She started to climb in while he circled around to the passenger side. "Are you smirking behind my back?"
"Yes, of course." He sat, stretched out his legs. "Now, to make it really official, I should have a uniform. I'll go that far, but I refuse to wear those amazingly ugly cop shoes."
"You're a real joker," she muttered and jerked the car into reverse, did a quick, squealing spin, and shot out of the garage.
"Too bad this vehicle doesn't have a siren. But we can pretend nothing works on it, so you'll feel official."
"Keep it up. Just keep it up."
"Maybe I'll call you sir. Could be sexy." He smiled blandly when she glared at him. "Okay, I'm done. How do you want to play this?"
"I want to get into the clinic, search for the data I sent Louise in for, and anything else interesting, then get out. Without getting caught by some beat droid. I figure with your light and sticky fingers, it should be a walk."
"Thank you, darling."
"That's sir to you, ace."
She streamed through the smoke of a corner glida grill and headed south. "I can't believe I'm doing this. I must be crazy. I must have lost my mind. I keep crossing lines."
"Think of it this way. The lines keep moving. You're just keeping up."
"I continue keeping up this way, I'll end up wearing security bracelets. I used to go by the book. I believe in the book. Now I just rewrite the pages."
"Either that or go back to bed and pull the covers over your head."
"Yeah, well…we make choices. I've made mine."
She found a second-level spot four blocks north of the Canal Street Clinic and tucked the car between a sky scooter and a dented utility truck. If anyone bothered to look, she mused, Roarke's elegant two-seater would stick out like a swan among toads, but it wasn't against the law to drive a hot-looking car in this sector.
"I don't want to park any closer. This thing has anti-theft and anti-vandalism features, right?"
"Naturally. Engage all security," he ordered as they climbed out. "One more thing. He reached in his pocket. "Your clutch piece…sir."
"What the hell are you doing with this?" She snatched it from him.
"Giving it to you."
"You're not authorized to carry and neither am I." She hissed out a breath as he met that information with another smirk. "Just shut up," she muttered and jammed the weapon into her back pocket.
"When we get home," he began as they walked down to street level, "you can…reprimand me."
"Keep your mind off sex."
"Why? It's so happy there." He laid a casual hand on her shoulder as they moved briskly down the block. The few doorway lurkers faded back, intimidated either by the steely look in Eve's eyes or the warning glint in Roarke's.
"The place is a dump," she told him. "No palm plate, no camera. But the locks are decent. They've got to meet code because of the drugs. They'll be standard Security Reds, maybe with timers. Anti-theft alarms. Cartright caught the scene here, and she's a straight cop. There'll be a seal. I don't have my master anymore."
"You have better." He gave her shoulder a quick rub. "You have me."
"Yeah." She tossed him a look, saw in that fabulous face the glint that told her he was enjoying himself. "Seems like."
"I could teach you how to get through locks."
It was tempting, much too tempting. God, she missed the weight of her weapon, her badge. "I'll just keep a lookout for beat droids and other nuisances. If you trip the alarm, we just walk away."
"Please. I haven't tripped an alarm since I was ten." Insulted, he turned to the door of the clinic while Eve cruised the block.
She made two passes, lost in her own thoughts. One event, she decided, had built on another. An old resentment from academy days, a dead sleeper, a conspiracy of death, and here she was, stripped of her badge and playing lookout while the man she'd married coolly broke into a building.