Glory in Death

CHAPTER TWENTY

Eve supposed there could have been worse ways to wait through the last stages of an investigation. The atmosphere had it all over her cramped office at Cop Central, and the food was certainly a long leg up from the eatery.

Roarke had opened up his dome-ceilinged reception room with its glossy wood floors, mirrored walls, and sparkling lights. Long, curved tables followed the rounded walls and were artistically crowded with exotic finger foods.

Colorful bite-sized eggs harvested from the dwarf pigeons of the moon's farm colony, delicate pink shrimp from the Sea of Japan, elegant cheese swirls that melted on the tongue, pastries pumped with pates or creams in a menagerie of shapes, the gleam of caviar heaped on shaved ice, the richness of fresh fruit with frosty sugar coating.

There was more. The hot table across the room steamed with heat and spices. One entire area was a treasure trove for those of a vegetarian persuasion, with another, at a discreet distance, decked out for carnivores.

Roarke had opted for live music rather than simulation, and the band out on the adjoining terrace played quiet conversation-enhancing tunes. They would heat up as the night went on, to seduce dancers.

Through the swirl of color, of scent, of gleam and gloss, waiters in severe black wandered with silver trays topped with crystal flutes of champagne.

"This is so decent." Mavis popped a black button mushroom in her mouth. She'd dressed conservatively for the occasion, which meant a great deal of her skin was actually covered, and her hair was a tame medium red. Being Mavis, so were her irises. "I can't believe Roarke actually invited me."

"You're my friend."

"Yeah. Hey, you think if later on, after everybody's imbibed freely, could I ask the band to let me do a number?"

Eve scanned the rich, privileged crowd, the glint of real gold and real stones, and smiled. "I think that would be great."

"Superior." Mavis gave Eve's hand a quick squeeze. "I'm going to go talk to the band now, sort of worm my way into their hearts."

"Lieutenant."

Eve shifted her gaze from Mavis's retreating form over and up into Chief Tibble's face. "Sir."

"You're looking… unprofessional tonight." When she squirmed, he laughed. "That was a compliment. Roarke puts on quite a show."

"Yes, sir, he does. It's for a worthy cause." But she couldn't quite remember what that worthy cause was.

"I happen to think so. My wife is very involved." He took a flute from a passing tray and sipped. "My only regret is that these monkey suits never go out of style." With his free hand, he tugged at his collar.

It made her smile. "You should try wearing these shoes."

"There's a heavy price for fashion."

"I'd rather be dowdy and comfortable." But she resisted tugging at her butt-molding skirt.

"Well." He took her arm, eased her toward a shielding arborvitae. "Now that we've exchanged the obligatory small talk, I'd like to tell you you've done an excellent job on the investigation."

"I bumped with Angelini."

"No, you pursued a logical line, then you backtracked and found pieces others had missed."

"The albino junkie was a fluke, sir. Just luck."

"Luck counts. So does tenacity – and attention to detail. You cornered him, Dallas."

"He's still at large."

"He won't get far. His own ambition will help us find him. His face is known."

Eve was counting on it. "Sir, Officer Peabody did fine work. She has a sharp eye and good instincts."

"So you noted in your report. I won't forget it." When he glanced at his watch, she realized he was as edgy as she. "I promised Feeney a bottle of Irish whiskey if he broke it by midnight."

"If that doesn't do it, nothing will." She put on a smile. There was no use reminding the chief that they hadn't found the murder weapon in Morse's apartment. He already knew.

When she spotted Marco Angelini step into the room, her shoulders stiffened. "Excuse me, Chief Tibble. There's someone I have to speak to. "

He laid a hand on her arm. "It isn't necessary, Dallas."

"Yes, sir, it is."

She knew the moment he became aware of her by the quick upward jut of his chin. He stopped, linked his hands behind his back, and waited.

"Mr. Angelini."

"Lieutenant Dallas."

"I regret the difficulties I caused you and your family during the investigation."

"Do you?" His eyes were cool, unblinking. "Accusing my son of murder, subjecting him to terror and humiliation, bringing more grief upon already impossible grief, putting him behind bars when his only crime was witnessing violence?"

She could have justified her actions. She could have reminded him that his son had not only witnessed violence, but had turned away from it without a thought but to his own survival, and had compounded his crime by attempting to bribe his way out of involvement.

"I regret adding to your family's emotional trauma."

"I doubt if you understand the phrase." He skimmed his eyes down. "And I wonder if, had you not been so busy enjoying your companion's position, you might have caught the real murderer. It's easy enough to see what you are. You're an opportunist, a climber, a media whore."

"Marco." Roarke spoke softly as he laid a hand on Eve's shoulder.

"No." She went stiff under the touch. "Don't defend me. Let him finish. "

"I can't do that. I'm willing to take your state of mind into account, Marco, as the reason you would attack Eve in her own home. You don't want to be here," he said in an undertone of steel that indicated he was taking nothing into account. "I'll show you out."

"I know the way." Marco's eyes stabbed at Eve. "We'll put our business association to an end as soon as possible, Roarke. I no longer trust your judgment."

Hands balled into fists at her side, Eve trembled with fury as Marco strode away. "Why did you do that? I could have handled it."

"You could have," Roarke agreed, and turned her to face him. "But that was personal. No one, absolutely no one comes into our home and speaks to you that way."

She tried to shrug it off. "Summerset does."

Roarke smiled, touched his lips to hers. "The exception, for reasons too complicated to explain." He rubbed away the frown line between her brows with his thumb.

"Okay. I guess I'm not going to be exchanging Christmas cards with the Angelinis."

"We'll learn to live with it. How about some champagne?"

"In a minute. I'm going to go freshen up." She touched his face. It was getting easier to do that, to touch him when they weren't alone. "I guess I ought to tell you that Mars has a recorder in her bag."

Roarke gave the dent in her chin a quick flick. "She did. I have it in mine now, after I let her crowd me at the vegetarian table."

"Very slick. You never mentioned pickpocketing as one of your skills."

"You never asked."

"Remind me to ask, and ask a lot. I'll be back."

She didn't care about freshening up. She wanted a few minutes to simmer down, and maybe a few more to call Feeney, though she imagined he'd bite her head off for interrupting his compusearch.

He still had an hour to go before he lost his bottle of Irish. She didn't think it would hurt to remind him. She was at the door to the library, preparing to code herself in, when Summerset melted out of the shadows behind her.

"Lieutenant, you have a call, termed both personal and urgent."

"Feeney?"

"He did not grant me his name," Summerset said down his nose.

"I'll take it in here." She had the small but worthy satisfaction of letting the door close smartly in his face. "Lights," she ordered and the room brightened.

She'd almost gotten used to the walls of books with leather bindings and paper pages that crackled when you leafed through. For once she didn't give them so much as a glance as she hurried to the 'link on Roarke's library desk.

She engaged, then froze.

"Surprise, surprise." Morse beamed at her. "Bet you weren't expecting me. All dressed up for your party, I see. You look flash."

"I've been looking for you, C. J."

"Oh yeah, I know. You've been looking for a lot of things. I know this is on record, and it doesn't matter. But you listen close. You keep this between you and me, or I'm going to start slicing off little tiny pieces of a friend of yours. Say hi to Dallas, Nadine."

He reached out, and Nadine's face came on screen. Eve, who'd seen terror too many times to count, looked at it now. "Has he hurt you, Nadine?"

"I – " She whimpered when he jerked her head back by the hair, touched a long slim blade to her throat.

"Now, you tell her I've been real nice to you. Tell her." He skimmed the flat of the blade over her throat. "Bitch."

"I'm fine. I'm okay." She closed her eyes and a tear squeezed through. "I'm sorry."

"She's sorry," Morse said between pursed lips and pressed his cheek to Nadine's so both of their faces were in view. "She's sorry she was so hungry to be top bitch that she slipped the guard you put on her and fell right into my waiting arms. Isn't that right, Nadine?"

"Yes."

"And I'm going to kill you, but not quick like the others. I'm going to kill you slowly, and with a lot of pain, unless your pal the lieutenant does everything I say. Isn't that right? You tell her, Nadine."

"He's going to kill me." She pressed her lips together hard, but nothing would stop the trembling. "He's going to kill me, Dallas."

"That's right. You don't want her to die, do you, Dallas? It's your fault Louise died, yours and Nadine's fault. She didn't deserve it. She knew her place. She wasn't trying to be top cunt. It's your fault she's dead. You don't want that to happen again."

He still had the knife at Nadine's throat, and Eve could see his hand shake. "What do you want, Morse?" Calling up Mira's profile, she carefully hit the right buttons. "You're in control. You call the shots."

"That's right." His smile exploded. "Damn right. You've got my position coming up on screen by now. You see I'm at a nice quiet spot in Greenpeace Park, where nobody's going to bother us. All those nice green-lovers planted these pretty trees. It's a wonderful spot. Of course, nobody comes here after dark. Unless they're smart enough to know how to bypass the electronic field that discourages loiterers and chemi-heads. You've got exactly six minutes to get here so we can conduct our negotiations."

"Six minutes. I can barely make that at full speed. If I run into traffic – "

"Then don't," he snapped. "Six minutes from end of transmission, Dallas. Ten seconds over, ten seconds you might use to call this in, to contact anyone, to so much as blink for backup, and I start ripping Nadine. You come alone. If I smell an extra cop, I start on her. You want her to come alone, right, Nadine." As incentive, he turned the point of the blade to prick a narrow slice at the side of her throat.

"Please." She tried to arch back as the blood trickled. "Please."

"Cut her again, and I won't deal."

"You'll deal," Morse said. "Six minutes. Starting now."

The screen went blank. Eve's finger poised over the controls, thought of Dispatch, of the dozens of units that could be around the park in minutes. She thought of leaks, electronic leaks.

And she thought of the blood dribbling down Nadine's throat.

She bolted across the room and hit the elevator panel on the run. She needed her weapon.

C. J. Morse was having the time of his life. He'd begun to see that he'd sold himself short by killing quickly. There was so much more kick in courting fear, seducing it, watching it swell and climax. He saw it in Nadine Furst's eyes. They were glassy now, the pupils huge, slick and black, with barely a rim of color at the edges. He was, he realized with great relish, literally scaring her to death.

He hadn't cut her again. Oh, he wanted to, and made sure he showed her the knife often so that she would never lose the fear that he could. But a part of him worried about the cunt cop.

Not that he couldn't handle her, Morse mused. He could handle her the only way women understood. By killing her. But he wouldn't make it fast, like the others. She'd tried to outsmart him, and that was an insult he wouldn't tolerate.

Women always tried to run the show, always got in the way, just when you were about to grab that fat brass ring. It had happened to him all of his life. All of his fucking life starting with his pushy bitch of a mother.

"You haven't done your best, C. J. Use your brains, for God's sake. You'll never get through life on looks or charm. You haven't got any. I expected more from you. If you can't be the best, you'll be nothing. "

He'd taken it, hadn't he? Smiling to himself, he began to stroke Nadine's hair while she shuddered. He'd taken it for years, playing the good, devoted son, while at night he'd dreamed of ways to kill her. Wonderful dreams, sweaty and sweet, where he'd finally silenced that grating, demanding voice.

"So I did," he said conversationally, touching the tip of the knife to the pulse jerking in Nadine's throat. "And it was so easy. She was all alone in that big, important house, busy with her big, important business. And I walked right in. 'C. J.,' she said, 'what are you doing here? Don't tell me you've lost your job again. You'll never succeed in life unless you focus.' And I just smiled at her and I said, 'Shut up, Mother, shut the fuck up.' And I cut her throat."

To demonstrate, he trailed the blade over Nadine's throat, lightly, just enough to scrape the skin. "She gushed and she goggled, and she shut the fuck up. But you know, Nadine, I learned something from the old bitch. It was time I focused. I needed a goal. And I decided that goal would be to rid the world of loudmouthed, pushy women, the ball breakers of the world. Like Towers and Metcalf. Like you, Nadine." He leaned over, kissed her dead center of the forehead. "Just like you."

She was reduced to whimpers. Her mind had frozen. She'd stopped trying to twist her wrists out of the restraints, stopped trying anything. She sat docile as a doll, with the occasional quiver breaking her stillness.

"You kept trying to shove me aside. You even went to management to try to get me off the news desk. You told them I was a…" He tapped the blade against her throat for emphasis. "Pain in the ass. You know that bitch Towers wouldn't even give me an interview. She embarrassed me, Nadine. Wouldn't even acknowledge me at press conferences. But I fixed her. A good reporter digs, right Nadine? And I dug, and I got a nice juicy story about her darling daughter's idiot lover. Oh, I sat on it, and sat on it, while the happy mother of the bride to be made all her wedding plans. I could have blackmailed her, but that wasn't the goal, was it? She was so ticked when I called her that night, when I dumped it all in her face."

His eyes narrowed. They gleamed. "She was going to talk to me then, Nadine. Oh, you bet she was going to talk. She'd have tried to ruin me, even though I was only going to report the facts. But Towers was a big fucking deal, and she would have tried to squash me like a bug. That's exactly what she said over the 'link. But she did exactly what she was told. And when I walked toward her on that nasty little street, she sneered at me. The bitch sneered at me and she said, 'You're late. Now, you little bastard, we're going to set things straight.'"

He laughed so hard he had to press a hand to his stomach. "Oh, I set her straight. Gush and goggle, just like my dear old mother."

He gave Nadine a quick slap on the top of the head, rose, and faced the camera he had set up. "This is C. J. Morse reporting. As the clock ticks away the seconds, it appears that the heroic Lieutenant Cunt will not arrive in time to save her fellow bitch from execution. Though it has long been considered a sexist cliche, this experiment has proven that women are always late."

He laughed uproariously and gave Nadine a careless backhanded slap that knocked her back on the bench where he'd put her. After one last, high-pitched giggle, he controlled himself and frowned soberly into the lens.

"The public broadcasting of executions was banned in this country in 2012, five years before the Supreme Court once again ruled that capital punishment was unconstitutional. Of course, the court was forced into that decision by five idiot, bigmouthed women, so this reporter deems that ruling null and void."

He took a small pocket beam out of his jacket before turning to Nadine. "I'm going to key into the station now, Nadine. On air in twenty." Thoughtfully, he tilted his head. "You know, you could use a little makeup. It's a pity there isn't time. I'm sure you'd want to look your best for your final broadcast."

He walked to her, laid the length of the knife at her throat, and faced the camera. "In ten, nine, eight…" He glanced over at the sound of rushing feet on the crushed stone path. "Well, well, here she is now. And with seconds to spare."

Eve skidded to a halt on the path and stared. She'd seen a great deal in her decade on the force. Plenty that she often wished could be erased from her memory. But she'd never seen anything to compare with this.

She'd followed the light, the single light that beamed a circle around the tableau. The park bench where Nadine sat passively, blood drying on her skin, a knife at her throat. C. J. Morse behind her, dressed nattily in a round-collared shirt and color-coordinated jacket, facing a camera on a slim tripod. Its red light beamed as steadily as judgment's eye.

"What the hell are you doing, Morse?"

"Live stand up," he said cheerfully. "Please, step into the light, Lieutenant, so our viewers can see you."

Keeping her eyes on his, Eve stepped into the circle.

She'd been gone too long, Roarke thought and found himself irritated by the party chat. Obviously, she'd been more upset than he'd realized, and he regretted not dealing with Angelini more effectively.

Damn if he'd let her brood or take on blame. The only way to make sure she didn't was to amuse or annoy the mood out of her. He slipped quietly from the room, away from the lights and music and voices. The house was too big to search, but he could pinpoint her location with one question.

"Eve," he said, the moment Summerset stepped from a room to the right.

"She's gone."

"What do you mean gone? Gone where?"

Because discussing the woman always put Summerset's back up, he lifted his shoulders. "I couldn't say, she simply ran out of the house, got into her vehicle, and drove off. She did not deign to inform me of her plans."

The nasty twisting in Roarke's gut sharpened his voice. "Don't fuck with me, Summerset. Why did she leave?"

Insulted, Summerset tightened his jaw. "Perhaps it was due to the call she received a few moments ago. She took it in the library."

Turning on his heel, Roarke strode to the library door, uncoded it. With Summerset at his heels, he stepped up to the table. "Replay, last call. "

As he watched, listened, the twisting in his gut turned to a burning that was fear. "Christ Jesus, she's gone for him. She's gone alone."

He was out of the door and moving fast, the order shot over his shoulder like a laser. "Relay that information to Chief Tibble – privately."

"Though our time is short, Lieutenant, I'm sure our viewers would be fascinated by the investigative process." Morse kept the pleasant, camera smile on his face, the knife at Nadine's throat. "You did pursue a false lead for a time, and were, I believe, on the point of charging an innocent man."

"Why did you kill them, Morse?"

"Oh, I've documented that extensively, for future broadcast. Let's talk about you."

"You must have felt terrible when you realized you'd killed Louise Kirski instead of Nadine."

"I felt very bad about that, sickened. Louise was a nice, quiet woman with an appropriate attitude. But it wasn't my fault. It was yours and Nadine's for trying to bait me."

"You wanted exposure." She flicked a glance toward the camera. "You're certainly getting it now. But this is putting you in a spot, Morse. You won't get out of this park now."

"Oh, I have a plan, don't worry about me. And we have just a few minutes left before we have to end this. The public has a right to know. I want them to see this execution. But I wanted you to see it in person. To witness what you caused."

She looked at Nadine. No help there, she noted. The woman was in deep shock, possibly drugged. "I won't be as easy to take."

"You'll be more fun."

"How did you take Nadine?" Eve stepped closer, keeping her eyes on his and her hands in sight. "You had to be clever."

"I'm very clever. People – women in particular – don't give me enough credit. I just leaked a tip to her about the murders. A message from a frightened witness who wanted to speak to her, alone. I knew she'd ditch her guard, an ambitious woman after the big story. I got her in the parking garage. Just as simple as that. Gave her a dose of a deep tranq, loaded her in her own trunk, and drove off. Left her and the car in a little rent space zone way downtown."

"You were smart." She stepped closer, stopping when he lifted his brows and pressed the knife more firmly. "Really smart," she said, lifting her hands up. "You knew I was coming for you. How did you know?"

"You think your wrinkled pal Feeney knows everything about computers? Hell, I can run rings around that hacker. I've been keyed in to your system for weeks. Every transmission, every plan, every step you took. I was always ahead of you, Dallas."

"Yeah, you were ahead of me. You don't want to kill her, Morse. You want me. I'm the one who ragged on you, gave you all the grief. Why don't you let her go? She's zoned, anyway. Take me on."

He flashed his quick, boyish smile. "Why don't I kill her first, then you?"

Eve lifted a shoulder. "I thought you liked a challenge. Guess I was wrong. Towers was a challenge. You had to do a lot of fast talking to get her where you wanted her. But Metcalf was nothing."

"Are you serious? She thought I was puss." He bared his teeth, hissed through them. "She'd still be doing weather if she hadn't had tits, and they were giving her my airtime. My fucking airtime! I had to pretend I was a big fan, tell her I was going to do a twenty-minute feature on her. Just her. Told her we had a shot at international satellite, and she bit good."

"So she met you that night on the patio."

"Yeah, she got herself all slicked up, was all smiles and no hard feelings. Tried to tell me she was glad I'd found my niche. My goddamn niche. Well, I shut her up."

"You did. I guess you were pretty smart with her, too. But Nadine, she's not saying anything. She can't even think right now. She won't know you're paying her back."

"I'll know. Time's up. You might want to stand to the side, Dallas, or you're going to get blood all over your party dress."

"Wait." She took a step and, feinting to the side and reaching a hand to the small of her back, she whipped out her weapon. "Blink, you bastard, and I'll fry you." He did blink, several times. It seemed to him the weapon had come from nowhere. "You use that, my hand's going to jerk. She'll be dead before I am."

"Maybe," Eve said steadily. "Maybe not. You're dead, either way. Drop the knife, Morse, step away from her, or your nervous system's going to go on fast overload."

"Bitch. You think you're going to beat me." He jerked Nadine to her feet, shielding himself from a clean shot, then shoved her forward.

Eve caught Nadine with one arm while she aimed with her weapon hand, but he was already into the trees. Seeing no choice, Eve slapped Nadine hard, front handed, then back. "Snap out of it. Goddamn it."

"He's killing me." Nadine's eyes rolled back, then forward when Eve hit her again.

"Get moving, do you hear me? You get moving, call this in. Now."

"Call it in."

"That way." Eve gave Nadine a shove toward the path, hoped she'd stay on her feet, and dashed toward the trees.

He'd said he had a plan, and she didn't doubt it. Even if he managed to get out of the park, they'd bring him in, eventually. But he was primed to kill now – some woman walking her dog on the sidewalk, or someone coming home from a late date.

He'd use the knife on anyone now because he'd failed again.

She stopped in the shadows, ears straining for sound, breath rigidly controlled. Dimly, she could hear the sounds of street and air traffic, could see the lights of the city beyond the thick border of trees.

A dozen paths spread out before her that would wind through the glade and the gardens so lovingly planted, so carefully designed.

She heard something. Perhaps a footstep, perhaps a bush rustled by some small animal. With her weapon blinking ready, she stepped deeper into the shadows.

There was a fountain, its waters silent in the dark. A small children's playground, with glide swings, twisty slides, the foamy jungle gym that prevented little climbers from bruising shins and elbows.

She scanned the area, cursing herself for not grabbing a search beam out of her car. There was too much dark pouring dangerously out of the trees. Too much silence hanging on the air like a shroud.

Then she heard the scream.

He'd circled back, she thought. The bastard has circled back and gone for Nadine after all. Eve spun around, and her instinct to protect saved her life.

The knife caught her on the collarbone, a long, shallow cut that stung ridiculously. She blocked with her elbow, connected with his jaw, spoiled his aim. But the blade flew out, slicing her just above the wrist. Her weapon spun uselessly out of her wounded hand.

"You thought I was going to run." His eyes glowed sickly in the dark as he circled her. "Women always underestimate me, Dallas. I'm going to cut you to pieces. I'm going to rip your throat." He jabbed, sending her back a step. "I'm going to rip your guts." He swung again, and she felt the wind from the blade. "I'm in charge now, aren't I?"

"Like hell." Her kick was well aimed, a woman's ultimate defense. He went down, air bursting through his lips like a popped balloon. The knife clattered on stone. And she was on him.

He fought like what he was – a madman. His fingers tore at her, his teeth snapped as they sought flesh to sink into. Her wounded arm was slick with blood, and slipped off him as she struggled to find the point under his jaw that would immobilize him.

They rolled over the crushed stone and trimmed sod, viciously silent but for grunts and labored breathing. His hand dug along the path for the hilt of the knife, hers clawing after it. Then stars exploded in her head as he pumped his fist into her face.

She was dazed for only an instant, but she knew she was dead. She saw the knife, and her fate, and sucked in her breath to meet it.

Later she would think it had sounded like a wolf, that howl of rage, a blood cry. Morse's weight was off of her, his body spinning away. She rolled to her hands and knees, shaking her head.

The knife, she thought frantically, the goddamn knife. But she couldn't find it, and crawled toward the dull gleam of her weapon.

It was in her hand, poised, when her mind cleared enough to understand. Two men were fighting, grappling like dogs in the pretty playground. And one of them was Roarke.

"Get away from him." She scrambled to her feet, teetered, braced. "Get away from him so I can get a shot."

They rolled again, end over end. Roarke's hand gripped Morse's, but Morse's held the knife. Through the rage, the duty, the instinct, came a titanic, jittering fear.

Weak, still losing blood, she leaned back on the padded bars of the gym, steadied her weapon hand with the other. In the dappled moonlight she could see Roarke's fist plunge, hear the crack of bone on bone. The knife strained, the blade angling.

Then she watched it plunge, watched it quiver as it found its home in Morse's throat.

Someone was praying. When Roarke got to his feet, she realized it was herself. She stared at him, let her weapon lower. His face was fierce, his eyes hot enough to burn. There was blood soaking his elegant dinner jacket.

"You're a goddamn mess," she managed.

"You should look at yourself." His breathing was labored, and he knew from experience that he would feel every miserable bruise and scrape later. "Don't you know it's rude to leave a party without making your excuses?"

Legs trembling with reaction, she took a step toward him, then stopped, swallowing the sob that was bubbled in her throat. "Sorry. I'm sorry. God, are you hurt?"

She launched herself at him, all but burrowing when he caught her close. "Did he cut you? Are you cut?" She yanked back, began to fumble at his clothes.

"Eve." He jerked her chin up, steadied it. "You're bleeding badly."

"He caught me a couple times." She swiped a hand under her nose. "It's not bad." But Roarke was already using a square of Irish linen from his pocket to staunch and wrap the arm wound. "And it's my job." She took a deep breath, felt the black edges around her vision creeping back until she could see clearly. "Where are you cut?"

"It's his blood," Roarke said calmly. "Not mine."

"His blood." She nearly wobbled again, forced her knees to lock. "You're not hurt?"

"Nothing major." Concerned, he angled her head back to examine the shallow slice along her collarbone, the rapidly swelling eye. "You need a medic, Lieutenant."

"In a minute. Let me ask you something."

"Ask away." Having nothing else, he tore part of his ripped sleeve to dab at the blood on her shoulder.

"Do I come charging into one of your board rooms when you're having trouble with a business deal?"

His eyes flicked to hers. Some of the fierceness died out of them into what was almost a smile. "No, Eve, you don't. I don't know what got into me."

"It's okay." Since there was nowhere else to put it, she jabbed her weapon onto her lower back where she'd fixed it with adhesive. "This once," she murmured and caught his face in her hands, "it's okay. It's okay. I was scared when I couldn't get past you for a shot. I thought he would kill you before I could stop him."

"Then you should understand the feeling." Giving her a supporting arm around the waist, they began to limp off. After a moment, Eve realized she was limping primarily because she'd lost a shoe. Hardly breaking stride, she stepped out of the other. Then she spotted lights up ahead.

"Cops?"

"I imagine. I ran into Nadine as she was stumbling along the path toward the main gate. He'd given her a pretty rough time, but she'd pulled it together enough to tell me which direction you'd gone off in."

"I could probably have dealt with the bastard on my own," Eve murmured, recovered enough to worry about it. "But you sure handled yourself, Roarke. You got a real knack for hand to hand."

Neither of them mentioned how the knife had come to be planted in Morse's throat.

She saw Feeney in the circle of light, near the camera, with a dozen other cops. He merely shook his head and signaled for the medteam. Nadine was already on a stretcher, pale as wax.

"Dallas." She lifted a hand, let it fall. "I blew it."

Eve leaned over as one of the medics dispensed with Roarke's first aid on her arm and began his own. "He pumped you full of chemicals."

"I blew it," Nadine repeated, as the stretcher lifted toward a medunit. "Thanks for the rest of my life."

"Yeah." She turned away, sat heavily on the cushioned support in the triage area. "You got something for my eye?" she asked. "It's throbbing bad."

"Going to be black," she was told cheerfully as an ice gel was laid over it.

"There's good news. No hospitals," she said, firm. The medic just clucked his tongue and began work on cleaning and closing her wounds.

"Sorry about the dress." She smiled up at Roarke and fingered a tattered sleeve. "It didn't hold up very well." Getting to her feet, she brushed the fussing medic aside. "I'm going to need to go back and change, then go in to file my report." She looked steadily into his eyes. "It's too bad Morse rolled on his knife. The PA's office would have loved to bring him to trial." She held out a hand, then examined the raw knuckles of Roarke's and shook her head. "Did you howl?"

"I beg your pardon?"

She chuckled, leaned on him as they headed out of the park. "All in all, it was a hell of a party."

"Hmm. We'll have others. But there's one thing."

"Hmm?" She flexed her fingers, relieved that they seemed to be back in full working order. The MTs knew their stuff.

"I want you to marry me."

"Uh-huh. Well, we'll – " She stopped, nearly stumbled, then gaped at him with her good eye. "You want what?"

"I want you to marry me."

He had a bruise on his jaw, blood on his coat, and a gleam in his eye. She wondered if he'd lost his mind. "We're standing here, beat to shit, walking away from a crime scene where either or both of us could have bought it, and you're asking me to marry you?"

He tucked his arm around her waist again, nudged her forward. "Perfect timing."