In Death 03 - Immortal in Death

choice?"
    "Because you never take no for an answer." She stood, shoving her hands into the front pockets of her jeans.
    "You only get a half point for that. Try again."
    "Because I've lost my mind."
    "That won't win you the trip for two to Tropic World on Star 50."
    A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. "Maybe I love you."
    "Maybe you do." Content with that, he crossed back to her and laid his hands on her strong shoulders. "How bad can it be? You can pop a few shopping programs into the computer, look at dozens of suitable dresses, order in what appeals to you."
    "That was my idea." She rolled her eyes. "Mavis ditched it."
    "Mavis." He paled a bit. "Eve, tell me you're not going shopping with Mavis."
    His reaction brightened her mood a little. "She has this friend. He's a designer."
    "Dear Christ."
    "She says he's mag. Just needs a break to make a name for himself. He has a little workshop in Soho."
    "Let's elope. Now. You look fine."
    Her grin flashed. "Scared?"
    "Terrified."
    "Good. Now we're even." Delighted to be on level footing, she leaned in and kissed him. "Now you can worry about what I'll be wearing on the big day for the next few weeks. Gotta go." She patted his cheek. "I'm meeting her in twenty minutes."
    "Eve." Roarke grabbed for her hand. "You wouldn't do something ridiculous?''
    She tugged her way free. "I'm getting married, aren't I? What could be more ridiculous?"
    She hoped he stewed over it all day. The idea of marriage was daunting enough, but a wedding -- clothes, flowers, music, people. It was horrifying.
    She zipped downtown on Lex, braking hard and muttering curses at a sidewalk vendor who encroached on the lane with his smoking glide cart. The traffic violation was bad enough, but the scent of overcooked soydogs hit her nervous stomach like lead.
    The Rapid cab behind her broke the intercity noise pollution code by blasting his horn and shouting curses through his speaker. A group, obviously tourists, loaded down with palm cams, compumaps, and binoks gaped stupidly at the whizzing traffic. Eve shook her head as a quick-fingered street thief elbowed through them.
    When they got back to their hotel, they were going to find themselves several credits poorer. If she'd had the time and a place to pull over, she might have given the thief a chase. But he was lost in the crowd and a block across town on his air skates before she could blink.
    That was New York, she thought with a faint smile. Take it at your own risk.
    She loved the crowds, the noise, the constant frantic rush of it. You were rarely alone, but never intimate. That's why she'd come here so many years ago.
    No, she wasn't a social animal, but too much space and too much solitude made her nervous.
    She'd come to New York to be a cop, because she believed in order, needed it to survive. Her miserable and abusive childhood with all its blank spaces and dark corners couldn't be changed. But she had changed. She had taken control, had made herself into the person some anonymous social worker had named Eve Dallas.
    Now she was changing again. In a few weeks she wouldn't just be Eve Dallas, lieutenant, homicide. She'd be Roarke's wife. How she would manage to be both was more of a mystery to her than any case that had ever come across her desk.
    Neither of them knew what it was to be family, to have family, to make a family. They knew cruelty, abuse, abandonment. She wondered if that was why they had come together. They both understood what it was to have nothing, to be nothing, to know fear and hunger and despair -- and both had remade themselves.
    Was it just mutual need that attracted them? Need for sex, for love, and the melding of the two that she had never thought was possible before Roarke.
    A question for Dr. Mira, she mused, thinking of the police psychiatrist she often consulted.
    But for now, Eve determined that she wasn't going to think about the future or the past. The moment was complicated enough.
    Three blocks from Greene Street, she seized her chance and squeezed into a parking space. After searching through her pockets, she found the credit tokens the aging meter demanded in its moronic and static jumbled tones and plugged in enough for two hours.
    If it took any more than that, she'd be ready for a tranq room and a parking citation wouldn't bother her in the least.
    Taking a deep breath, she scanned the area. She wasn't called this far downtown often. Murders happened everywhere, but Soho was an arty bastion for the young