"He's never let go either," Eve said. "I have to live with that, too. So does Roarke. This messed him up, maybe more than it did me. We're okay, but... hell, it screws up your head."
"Would you like me to talk to him?"
"Yeah." The tension spiking into the base of her skull eased. "Yeah, that'd be good."
* * *
It wasn't really stalling to go back to her office, add Mira's comments to her file on Julianna Dunne. It gave her time to smooth out her mood, and to update and copy all updated files to her team and her commander.
When it was done and she heard the general scuffle outside her office that meant change of shift, she programmed one last cup of coffee and stood drinking it at her window.
Uptown traffic, she thought, was going to be a bitch.
* * *
In a small office across the jammed street and sky, Julianna Dunne sat at a secondhand metal desk. The door that read daily enterprises was locked. The office consisted of a boxy room and a closet-sized washroom. The furnishings were sparse and cheap. She saw no reason her alter ego of Justine Daily, under which the rental agreement was signed, should waste overhead.
She wouldn't be here long.
The rent was steeper than it should have been, and the toilet ran continually. The thin, scarred carpet smelled ripely of must.
But the view was priceless.
Through her binoculars she had a perfect view of Eve's office, and the lieutenant herself.
So sober, so serious, she mused. So dedicated and devoted, worshipping at the altar of law and order. And such a waste.
All those brains, that energy, that purpose tossed away on a badge. And on a man. Under different circumstances, they'd have made an amazing team. But as it was, Julianna thought with a sigh, they were making challenging adversaries.
Eight years, seven months had given Julianna abundant time to examine her mistakes, replay her moves. There was no doubt in her mind that she would have outwitted the cops, the male cops, and spent those eight years, seven months doing what she loved to do.
But a woman was a cagier beast. And the then-freshly promoted Detective Dallas had been cagey indeed. Relentlessly.
More, she hadn't had the common courtesy to acknowledge her opponent's victories and skills.
But things were different now. She herself had changed. She was physically stronger, mentally clearer. Prison tended to hone away the excesses. In the same amount of time she knew Eve had been honed as well. But there was one vital difference between them, one essential flaw in the cop.
She cared. About the victim, about her fellow officers, about the law. And most important, about her man.
It was that flaw, in what Julianna considered a near-perfect machine, that would destroy her.
But not quite yet. Julianna set the binoculars aside, checked her wrist unit. Right now there was time for a little fun.
* * *
Eve ran into Peabody just outside the bullpen.
"Lieutenant. I thought you were in Texas."
"I was. Got back earlier. You've got updates waiting. You're out of uniform, Officer," she added as she skimmed Peabody's black cocktail dress and mile-high heels.
"Yeah, I'm off-shift. Changed here. I was heading to your place, actually, to scoop up my parents. McNab's taking us out to a fancy dinner. Can't figure what's up with that. He doesn't like fancy, and I'm pretty sure he's scared of them. Not fancy dinners, my parents. Anything I should tell him about the case?"
"Morning's soon enough. Let's do a conference at my home office. Eight hundred."
"Sure. You, ah, heading home now?"
"No, thought I'd go to Africa for an hour and see the zebras."