“This isn’t funny.” She bent down, gripped him by the lapels. “I forgot to get a thing for the thing, and I don’t even know what the thing is supposed to be. Now I have to go out and hunt something down. Except—” Her eyes went from slightly mad to speculative. “We have all kinds of things around the house. Couldn’t I just wrap something up and—”
“No.”
“Crap!”
Roarke sat calmly while she dropped into her desk chair and buried her head in her hands. “Do I correctly interpret the thing for the thing as a gift for Louise’s bridal shower?”
“What other thing is currently being shoved down my throat?”
“Mmm-hmm. Give me a moment.” Eve muttered, but her head shot up when she heard him say, “Caro.”
“Yes! Genius. Caro can get the thing.”
“No,” Roarke said it firmly and had Eve slumping again. “Caro,” he repeated. “If you were hostessing a bridal shower for a good friend, what would be the appropriate sort of gift?”
Eve swiveled so she could bang her head on the desk. Roarke and Caro talked—questions, answers—but she didn’t take it in. They might have been speaking Greek.
“Thanks. Something’s come up here, so I’ll likely be working from home later. Let me know if you need me for anything. Have a nice weekend.”
He clicked off, and Eve opened one eye to peer at him. “What did—”
He held up a finger, and continued to work on the PPC. “All right then,” he said after a moment. “Caro believes, given your relationship and the occasion, you should get Louise something both personal and romantic.”
“What, a sex toy?”
“No. Not exactly,” he amended. “Lingerie. A nightgown, or as she delicately put it, an ensemble.”
Eve straightened. “I’m supposed to buy Louise fuckwear?”
“Which is how to indelicately put it.”
“I can’t do that. It’s . . . Even if I wanted to, which—who would—I don’t know her size or anything.”
“I do. I just hacked into her account and have all her sizes. Now, I’m afraid you’re going to have to go into an actual store as you’ve left this too late to purchase anything appropriate online.”
“Oh God. Just kill me.”
“Don’t worry. I know just the place.”
“Of course you do. I wanted to pick up Alex Ricker, sweat him in the box for a while.”
“I thought you weren’t looking at him for Coltraine’s murder.”
“I’m not. But I can’t tell what he knows until I know. He may not know what he knows until I pry it out of him. If Max Ricker ordered the hit, his son’s the reason. One way or the other. He’s running the businesses now. He’s got to know something.”
“I don’t think so. Which is what I wanted to speak to you about before we drifted off to lingerie.”
She grimaced as she glanced at her open door. “Don’t keep saying lingerie in here. It’s a cop shop.”
“I met Alex this morning. In fact, had just finished the meeting when you contacted me about transportation to Omega.”
“You—Jesus. You can’t just—on Coney Island.”
“My choice, the venue.” Roarke made himself as comfortable as possible in her saggy visitor’s chair. “He asked for a meeting.”
“It could’ve been a trap. It could’ve—”
“It wasn’t. And as I said, my choice of venue. Believe me, I was well secured.”