When she drove through the gates of home, she couldn’t remember ever being more grateful to see the jut and spread of the gorgeous house, to see the lights in the windows.
“Going to grab a shower, grab something to eat in my office.”
“You’re going to grab some sleep,” he corrected. “You’re burnt, Eve.”
No question she was, but it annoyed her to have it pointed out. “I got some left.”
“Bollocks. You haven’t slept in more than thirty-six hours. Neither have I, come to that. We both need some sleep.”
“I’ll take a couple hours after I set up a board here, review some notes.”
Rather than argue—he was too bloody tired to bother—he said nothing. He’d just dump her into bed bodily, and he imagined once she was horizontal for thirty seconds, she’d be unconscious.
She parked in front of the house, grabbed her file bag.
She knew Summerset would be in the foyer, and he didn’t disappoint. “Fill your personal cadaver in,” Eve said before Summerset could speak. “I’m hitting the showers before I get started on this.”
She headed straight up, neglecting to take off her coat and sling it over the newel as was her habit. And which, she knew, irritated Summerset’s bony ass. Once she was out of sight, she rubbed at her gritty eyes, and allowed the yawn that had been barely suppressed to escape.
The shower was going to feel like a miracle.
She dumped the bag in the bedroom, shrugged out of her coat. As she hit the release on her weapon harness, her gaze landed on the bed. Maybe five minutes down, she considered. Five off her feet, then she could shower without risking drowning herself.
Tossing the harness aside, she climbed the platform where the bed spread like the silk clouds of heaven. She slid onto it, stretching out across it, facedown.
And beat Roarke’s guess by being out in ten seconds flat.
He came in five minutes later, saw her on the bed, with the cat slung across her ass. “Well, then,” Roarke addressed Galahad. “At least we won’t have to fight about it. But for Christ’s sake, couldn’t she have pulled off her boots? How can she sleep well like that?”
He pulled them off himself—and she didn’t stir a bit—pulled off his own. Then he simply stretched out beside her, draped an arm around her waist.
He dropped out nearly as quickly as she had.
6
IN THE DREAM THERE WAS A WHITE SHEET OVER the dark ground, and the ruined body that lay on it. Bitter with cold, dawn carved its first light, etching the eastern spires into sharpened silhouettes.
She stood with her hands in the pockets of a black peacoat, a black watch cap pulled low on her forehead.
The body lay between her and a big black clock with a big white face. The seconds ticked away on it, and every strike was like thunder that sent the air to quaking.
And in the dream Feeney stood beside her. The harsh crime scene lights washed over them and what they studied. There was no silver in his hair to glint in those lights, and the lines in his face didn’t ride so deep.
I trained you for this, so you could see what needs to be seen, and find what’s under it.
She crouched down, opened her kit.
She doesn’t look peaceful, Eve thought, as people so often said about the repose of the dead. They really never do.
But death isn’t sleep. It’s something else again.
The body opened its eyes.
I’m Corrine Dagby. I was twenty-nine. I was born in Danville, Illinois, and came to New York to be an actress. So I waited tables because that’s what we do. I had a boyfriend, and he’ll cry when you tell him I’m dead. So will the others, my family, my friends. I bought new shoes the day before he took me. I’ll never wear them now. He hurt me, he just kept hurting me until I was dead.
Didn’t you hear me screaming?
She stood in the morgue, and Morris’s bloody hand held a scalpel. His hair was shorter, worn in a neat and tidy queue at the nape of his neck. Over the body, he looked at Eve.