“No, but I think I’ll know it when I see it. I need to go there, for the job. And I need to go there for me.”
“Then why would you suggest I go back to the hotel?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She felt that hard bubble pushing up toward her throat. “I don’t know. Don’t make me think about it yet.”
He took her face in his hands. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go. I’ll be with you wherever that is. All right?”
“Yeah.” She fought for composure and won it when he pulled away from the curb. “I’m sorry about before. I don’t even really remember what I’m sorry about. But just to clear it.”
“We’re not something that needs to be cleared. You wanted to get under my skin so you could be angry with me, find some release there. And so I’d be angry with you and leave you alone.”
“I guess that’s probably it.”
She stretched out her legs, rolled her shoulders, circled her neck. It felt as if her body and everything in it was coiled to the point of aching.
“I did okay with her, with the interview. I handled it okay. I’ve gone back over it, and over it, and maybe I could’ve done better. But you always look back when it doesn’t work out the way you wanted and think you could’ve done it better. It was after, when I was afraid something was going to break, I shored it up by taking a kick at you.”
“Well, I kicked back, didn’t I?”
“I knew you would. I didn’t even mean it, about the stupid money and dying anyway. It was stupid, and I knew it would hurt you. I didn’t even think about it. It was like a reflex.”
He turned his head, looked at her tense, tired face. “You’ve had a miserable fucking day.”
“Yeah, real red letter. I met my mother. I arrested her, put her in the hospital. I grilled her. I found her body, and started the murder book on her. Miserable fucking red-letter day.”
“I contacted Mira.”
She swiveled toward him. “What?”
“I don’t give a rat’s damn if that pisses you off. You need her. She’s on her way.”
“You don’t—”
“I need her, goddamn it.”
Her eyes widened, blinked once at the short, violent explosion. Stupid, she realized, not to have expected it, not to have seen it coming. Stupid not to understand she wasn’t the only one coiled like a spring.
“Okay.”
“I know what I want to say to you,” he said, calmer now. “Do for you, but I don’t know if it’s right. I also know this isn’t about me, but anything that hurts you pulls me in. And this . . . well, that’s for later. You need to handle this, finish it. I understand that. Mira can help you. She can help both of us.”
She didn’t speak for a minute, had to settle the storm inside her—a pretty close twin to his, she imagined.
“You’re right. It’s good she’s coming. It’s just . . . once I start talking about it, it’s real. There’s no more sliding in this block that says it’s a case to be worked. Nothing more, nothing less.”
She sat, studying the duplex, when he stopped.
“It’s a nice place. I was thinking when we were watching for her, how it was a nice neighborhood. Not McQueen’s kind of place. Too suburban, even though it’s one good spit from the action. Not her kind of place either, with kids on bikes and guys fooling with flowers. But he wanted her out of her element, a little off balance. She’d be grateful every time he let her come to him.”
Let her think of it as a case for as long as she could, Roarke thought. A reckoning was coming soon enough.
“Why did she do it? Devote herself to him?”
“It wouldn’t have lasted, even without the knife across the throat. She’d have gotten twitchy, moved on. But he made her feel important. He treated her good—she said. He bought her things, I imagine, and the illegals. I think we may find he set up her source here in Dallas, to keep her happy. Maybe paid for them, or a portion of them.
“Anyway.”
She got out of the car. She saw the door of the neighboring unit crack open, and held up her badge.