“I know. I’m going to look over the data you sent me, and your notes, and see if I can be of any more help. But meanwhile …”
In her quiet, easy way, Mira handed Eve floral-scented tea in a delicate china cup, then took her own. She settled in one of her set of blue scoop-chairs, sipped in silence until Eve felt obligated to sit.
Shrinks, she thought, knew the value of silence, just like a cop in Interview.
“You look well,” Mira said conversationally. “How’s your arm?”
“It’s fine.” She rolled her shoulder, got a flash of pain memory. “I heal fast.”
“You’re a physical woman in excellent shape.”
“Meaning the body heals fast.”
Mira merely watched her with those quiet blue eyes. “How do you feel otherwise?”
“I’m good. I’m mostly good. That should be enough. Nobody gets through perfect. There’s always something, some ding, some cloud, some shit. And cops have more of all of that than most. So.”
“But you said this was personal, not work-related.”
“There’s not much distance between the two for me. Sometimes none at all. I’m okay with that, too. I’m good with that.”
Stalling, Mira thought. So reluctant to be here. “You’ve found a way to blend them very well. Will you tell me what’s troubling you?”
“It’s not me. It’s Roarke.”
“I see.”
“Look, I’ve always had vivid dreams.” Eve set the tea aside. She wasn’t in the mood to pretend to drink it. “Ever since I can remember. They’re not always pretty. Why would they be? Where I came from, what I do and see every day now. Maybe they were an escape when I was a kid. I could go somewhere else if I tried hard enough, and even if that place wasn’t all warm and cozy, it was better than the reality. And the nightmares, the flashbacks, with my father, I’d beaten them back. I’d worked through it. I’d finished it.”
Mira just waited her out, waited for the pause. “And now?”
“They’re not as bad as before, but okay, I’m having some issues since Dallas.”
Small wonder, Mira thought, but nodded. “That manifest in nightmares?”
“Not as bad,” Eve insisted. “And I know I’m dreaming. I’m in it, but I know it’s not real. They’re nothing as bad as the one I had when I couldn’t get out, and I hurt Roarke. I won’t ever let that happen again.”
She couldn’t sit. How did people talk about internal horrors sitting down? Pushing up, she let herself move. “Maybe last night was a little more intense, but I’d had a damn vicious day. It’s not surprising I mixed it all together.”
“Mixed what together?”
“The bar, the victims, the whole mess of it.”
She told herself to stay calm, just report. Ordered herself to stay fucking calm.
“I can put myself in a scene. It’s part of being a cop. Seeing what happened, how, and maybe that takes you to why and who. I can see it, smell it, almost touch it. And Jesus, it was on my mind, wasn’t it?”
She heard it, that pissy bite in her tone, worked to smooth it out again. “So I went back to the bar, in my head, in the dream. But they were there, too. Stella, sitting at the bar. Her throat’s open, the way it was when McQueen finished her. When I found her on the floor of his place. She comes back first when I dream now, sometimes without him. She blames me, always blames me, just like she always did.”
“Do you?”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“He’d have killed her eventually. That was pattern for McQueen. Maybe I speeded it up.”
“How?”