"I don't get out here much, I guess." Feeling awkward, Eve jammed her hands in her pockets. "I forget to look out the windows when I'm working here."
"You're a focused individual, Eve. That's why you're an excellent cop. You don't come out here often, but I have no doubt you could describe the grounds exactly. You observe instinctively."
"Cop's eyes." Eve shrugged. "Curse or blessing, who knows?"
"You're troubled." Her feelings for Eve always went beyond the professional and tugged at Mira's heart. "Are you going to let me help?"
"It's not me. It's not about me."
But Mira thought it was, partly. The woman inside the cop was disturbed at facing the dead that Roarke had once been intimate with. "Then you're sleeping well? Undisturbed."
"Mostly." Eve turned away again. She didn't want to delve into that area. Mira was one of the few people who knew the details of her past, the memories that came swimming back unexpectedly, the nightmares that plagued and terrified. "Let's let that rest, okay?"
"All right."
"I'm worried about Roarke." She hadn't meant to say it, and regretted it instantly. "That's personal," she continued, turning around again. "I didn't ask you to meet me to discuss that."
Didn't you? Mira thought, but only nodded. "Why did you ask me to meet you?"
"I need a consult on the case. I need a profile. I need help." The discomfort of her position showed in anger in her eyes. "I didn't want to do this, in official surroundings because I'm going to ask you to skirt som
e of the rules. You're under no obligation to do so, and I'll understand perfectly if you not only refuse but decide to report this request."
Mira's expression, mild and interested, didn't alter by a blink. "Why don't you explain the situation to me, Eve, and let me make up my own mind?"
"The three murders are connected, and the probability that they're linked to a…series of events that took place several years ago is high. The motive is revenge. It's my opinion that Roarke is primary target and that Summerset is being used to get to him. There's circumstantial evidence attached to each murder that points to Summerset, and that evidence is piling up along with the bodies. If I believed he was responsible I'd close the cage door on him myself without a minute's regret, no matter what he means to Roarke. But it's a setup, cleverly planned and executed, and just obvious enough to be insulting to my intelligence."
"You'd like me to do a profile on the killer, and examine Summerset for violent tendencies, unofficially."
"No, I want those official. Black and white, by the book. I want to be able to turn them in to Whitney. I haven't given him a hell of a lot else."
"I'll be happy to do both. You've only to clear it with your commander, get me the data. I can shift it to priority for you."
"I'd appreciate it."
"And the rest?"
Eve's palms went damp. Impatient, she swiped them on the thighs of her slacks. "I have information that is vital to the investigation, and your profile, that I can't—no, that I won't—record in full. I'll only share this information with you under the scope of doctor-patient confidentiality. That protects you, doesn't it?"
Mira lifted her hands, folded her fingers. "Anything you tell me as a patient is privileged. I can't report it."
"And you're protected? Personally, professionally?" Eve insisted.
"I am, yes. How many people are you determined to protect here, Eve?"
"The ones who matter."
Mira smiled now, a full bloom. "Thank you." She held out a hand. "Sit, and tell me."
Eve hesitated, then took the hand Mira offered. "You…when I remembered what had happened to me in that room in Dallas. When I remembered my father coming in drunk, raping me again, hurting me again. When I remembered killing him that night, and I told you, you said it was pointless, even wrong, to punish the child. You said"—she had to clear her throat—"you said I'd killed a monster, and that I'd made myself into something worthwhile, something I had no right to destroy because of what I'd done before."
"You don't still doubt that?"
Eve shook her head, though there were times, there were still times she doubted it. "Did you mean it? Do you really believe there are times, there are circumstances when taking the life of a monster is justified?"
"The state believed so until less than two decades ago when capital punishment was, yet again, abolished."
"I'm asking you, as a person, a doctor, a woman."