis having a baby, isn’t it? I have to do all this stuff because they’re doing all this stuff, which is completely—when you think about it—their stuff, but it gets to be my stuff because somehow or other they got to be my stuff.”
“The fact I followed that clearly from point to point proves you’re my stuff.”
“I’m not thinking about it. I’m just not. It makes the backsides of my eyes ache. Computer, disp
lay last run.”
Blowing out a breath, she dropped down at her desk to get back to murder. That was the stuff she understood.
Shortly after one A.M., she roused when Roarke slid an arm under her knees. “Damn it, I dropped out. Just for a minute. You don’t have to…” But when he picked her up, she shrugged a shoulder. “Okay, what the hell. I got two more possibles. Not as strong as Petrelli, but possibles.
“Mmm.” Her voice was slurry, a sign she’d not only hit the wall but slid bonelessly under it.
“Need interviews, then could run some probabilities. Gotta hammer the crack,” Eve continued.
“Absolutely. I’ll fetch you a nice big hammer first thing in the morning.”
“Got hundreds left to run. Longer it takes, longer she has to patch up the damn hole. Not going to run though, no sir, not going to run.”
“No, indeed.” He carried her up to the bed, laid her down. As he started to unbutton her jeans, she sat up, patted his hand away.
“I can do it. You get ideas.”
“Yet somehow I can resist them when my wife’s all but comatose. Heroic of me.”
She smiled sleepily as she wiggled out of the jeans. “Better not forget that, ’cause I’m sleeping naked.” She tossed aside the sweatshirt, then climbed under the fluffy duvet. “Gonna nail it down,” she murmured as she snuggled in. “It’s coming around, I can feel it, and I’m going to nail it down.”
“There’s that hammer again.” He slid in beside her, draped an arm around her waist. “Pick it up tomorrow, Lieutenant. Time to lay the tools down for the night.”
“Bet she sleeps like a baby. I bet she…Shit!” She flopped over in bed so quickly, Roarke had to shoot down a hand to catch her knee.
“Mind the jewels, then.”
“He had traces of over-the-counter sleep aid in him.”
“A lot of people take sleep aids routinely. In fact, on nights such as this it’s a wonder I don’t.”
“Didn’t think about them overmuch as the trace matched with what he had in his bathroom. Just a standard. But I asked Ben and the house manager, and neither of them can confirm he was a routine user. So what if she planted them there? What if she found a way to get some into him that night.”
“When she was in St. Lucia.”