might miss as a spot of lint. It might mean little on its own, but you dig at it, pull at it, intuit from it, and fit it into the rest.”
He smiled at her as he ate. “I’d’ve given you a run back in the day, and I believe I’d have evaded you well enough. But you’d have worried me, and I’d have done quite a bit to stay out of your way.”
“I’d’ve done more than worry you.”
Now he grinned. “And aren’t we happy we’ll never know?”
She ate, nodded. “I’d really miss the coffee.” So she drank more. “Anyway, you’ve got the two hours on the salon.”
“I’ll take it, and anything else you want to hand off to me. I’m keeping my schedule light—that was already in the plans. The first students are moving into the school today, and I want to be there on and off.”
“Today?”
“The first of them, yes. Rochelle suggested we do it in groups rather than all together. So we’ll have three days of easing in, light classes, orientations, and so on. Nadine assigned Quilla to do a vlog on the staggered opening. I saw her yesterday, in fact. The girl’s going to be a force.”
“Should I be there?”
That she’d ask meant, well, everything.
“You’re welcome, of course, to come in whenever you like or can. We’re not having a media opening. We decided that some time back. Nothing formal, no speeches, no media and so on, as that would end up about good works and all of that when it’s about the children. As it happens, with Cobbe in New York, I’m more than glad we decided that way. I’m adding to the security until, but I don’t see him focusing there.”
“No point,” she agreed, “if the media’s not hyping you. Push the rest away a minute,” she told him. “How do you feel about it? Kids are moving in. Kids will eat there, sleep there starting today. Some of them will never have had a place they could feel that safe.”
He looked at the view out the terrace windows—the green of the grass, the flowers blooming.
“I think of the dream I had last night. My mates and I, working Grafton Street. I don’t regret it, not a bit. But I know full well I might not have survived without Summerset. He gave me that safe place. Not a place or a way you’d find … we’ll say correct, but safe, and clean, when I’d known neither. Books, all I could read. Food, so I never went hungry. He had his standards and his rules, but never once did I feel the back of his hand.”
He took hers now. “Even after Richard Troy, you didn’t have that, not altogether, not day in and out. It was the Academy that gave you that.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“I like to think we’re giving those who come to An Didean a mix of both what Summerset gave me and what the Academy gave you. And so I feel more than fine about it.”
“I’d say it’s a good mix, as long as there aren’t classes on how to bypass security systems.”
“Nothing formal in any case.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “I’ll see to the dishes.”
“I’ve got it. I’d rather you check the housing search.”
“All right then.”
While she cleared, he sat at the auxiliary, called up the results. “Ah well, that’s a bit better, but we can do better yet.”
“How many?”
“More than two hundred, but I can narrow it. I’ll refine it when a contact or two gets back to me. And I can slim that number before that with a bit of adjusting.”
He got up. “A little time’s what I need on this, and the salon. I should have something you can work with on both this morning.”
“Okay. I’m going in, putting a report together before I meet Peabody at the morgue. I’ll keep in touch.”
“I’ll do the same.” He laid his hands on her shoulders, his lips lightly on hers. “He’s never known the likes of you. I’m sure of it, as neither had I.”
He kissed her again. “Take care of my cop.”
“Your cop’s locked and loaded.”
She found the pale gray topper on the newel post, and had to assume Roarke deemed it worked best with what she had on. With a shake of her head, she shrugged into it, went outside to where her vehicle waited.
The earlier start meant less traffic and no ad blimps. Always an advantage. Halfway—smoothly for a change—downtown, her ’link signaled. She saw Harvo’s name