Shadows in Death (In Death #51) - J.D. Robb Page 0,55
hand. “Stop. You were a child, brutalized, terrified. Put that part of it away, or you’ll disappoint me.”
“Your disappointment came to cower me more than the bastard’s fists ever did. That’s a power.”
Despite having Summerset as witness, Eve shifted, took Roarke’s face in her hands, pressed her lips to his, held them there.
Summerset rose. “I bought fresh strawberries today, and made a shortcake. We’ll have dessert.”
He went inside.
Roarke pressed Eve’s palms to his lips. Then, laying his head on her shoulder, found more comfort.
11
They talked of other things over shortcake and coffee, let the past rest a bit. Roarke said nothing more about it until he went upstairs with Eve to her office.
“I want to thank you for that.”
“What that?”
“Dinner with Summerset when I know you wanted to get up here, push into the work.”
“You needed it, he needed it. And I got plenty out of it, including cake.” But Roarke took her hands, just held them. “He saved your life. That counts with me. We all know it counts with Cobbe, too. He needs to be more careful.”
“Agreed. And he will. So will we all.”
“Glad to hear you say so.” She opened her file bag, took out the tracker case. “Because you’re going to wear this.”
“How do I put this?” He seemed to consider as she opened the case. “Oh, I have it. No.”
“Cobbe has over four hundred and forty kills—and I’m going to say well over—and wants you dead. So you wear the tracker. I’m requisitioning another for Summerset.”
“Who’ll give you the same response. I’m not being tagged like a family pet.”
She remembered Feeney’s advice—play the emotional card. Thought, fuck it.
She stripped off her jacket, yanked up the sleeve of her shirt, jabbed a finger on her arm. “You think I like it? You think I like having Feeney slap one of these on me like I’m some rook who doesn’t know her ass from her ear? The weight of the entire NYPSD is behind this because some fuckhead wants to kill us so your dead father can give him a high five from hell. I wear it, you wear it. That’s it.”
Enough heat pumped off her to fry him where he stood. He pumped it right back for a moment, then turned on his heel.
“Bloody fucking hell.” He stripped off his suit jacket, his tie, tossed them at the sofa. “I’d peel Cobbe’s skin from his bones for this alone.”
Turning back, he pulled off his shirt. “All these years, living by wits and guile, and here I am, tagged by a cop in my own bleeding house. Do it then, and finish the insult.”
“The bleeding cop got the insult first from her former partner, so don’t whine to me.”
When she started to refer to the instructions, he just snatched the case out of her hand. “Give me the fecking thing before you bollocks it.”
“In about three seconds,” she muttered, “I’m going to bollocks you. My entire division,” she continued as he attached it, activated it, secured it, “the commander, Tibble, EDD, Reo and her office, Mira—and as of this afternoon Nadine’s considerable resources—are working this. We might get that kind of unilateral support and screw the budget if Cobbe was just your average international contract killer, but we sure as hell have it because he wants to add you to his four hundred and forty-three kills. So don’t bitch to me about bleeding cops. Because they would. Every goddamn one of them would bleed for you.”
She stormed away, dumped the contents of her file bag on her workstation. And while the cat watched them both warily from the sleep chair, began to update her board.
“I want no one bleeding for me.”
“It’s not about what you want.”
“Clearly.” With a precision that would have met Feeney’s approval, Roarke smoothed the patch over the tracker. “What was has been dredged up inside me, and some of it stings more than I’d like. Add to it, I’ve spent my life avoiding what I’ve just done to myself. A man’s entitled to complain after a solid kick in the balls.”
“I don’t like it, either, and I don’t have balls.”
“Metaphorically, you’ve the biggest, toughest I know.” He crossed to her. “Everyone you just threw at my head, with some justification, matters to me a great deal.”