Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

“You can’t—You’re wet. Is that blood?” She shoved back, ran her hands over him.

“Of course it’s not blood. It’s only water. I was having a shower,” he said, calm and gentle as he stroked her back. “I heard you screaming. And now I’m dripping all over you. Let me get that throw over you.”

“Just hold on.” Shaking, she wrapped her arms around him again. “Just hold on.” The cat bumped his head against her so she reached down to try to soothe. But her hand shook violently.

“You need to slow down your breathing. Slow breaths, baby. A bad dream, nothing more. I’m right here. I’m just getting the throw. You’re freezing.”

“No, no. Don’t let go.”

“Look here, look at me now.” He tipped her head up. “A dream, all right? You understand me?”

“It felt real. I could feel . . .”

His heart squeezed when she gripped a hand on her own arm.

“Were you back in Dallas?”

“No. Yes. Not exactly.”

“You need to get warm, then you’ll tell me. Here now.” He pulled the throw over, wrapped it around her.

“You’re cold, too. And wet. I’m sorry.” She gathered the cat up, stroked him. “I’m sorry.”

“You hold on to him—you could both use it. I’ll get you a soother.”

“I don’t want a soother.”

“We’ll split one.”

She pressed her face to Galahad’s fur. “You need to get warm.”

“I’ll just get a towel, then we’ll split that soother and you’ll tell me.”

With her face still buried, she nodded.

He ordered the fire on as he walked to the bathroom, ordered the jets he’d left running to shut down. Then he dropped his forehead to the glass tiles and took his first true breath since he’d heard her scream.

Screaming, he thought, as if someone hacked at her with an axe. And so deep in that nightmare she’d been mired, he hadn’t been able to pull her out at first. She’d just screamed. Even when her eyes had flashed open, wide and blank, she’d screamed.

He dragged a hand through his dripping hair, grabbed a towel to drape over his hips and went back to her.

She hadn’t moved an inch.

He programmed the soother to split, brought the glasses over to sit on the bed with her again.

“Drink some, and tell me.”

She didn’t argue.

“I think I knew it was a dream at first. At first. It was a crime scene. The bodies—after the explosion—but all of them. Just all those pieces of people, and the white board with their names. All their names. I know their names.”

He took her hand, kissed it. “Yes.”

“Then I saw the two of them—black, white masks, talking—whispering. But I didn’t have my weapons. I didn’t have them, so I went at them to fight, to take them down, but . . . You couldn’t see the wall. I could see through it, and they were on the other side. I couldn’t get through the wall. They saw me, and I could hear them, and I knew . . .

“They took off the masks, but I already knew. Richard Troy and Patrick Roarke.”

Sorrow clouded his eyes as he stroked a hand on her cheek. “We’ll never altogether be done with them, will we?”