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“Sanchez is on her way up. So get your ass moving.”

“That’s the Dallas I know and love.”

When the door was shut again, Eve pulled out her personal ’link and beeped Roarke’s.

He answered quickly.

“Okay, she’s . . .” Eve narrowed her eyes. “Where are you?”

“About to continue my little adventure in Daytime Breaking and Entering.”

“I told you to wait until I contacted you.”

“Hmm.” He smiled and continued to work on Celina’s bedside ’link. “It appears I’ve disobeyed, once again. I expect to be roundly punished at the first opportunity.”

“Damn it—”

“Would you like to continue this chat, or let me get on with things?”

“Do it.”

In Celina’s bedroom, Roarke smiled to himself. He had a habit of irritating his wife, and was afraid he was just small enough to enjoy it.

He’d watched the cops pull up, go into Celina’s building. Casual shirts and trousers aside, he’d have made them as what they were at two blocks, heading in the opposite direction.

Cops looked like cops, especially to the eye of a criminal. Even a former criminal.

And though he trusted his cop implicitly, he preferred casing a job personally.

Ten minutes after Celina had come out and driven off with her escort—it was always best to make certain the mark didn’t turn around and go back for something forgotten—he jammed her security cameras with a remote. And strolled across the street.

Under three minutes later he was through the outside locks and alarms, and strolling inside.

A short time later, he’d verified the source of the transmission and was replacing the ’link. Celina had made the call exactly as she’d claimed. From her own bedside unit, moments after two A.M.

His cop could stop wondering.

It was hard to resist that poking around Eve had warned him against. It was, after all, in his nature. She, his cop, would never understand the hum in the blood that came from simply being where you were not allowed to be.

He gave himself a moment of it, admiring the art on the bedroom walls—fanciful, sensual, evocative. The color scheme that was richly and confidently female.

And if he wandered the second level of the loft, he was, technically, on his way out.

He liked the style, the openness of space, and again what he saw as the confidence of a woman who knew how she wanted to live, and did so.

He thought it might be interesting to hire her for some business event down the road.

He strolled out, as he’d strolled in. And with a check of the time, calculated he’d be in midtown in plenty of time for his first meeting of the day.

He didn’t beep her. Eve knew Roarke and his clever fingers. When her personal ’link hadn’t signaled by the time Celina was brought into the conference room, she knew the transmission was verified as being made from the bedroom ’link as stated.

No need to wonder, she thought. And no mistaking the emotional state of the stricken and exhausted woman who came into the room.

She looked drawn and sallow, like someone who was recovering from a long and severe illness.

“Dallas.”

“Have a seat. Have some coffee.”


Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery