Treachery in Death (In Death 32)

les who killed some old guy for a bunch of goddamn candy bars. Damned if I want to come home and sit around having dinner with Summerset and his old pals and listening to them talk about the old days when they scammed marks and picked fat pockets. I spend all day with criminals, and I don’t want to spend the evening asking them to pass the fucking salt.”

He said nothing for a moment. “I’m waiting for the corollary, where you remind me you married a criminal. But we can consider that unsaid.”

She started to speak, but the icy resentment in his voice, in those brilliant blue eyes, slammed between them.

“Judith is a neurosurgeon—chief of surgery, in fact, at a top London hospital. Oliver is a historian and author. If you’d bothered to spend five of your precious minutes with them, you’d have learned that they met and worked with Summerset as medics during the end of the Urbans, when they were only teenagers.”

She jammed her hands in her pockets. “You want me to feel like shit, well, I’m not going to.” But of course she did, which only throttled her resentment to fire against his ice.

“I didn’t know what was going on because nobody told me. You could’ve tagged me, then I’d have known I’d be walking in on you guys halfway through a fancy meal when I’m grubby from work.”

“When you don’t bother to let anyone know when you’ll come home I have to assume you’re tied up with something. And I’m damned, Eve, if I’m going to start tagging you asking what you’re doing, when you’re coming home like some nagging spouse.”

“I meant to contact you. I started to—twice—but both times I got interrupted. By the end of the interruption, I forgot. I just forgot, okay? Get a rope. You’re the one who married a cop, so you’re the one who has to deal with it.”

He rose, walked toward her as she continued to rant.

“Locking up the bad guys is just a little bit more important than being home on time to have dinner with a couple of people I don’t know anyway.”

Eyes on hers, he flicked her shoulder. Her mouth fell open.

She started stomping the floor.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” he demanded.

“Trying to kill the giant tarantula, because the only reason I can figure you just fucking flicked me is because there was a big, fat spider on my shoulder.”

“Actually, I was knocking the chip away that was balanced there. It looked awfully heavy.”

She strode away from him before she did something violent. She eyed the AutoChef. “How do you program this thing for a steaming cup of fuck you?”

“Children,” Summerset said from the doorway.

They both whirled on him, both snarled, “What?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt your playtime—and might suggest the next time you want to behave like a pair of morons you shut the door as I could hear your clever banter halfway down the hall. However, Detectives Peabody and McNab are downstairs. She seems very upset, and informs me she needs to speak with you. Urgently.”

“Crap.” Eve hurried to her closet for shoes as she ran through the investigation they’d just completed. Had they missed something?

“They’re waiting in the parlor. By the way, Judith and Oliver said to tell you good-bye, and they hope to see you again when you have more time.”

She caught the chilly glance before he melted away, and decided she probably would feel like two jumbo scoops of shit. But later.

“You don’t have to go down,” she said stiffly to Roarke. “I can handle this.”

“I’ll do more than flick you in a minute.” He walked out ahead of her.

They maintained a fuming silence all the way down and into the parlor with its rich colors and gleaming antiques. Amid the stunning art, the glint of crystal, Peabody sat, sheet-pale, with McNab’s arm tight around her.

“Dallas.” Peabody got to her feet.

“What the hell, Peabody? Did those three idiots execute a jailbreak?”

Instead of smiling, Peabody shuddered. “I wish it was that easy.”

When Peabody sank down again, Eve crossed over. She sat on the table so they were face-to-face, eye-to-eye. “Are you in trouble?”

“Not now. I was. I had to come, to tell you. I’m not sure what to do.”