“I assume that you believe someone not in your department has been in that apartment since the murder.”
“You can assume that,” she agreed. “Who handles your security, Roarke?”
“I use Lorimar for both my business and my home.” He lifted his glass. “It’s simpler that way, as I own the company.”
“Of course you do. I suppose you know quite a bit about security yourself.”
“You could say I have a long-standing interest in security matters. That’s why I bought the company.” He scooped up the herbed pasta, held the fork to her lips, and was satisfied when she took the offered bite. “Eve, I’m tempted to confess all, just to wipe that unhappy look off your face and see you eat with the enthusiasm I’d enjoyed last time. But whatever my crimes, and they are undoubtedly legion, they don’t include murder.”
She looked down at her plate and began to eat. It frazzled her that he could see she was unhappy. “What did you mean when you said I was work?”
“You think things through very carefully, and you weigh the odds, the options. You’re not a creature of impulse, and though I believe you could be seduced, with the right timing, and the right touch, it wouldn’t be an ordinary occurrence.”
She lifted her gaze again. “That’s what you want to do, Roarke? Seduce me?”
“I will seduce you,” he returned. “Unfortunately, not tonight. Beyond that, I want to find out what it is that makes you what you are. And I want to help you get what you need. Right now, what you need is a murderer. You blame yourself,” he added. “That’s foolish and annoying.”
“I don’t blame myself.”
“Look in the mirror,” Roarke said quietly.
“There was nothing I could do,” Eve exploded. “Nothing I could do to stop it. Any of it.”
“Are you supposed to be able to stop it, any of it? All of it?”
“That’s exactly what I’m supposed to do.”
He tilted his head. “How?”
She pushed away from the table. “By being smart. By being in time. By doing my job.”
Something more here, he mused. Something deeper. He folded his hands on the table. “Isn’t that what you’re doing now?”
The images flooded back into her brain. All the death. All the blood. All the waste. “Now they’re dead.” And the taste of it was bitter in her mouth. “There should have been something I could have done to stop it.”
“To stop a murder before it happens, you’d have to be inside the head of a killer,” he said quietly. “Who could live with that?”
“I can live with that.” She hurled it back at him. And it was pure truth. She could live with anything but failure. “Serve and protect—it’s not just a phrase, it’s a promise. If I can’t keep my word, I’m nothing. And I didn’t protect them, any of them. I can only serve them after they’re dead. Goddamn it, she was hardly more than a baby. Just a baby, and he cut her into pieces. I wasn’t in time. I wasn’t in time, and I should have been.”
Her breath caught on a sob, shocking her. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she lowered herself onto the sofa. “God,” was all she could say. “God. God.”
He came to her. Instinct had him taking her arms firmly rather than gathering her close. “If you can’t or won’t talk to me, you have to talk to someone. You know that.”
“I can handle it. I—” But the rest of the words slid down her throat when he shook her.
“What’s it costing you?” he demanded. “And how much would it matter to anyone if you let it go? For one minute just let it go.”
“I don’t know.” And maybe that was the fear, she realized. She wasn’t sure if she could pick up her badge, or her weapon, or her life, if she let herself think too deeply, or feel too much. “I see her,” Eve said on a deep breath. “I see her whenever I close my eyes or stop concentrating on what needs to be done.”
“Tell me.”
She rose, retrieved her wine and his, and then returned to the sofa. The long drink eased her dry throat and settled the worst of the nerves. It was fatigue, she warned herself, that weakened her enough that she couldn’t hold it in.
“The call came through when I was a half block away. I’d just closed another case, finished the data load. Dispatch called for the closest unit. Domestic violence—it’s always messy, but I was practically on the doorstep. So I took it. Some of the neighbors were outside, they were all talking at once.”
The scene came back to her, perfectly, like a video exactly cued. “A woman was in her nightgown, and she was crying. Her face was battered, and one of the neighbors was trying to bind up a gash on her arm. She was bleeding badly, so I told them to call the MTs. She kept saying, ‘He’s got her. He’s got my baby.’ ”
Eve took another drink. “She grabbed me, bleeding on me, screaming and crying and telling me I had to stop him, I had to save her baby. I should have called for backup, but I didn’t think I could wait. I took the stairs, and I could hear him before I got to the third floor where he was locked in. He was raging. I think I heard the little girl screaming, but I’m not sure.”