Eve had started up the stairs, but now she stopped, looked down on him, and considered. “You know how to run the unregistered?”
“Of course.”
“I’m taking Roarke with me, so you’re on e-duty. I’m going to get a shower, then I’ll tell you what you’re looking for.”
“Tell me what you’re looking for,” Roarke prompted when they reached the bedroom.
“I have to think it through.”
“Think out loud, while we both grab a shower.”
She worked up the energy to narrow her eyes at him. “Shower’s strictly for body maintenance.”
“I consider sex bod
y maintenance, but we’ll catch up with that another time.”
She talked it out while the hot water helped rinse some of the fog out of her head. And, though she hated them and the jumpy way they made her feel, she popped a Stay-Up, shoved a couple more in her pocket for later.
“Maybe I’m off, but I want to turn all the stones.”
“Whether you’re on or off,” Roarke replied, “we’ll turn the stones and see what’s under them. You’re going to eat.”
“We can chomp a couple nutribars on the way.”
“No. Foot firmly down on this one. Fuel. You’ll shovel in some fuel. It’s barely six in the sodding morning,” he reminded her as he programmed the AutoChef. “You want to interview the witnesses, you’ll do better when they’re awake.”
He had a point, and arguing would only slow things down. So she sat, shoveled in what he put in front of her.
“You said something to McNab, about how it feels when somebody—when somebody you love gets hurt. I’ve put you through that a few times. Maybe not as bad as this, but—”
“Close enough,” Roarke replied.
“Yeah. I . . . How do you stand it?” Hints of the fear and the worry of the night eked through. “How do you get through it?”
He said nothing, only took her hand and, watching her over it, brought it to his lips. It made her eyes sting again, and her throat constrict and burn. So she looked away.
“I can’t let go, even a little. It feels like if I let go at all, I’ll just break to pieces. And I can’t stop. I’ve got to keep moving, keep going forward, and I have to keep telling myself there’s going to be payment. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, there’s going to be payment.”
She shoved her plate away and stood. “I’m supposed to say justice. There’ll be justice, and I’m supposed to mean it. But I don’t know if it’s going to be enough. I should step back from it. If I don’t know if that’s enough, I should step back, but I won’t. I can’t.”
“And will you continue to ask more of yourself than is human?”
She reached down, picked up her badge. She studied it for a long moment before she slid it into her pocket. “Yeah. Let’s get started.”
She briefed Summerset, kept it short, to the point, then headed out to her car. “I can’t believe I’m asking him to commit an illegal act.”
“It would hardly be the first of his life.”
“And that I’m asking him to assist in a police investigation.”
“That may very well be a first.”
“Ha. No, I’m driving. I’m all buzzed from the chemicals.”
“Well now, that inspires confidence in your passenger.”
“I gotta do stuff or I’ll just rev. You take anything?”