“There are times I envy the creativity of your dream life.”
“I think I stunned it before it got out and tore up the neighborhood, but it’s vague, and it sort of rolled into another one.”
“The elephant rolled into another elephant?”
“No, the dream—well, sort of the elephant. I had it in Interview. You know like: You’re looking at attempted murder, Mr. Phant, but if you cooperate I can see about dealing that down to simple assault.”
He laughed hard enough to have Galahad making another try for waffles. Roarke just waved the cat away. “Is it a wonder I adore you? ‘Mr. Phant.’”
“Yeah, it seems funny now, but I was pretty serious. I think the damn elephant’s the only tangible thing I’ve got here, and it was nothing more than handy. It doesn’t apply.”
“It was used to hurt someone who matters a great deal to you.”
“Yeah, I guess. I’m going to try to swing by there sometime today, depending on how things go.” Since they were there, she plucked a fat blackberry out of the little bowl, frowned. “Am I supposed to take something? Like, I don’t know, flowers or something?”
“I wouldn’t think it’s necessary, but flowers or a small token? Never wrong.”
“Okay, well, we’ll see how it goes.” She polished off the waffles. “I’m going to review a couple things, check in with Mira, and get going.”
“Let me know if the senator shows up, one way or the other, would you?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll be seeing Nadine later today,” he said when Eve rose to strap on her weapon harness, toss a jacket over it. “She’s got where she wants to be down to a warehouse space prime for conversion and a triplex on the Upper West Side.”
“Triplex—a penthouse kind of thing, slick building, fully secured, lots of amenities?”
“It is, yes.”
“Tell her to take the triplex. She might think a warehouse is frosty, and how she can renovate it, make it slick and sleek, but the process would make her crazy. Plus, when? She’s got her gigs at Channel Seventy-five, the book thing, blah blah.”
She glanced back at him. “Both of them yours?”
“They are—she eliminated several other locations and properties, then asked me to suggest two of mine. And asked if I’d take her through both today. She’s been having nightmares and wants to get out of her apartment.”
“Told her not to open the damn door,” Eve muttered. “Triplex, done.” She walked back, leaned over, and kissed him. “Later.”
He tugged her back for another kiss. “Take care of my cop.”
“I gotta, since you’ve got something to tell me about thirty years from now. Triplex,” she repeated as she started out. “Tell her to stop fucking around and do it.”
—
She’d assumed she’d left in plenty of time—even early—but traffic snarled and stalled the entire way. She reached the Chrysler Building, wondering why more people didn’t work from home and leave the streets to those who really needed them. She hunted up parking, then traveled two blocks on foot.
Roarke had been correct about the bitter morning. The sky was a bowl of hard, pale blue, and the air was just as hard and pale. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her coat, searching for warmth, and found gloves.
New gloves, with some sort of lining that felt like a warm cloud. It wouldn’t take her long to lose them, she thought, but for the moment, they were welcome.
She started to tag Peabody to get an ETA, then spotted her partner at the crosswalk.
There was no mistaking that pink coat in a sea of blacks, grays, and dark blues. Add the multicolored hat on the short flip of dark hair, the mile of scarf—in bleeding blues today—and she could’ve spotted Peabody six blocks off.
She waited while her partner joined the river surge across the street.
“How’s Mr. Mira?” Peabody asked immediately. “Did you check this morning?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to bother them if they’re sleeping.”