Connections in Death (In Death 48)

“Let’s hear it for spring.”

He had gone for a full Irish because who knew when or if she’d take time for a decent meal during the day. In lieu of the black pudding, which she disliked intensely, he’d selected a small yogurt and fruit parfait.

She sat, dug in. “So after your predawn ’link or holo or whatever meetings, you’re probably headed out for more.”

“I have a thing or two.”

“You’ve got that revised whatsit report you ordered up yesterday.”

“Signed off this morning. And you, I expect, will be on the hunt.”

“Yeah.” Curious, she studied a bite of sausage. “Why do you call them bangers?”

“I’m not entirely sure, something about how they sound when they’re being fried up. I think.”

“Huh. Well, they’re good whatever they’re called.” She ate the sausage, continued, “Anyway, I can hope we get a hit from the BOLO on Duff. Either way, I’m heading to the morgue this morning. I want a conversation with the sleazy ex-lawyer at some point, and a closer look at the Banger Duff was banging.”

“Bolt,” Roarke recalled. “He has killer in his eyes.”

“Yeah, he does. I also need a conversation with whoever’s riding cases on the Bangers. I should probably talk to Lyle’s brothers, his grandmother. He might have said something to them he didn’t say to Rochelle.”

She crunched into bacon. “If he was going to meetings, earned his second-year chip, he probably has a sponsor. Another conversation. I’ve got to set up the board and book, write up a report on the visit to the Banger HQ, the underground.”

“On the hunt,” he repeated.

“Yeah, and I won’t be slogging through snow or crap rain doing it.”

Thinking of it, when she finished breakfast, she took a simple white shirt out of her closet. No need for a sweater. Then she stopped, abruptly flummoxed by the rails of pants, of jackets, the shelves of boots.

She’d gotten so used to hauling out cold-weather clothes,

she wasn’t quite sure what to grab.

She wasn’t going to ask Roarke or use the closet comp (He’d hear that, wouldn’t he?). She knew how the hell to dress herself. It was just … long winter.

She grabbed pants. Brown. Not Feeney’s shit brown, but a chocolate brown that reminded her to check the ceiling tile in her office, make sure the candy bar she’d booby-trapped was still there. Then she snagged a navy jacket because it had that brown leather piped at the cuffs and down the side seams.

She studied her selection of boots, the number of which continued to be an embarrassment for her. Milder embarrassment than it once had been, but still.

She started to grab brown ones, but she knew damn well the navy ones with the brown leather down the sides went with the damn jacket, and if she took the plain brown, Roarke would switch them out anyway.

Why give him the satisfaction?

She pulled on the pants, a support tank, reached for the shirt.

And damn if Roarke didn’t stroll in, take it, replace it with another white shirt.

“You’re just fucking with me now.”

“Though that’s one of my favorite things, it’s simply a matter of the softer white—dare I say oatmeal color—being a better choice than the other.”

“Fine. Whatever.” She put it on. It fit as if it had been tailored for her—which she assumed it had.

She didn’t argue—what was the point?—when he offered her a navy belt.

“You know, murdering bastards don’t care if I coordinate.”

She carried the jacket, the boots out into the bedroom.