She rolled her eyes when he grinned at her. “Absolutely not going there.”
“Best not. In any case if things weren’t as things are, I’d suggest we take them out to dinner. She’s someone you’d enjoy, a great deal, and she’d entertain you, believe me, with stories of her very multilayered life.”
“She looks so delicate. I’d never have pegged her as being an Urban War operative. Which would be the point of being one.”
“The ballet takes strength and endurance as well as grace and talent. And espionage, particularly during war? A spine of steel. Yes, you’d enjoy her.”
“Next trip maybe, but right now . . .” She picked up her wine. “I was about ten feet away from ending this with a flying tackle today.”
He’d reached for a bread stick, paused, surprised. “You found her? And didn’t lead with that?”
“If I’d found her, I’d be at Central grilling her sorry ass. She got away from me.”
And that, Eve realized, would sting for a while.
“I spotted her, wearing her full gear so I didn’t get any better look at her than any of the wits so far. She was across the street from Mavis’s apartment.”
“Mavis and the family are all right?”
“All good there, tucked up with security—Mantal and Grommet.”
“Then tucked up well,” Roarke said, gave her half the bread stick.
“And McNab rigged some sort of alarm so if anyone tries to get in at Mavis’s, it’ll go off at their place.”
“That’s good thinking.”
“Yeah, he was wearing the thinking hat today.”
“Cap.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Idiom.”
“Schmidiom. So I spotted her, but she had a good lead because she spotted me at the same time. I had to get across the street—fucking traffic—then haul ass after her down the sidewalk, which was packed with pedestrians. She’s fast, too,” Eve credited, and bit into the bread stick. “Pretty damn fleet of feet. I thought I’d lost her, but she’d cut through this dump of a restaurant. I could hear the crashing and yelling from the kitchen, so I’m after her. Maybe, maybe I get her. But the cook, and he’s about the size of Everest, gets in my way. Clears it when I badge him, but she rabbited. So we got soup and pie out of it, since they felt bad about slowing me down.”
“It’s nice soup.”
“It’s amazing soup if you consider it came from a hole-in-the-wall.”
“You don’t think she’d have tried for Mavis today if you hadn’t seen her?”
“No. Just strolling the neighborhood, getting the feel, that’s my sense of it. Maybe she’d’ve gone in the building—used the fake master. Just as well she didn’t, because she’d have ditched it when it didn’t work. This way, we’ll have her next location if and when she tries.”
She finished off the pretty good soup. “Bella tried to eat the diamond.” Eve tugged on her chain. “What does Leonardo do but walk off leaving me holding the kid? Why would any sane person do that?”
“It’s a wonder,” he said, smiled.
“So she digs it out while I’m trying to figure out what to do with her. Popped that sucker right in her mouth when I wouldn’t just hand it over. She likes the shiny, I guess. Calls them ba-bas. Baubles.”
“Baubles.” Laughing, he sat back. “Trust Mavis to start the girl early.”
“She had this look in her eye—the kid. Like: Not going to give it to me? That’s what you think, sister. It was a little scary considering she’s about a foot and a half.”
She shoved the bowl aside, and decided the pie had to wait.
“I’m glad I went by. Not only because I got a chance to put the fear of God into the UNSUB, but I can cross worry about Mavis off the list. She’s covered.”