New York to Dallas (In Death 33)

She didn’t even feel the cat butting his head fiercely against her side.

Roarke burst into the room. He leaped to the bed, clamped his hands on her arms. “I’m here. Eve. Look at me.”

She did, she was. She saw his face, his eyes violently blue against bone-white skin. She saw fear, and struggled to say his name.

“Breathe. Goddamn it.” He shook her, hard, lifting her half off the bed.

The shock of it unlocked her throat. When her breath exploded out, his arms wrapped around her. “It’s all right. You’re all right now. Just hold on to me.”

“He came for us.”

“No, baby, no. He’s not here. It’s just you and me. Just you and me.”

“You were there, behind the glass.”

“I’m here, right here.” He cupped her face so she could see him, feel him. “You’re safe.” His own breathing unsteady, he kissed her brow, her cheeks, wrapped the throw around her.

“The room. I was in that room. He locked me up. I don’t know which one. They were all there. The girls. All the girls were me.”

“It’s over.”

But it’s not, she thought, and closed her eyes. It’s not over.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

She opened her eyes, looked around. The hotel, she assured herself. The bedroom with the lights low and soft. The cat—he’d brought her the cat—and Galahad sat at her side watchful as a guard dog.

“Where did you go?”

“I had some work. Bloody work.” He bit off the words, his voice raw. “I didn’t want to wake you, so I went up to the office. You’d slept quiet, so I thought . . . I shouldn’t have left you.”

She studied his face now, looked beyond herself and into him. Guilt, fear, worry, anger. All that, she thought. All of that in him. “Did I scream?”

“No. You started to thrash and struggle, and when I got here—”

“How did you know? How did you know to come?”

“I had you on monitor.”

“You were watching me sleep,” she said slowly, “while you worked.”

“I’d hoped you’d sleep a bit longer. It’s early yet, barely dawn.”

“But you were working, and watching me.”

“It was hardly voyeuristic.”

She waved him, and the edge in his voice away. “You were worried about me, so you had to keep an eye on me while you tried to work.”

She thought of how he’d looked behind that glass wall, handling so many tasks at once with weariness on his face.

“Of course I was worried.”

“Because I might have a nightmare.”

“You did have a nightmare, so—”

She waved him off again, and this time shoved to her feet. “So you have to monitor me like I’m some sort of sick kid, and feel guilty because you actually took a little time, before the fucking sun came up, to deal with your own work. Well, that’s just enough. They’ve screwed us up long enough, and it’s got to stop. It’s going to stop.”