"I don't know that we have that particular delicacy in the pantry, but I'll see what I can come up with."
It wasn't so bad, she decided, this being tended to. Not when it included breakfast in bed. She plowed her way through a mushroom and chive omelette made from eggs laid by pampered brown hens.
"I just needed fuel," she managed over a bite of a cinnamon bagel. "I feel fine now."
Roarke chose one of the thumb-sized raspberries from her breakfast tray. "You look amazingly well under the circumstances. Have you any idea how a bomb was planted in your official unit?"
"I've got a couple of theories. I need to—" She broke off, frowned a little when a knock sounded on the door.
"Peabody, I imagine. She'd be prompt." He went to the door himself to let her in.
"How is she?" Peabody whispered. "I thought they might have kept her overnight at the hospital."
"They might have, but then she'd have hurt me."
"No whispering," Eve called out. "Peabody, I want a report."
"Yes, sir." Peabody crossed over to the bed, then grinned from ear to ear. The woman in a red silk nightie, settled back on a mountain of pillows in a huge bed, a tray loaded with food on fine china settled over her lap, was not the usual image of Eve Dallas. "You look like something out of an old movie," she began. "You know, like…Bette Crawford."
"That would be Davis," Roarke told her, after he'd disguised a chuckle with a cough. "Or Joan Crawford."
"Whatever. You look sort of glam, Dallas."
Mortified, Eve straightened up. "I don't believe I asked for a report on my appearance, Officer Peabody."
"She's still a little testy," Roarke commented. "Would you like some coffee, Peabody, a bit of breakfast?''
"I had some…" Her eyes brightened. "Are those raspberries? Wow."
"They're fresh. I have an agri-dome nearby. Make yourself comfortable."
"When you two finish socializing, maybe we could take a moment to discuss…oh, I don't know, how about car bombs?''
"I have the reports." Drawn by the raspberries, Peabody sat on the side of the bed. She balanced her shiny black shoe on the knee of her starched uniform pants. "The sweepers and bomb team put it together pretty fast. Thanks, this is great," she added when Roarke supplied her with a tray of her own. "We used to grow raspberries when I was a kid." She sampled one and sighed. "Takes me back."
"Try to stay in this decade, Peabody."
"Yes, sir. I—" She glanced over at the three quick raps on the door. "Must be McNab."
McNab poked his head around the door. "All clear. Hey, some bedroom. Outstanding. Is that coffee I smell? Hey, Lieutenant, looking decent. What kind of berries are those?"
He crossed the room as he spoke, the cat jogging in behind him. When both of them made themselves cozy on the bed, Eve simply gaped.
"Make yourself right at home, McNab."
"Thanks." He helped himself to her bowl of berries. "You look steady, Lieutenant. Glad to see it."
"If someone doesn't give me a goddamn report, I'm going to look a lot more than steady. You," she decided, pointing at Peabody. "Because normally you're not an idiot."
"Yes, sir. The explosive device was a homemade boomer, and whoever put it together knew their stuff. It had a short range, classic for car explosives, which is why it took out your vehicle, but had—relatively speaking—little effect on the surrounding area. If you hadn't been in a jam, cars locked in on all sides, there would have been basically no outside damage to speak of."
"Were there any fatalities?"
"No, sir. The vehicles on your perimeters were affected, and there were about twenty injuries—only three were serious. The rest were treated and released. You sustained serious injuries as you were outside of the vehicle and unprotected at the time of the explosion."
Eve remembered the two teenagers who'd boarded by only moments before. If they'd still been in range…She ordered herself to shake that image away. "Was it on a timer? How was it cued?"
"I'll take that." McNab gave Galahad an absent stroke on the back as the cat curled next to Eve's legs. "He went for the st