“I don’t know. I need Morris,” she told Roarke. “And God, I need something to drink.”
“Don’t leave me,” Janna begged, dropping her head again so Eve could see the ugly wound that killed her. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”
“I’m just going to sit here. Bring Morris, will you? I just . . . need to sit here.” Deal, she ordered herself. Deal with what’s in front of you, then figure out the rest. “Could really use something cold to drink.”
Roarke rose, cursing under his breath as he ordered a tube of Pepsi.
“He’s gorgeous.” Janna smiled a little even as she knuckled at tears. “Mega frosted. Is he your boyfriend?”
“We’re married,” Eve murmured.
“Seriously icy for you,” Janna said as Roarke glanced down.
“So we are,” he said. “And I’ll be taking my wife to a doctor in shor
t order. I’ll get you Morris first, but then you’re done here.”
“He’s got a really sexy voice, too.” Janna sighed as Eve took the tube Roarke had opened, drank.
“Thanks. I’m going to sit right here,” she said as much to Janna as Roarke, “while you get Morris.”
And while she sat wondering if she had a brain tumor or had dropped into some strange, vivid dream, she put on the cop and interviewed the dead.
Minutes later, Morris hurried down the tunnel with Roarke.
“Dallas.” He knelt, laid a hand on her brow as Roarke had. “You’re feverish.”
“Just tell me if you’ve gotten a body in—female, mixed race, midtwenties, ID’d as Janna Dorchester. Beating death in Riverside Park.”
“Yes. She’s only just come in. How did you—”
“Who caught the case?”
“Ah . . . Stuben’s primary.”
“I need to contact him. Can you get me his contact data?”
“Of course. But you don’t look well.”
“I’m feeling better, actually.” Odd, she thought, how the cop approach steadied her, even when her interviewee was dead. “I think I’ll feel better yet once I talk to Stuben. I’d appreciate it, Morris.”
“Give me a minute.”
“Eve.” Roarke took her hand as Morris strode away. “What’s going on here?”
“I’m not sure, and I need you to give me a really open mind. I mean wide-open. Yours is already more open than mine about, you know, weird stuff.”
“What sort of weird stuff is my mind going to be wide-open about?”
“Okay.” She looked into his eyes, so blue, so beautiful. Eyes she trusted with everything she had. “There’s a dead woman sitting right beside me. Her name’s Janna Dorchester, and some asshole named Rennie Foster bashed her head in with a rock in Riverside Park. She’s worried her friend Sara might be next on his list. So I’m going to pass the information to the primary. I can read Russian.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I can read Russian. I think I can speak it, too, and I’m pretty sure I can make Hungarian goulash. And maybe borscht, possibly pierogies. The old woman, the one who fell into my lap and happened to be a Gypsy speaker for the dead, did something to me. Or I have a brain tumor.”
Staring into her eyes, Roarke cupped Eve’s face in his hands. “Kak vashi dela?”
“U menya vsyo po pnezhne mu. Hey, you speak Russian?”