Vendetta in Death (In Death 49)

“No, it’s not.”

“Bella toy!” Big blue eyes batted. “Pease!”

“Forget it. It’s not a toy. It’s my weapon.”

Charm vanished. Big blue eyes hardened like steel. “Want toy!”

In Eve’s mind two little horns popped up through the golden curls. A forked tongue darted out between the rosy lips.

In the next chair, Mavis—no help at all—sipped something that smelled like tea.

“You think that’s going to work?” It was pretty damn scary, Eve admitted privately. “I kick ass for a living, kid.”

“Share!” Bella demanded.

“No. Think of something else.” Desperate to change the focus, Eve boosted up a hip, dug out one of her cards. “Here. You get in trouble, tag me.”

Bella took the card, studied it with her lips pursed, her eyebrows drawn. Then she nodded, used her finger to jab the words.

“Bella Eve.”

“Right. Great.”

All charm again, she fluttered those eyelashes. “Mine?”

“Yeah, all yours.”

“Ace on the distract, Dallas,” Mavis complimented as Bella cuddled against Eve and jabbered at the card. Then batting her own baby blues, turned to Summerset. “Do you think you could take her back, maybe give her one more you-know-what before we take off?”

“Delighted. Bella, why don’t we go to the kitchen and see what we might find?”

“Ooooh, Someshit cookies! Das! Mommy.”

She all but leaped to the floor, would have wound up Summerset’s bony body like a snake up a tree if he hadn’t bent down to pick her up.

She waved Eve’s card like a flag, chattering away at Summerset as he nodded soberly and carried her off. “Yes, of course we will.”

“No way he understood that.”

Mavis let out a happy little sigh. “She said we need to share cookies with you and me, and get a treat for the cat. We’re working hard on the whole sharing deal.”

“Yeah, you get it, but no way he could.”

“Oh, he’s aces at it, like totally fluid in Bellamina. We try to get by every week or two for a quick hang. He’s like her granddaddy.”

Since that stunned her speechless, Eve just stared.

“So, you know, we were at Jake’s studio. We’re going to cut a disc together, and that is mag to the ex, and he had to head off to meet Roarke, and I thought, hey, good time to see Someshit.”

“Roarke?”

“Yeah, and when his name dropped, Belle’s all ‘Ork, Ork,’ so I tagged Summerset to see if we could do the pop-in. Didn’t figure on catching you, but I’m taking it as a sign.”

“A sign of what?”

“That it’s time to tell you what we weren’t going to tell for a couple more weeks even though I’ve been busting and you have to be the first even though it weirds you out.”

Mavis popped up, did a dance in her thigh-high boots. Pointed at her belly. “Encore!”