In Death 19 - Visions in Death

women with their bruises, those kids with their helpless faces. One of them had a broken arm. One of the kids. A girl, about six. I'm not good with kids" ages." "Eve." "I could feel the bone snap. Could hear it. And it took everything not to just go down to my knees and scream." "And you're ashamed of that?" Shame? She wasn't sure. Was it shame she felt, or anger, or some nasty brew of both? "You've got to get over it, sometime." "Why?" Stunned, Eve turned back, stared. "Well. . . because." "Overcoming and getting over are two very different things." Mira spoke briskly now because she wanted to get up, to go over, to draw Eve into a hug that wouldn't be appropriate, or understood. "Yes, you should strive to overcome.
    To survive, have a life, to be happy, to be productive.
    You've done all that, and a great deal more. But no, you're not required to get over it. To get over being beaten and abused and raped and tortured. You ask more of yourself, Eve, than you ask of anyone else in the world."
    "It was a good place." "And in this good place you saw a child someone had tried to break. It hurt you. But you didn't walk away." She sighed, sat again. "Peabody caught a drift. When we're out, she does the pal thing, offers to listen if I need to dump.
    So how do I respond to that?" "Snap her head off, I imagine," Mira said with a little smile.
    "Yeah. I ream her. Slap her up and down, mind-your-own-business kind of shit, stuff just jumping out of my mouth." "You'll apologize." "Already did." "You work together, as a unit. And you have a friendship outside of the job. You may want to consider telling her, at least some of it." "I don't see what good it would do either one of us." Mira only smiled. "Well, something to think about. Go home, Eve. Get some sleep."

CHAPTER 5
    Since all Eve wanted was a few hours of oblivion, Mira's advice wasn't hard to take. She pulled through the gates of home.
    Summer still reigned here, with perfect summer flowers in deep summer colors, with shimmering green grass that seemed to stretch for miles, and the tall leafy trees that spread cool shade.
    The house with its towers and peaks and graceful terraces lorded over them: part castle, part fortress, all home.
    The best part of it was there was a bed inside, with her name on it.
    She left the car at the front steps, and realizing she'd neglected to call Requisitions and bitch, she gave the door an irritated boot when she got out. Then she forgot it and dragged up the steps and into the house.
    He was lurking. Summerset was the universal champion of lurk. He stood in the foyer, bony in black, his snooty nose in the air and the fat cat at his feet. In Eve's opinion, Roarke's majordomo never missed the chance to give her the needle.
    "You're earlier than expected, and appear to have gotten through the day without destroying any article of clothing.
    I must note this event down on my calendar." "Bitch when I'm late, bitch when I'm early. You could go pro on the bitching circuit."
    "Your current offensive mode of transportation has not been properly garaged." "Your current offensive face hasn't yet been beaten to a pulp by my fists either. Mark that on your calendar, Creepshow." He had a couple more in his pocket, but decided to save them since there were circles of exhaustion under her eyes, and she was already heading up the steps. Hopefully to bed.
    He glanced down at the cat.
    "That should do for the moment." He wagged a finger toward the stairs, and Galahad trotted up them.
    She thought about going to her office first, putting her notes and thoughts into a report, maybe checking in with the lab, running some probabilities.
    But her feet took her straight to the bedroom where the cat streaked in just behind her. He bolted up the stairs of the platform, took a running leap, and landed, with considerable grace for a tub of lard, on the bed.
    And sat, dual-colored eyes narrowed on Eve's face.
    "Yeah, good idea. I'm right behind you." She stripped off her jacket, tossed it on the sofa in the sitting area, peeled off her weapon harness, and dumped it on the jacket. Then she sat on the arm, pried off her boots, and decided that was good enough.
    She didn't leap on the bed; it was more of a crawl.
    Stretching out on her stomach, ignoring the cat who slithered onto her butt and circled twice before settling, she ordered herself not to think. And dropped into sleep like a stone down a well.
    She felt the dream coming. Felt it oozing out of her system