In Death 22 - Memory in Death

on that?”
    “What?” Peabody put a hand to her ear. “Did you hear that? Someone’s calling me from the bull pen. There may be crimes being committed even now while we lollygag. Gotta go.”
    Eyes still narrowed, Eve walked to the door, shut and locked it. Lollygag? What the hell kind of word
    was lollygag? A guilty one if she was any judge.
    She gave the bag a shake as she considered where her next candy vault might be.
    * * *
    Between a meeting with the senior staff of one of his manufacturing arms and a lunch he had scheduled
    in his executive dining room with investors, Roarke’s interoffice link beeped.
    “Yes, Caro.” His brow winged up when he noted she’d engaged privacy mode.
    “The individual you mentioned this morning is downstairs, lobby level, and requesting a moment of
    your time.”
    He’d bet himself a half mil she’d contact him before noon. Now he went double or nothing she’d show
    her hand before he booted her out again.
    “Is she alone?”
    “Apparently.”
    “Keep her waiting down there another ten minutes, then escort her up. Not personally. Send an assistant, please, Caroa young one. Keep her cooling out there until I buzz you.”
    “I’ll take care of it. Would you like me to buzz you again a few minutes after she’s in your office?”
    “No.” He smiled, and it wasn’t pleasant. “I’ll get rid of her personally.”
    He was looking forward to it.
    After checking the time, he rose, walked to the wall of glass that opened his office to the spires and towers of the city. It was just rain now, he noted. Dreary and gray and dull, shitting down on the streets from an ugly sky.
    Well, he and Eve knew all about being shit on. Life hadn’t dealt either of them a pretty hand, and had given them no stake to play it. What they’d doneeach in his own waywas make a win out of it. Bluffing, bulling, and at least in his case, cheating their way to the pot at the end of the day.
    But there was always another game to be played, always another player willing to do all manner of nasty things to take a share. Or take it all.
    Well, come on, then, he thought. He wasn’t just willing, but more than able to do all manner of nasty things himself.
    He couldn’t go back, more’s the pity, and beat her bastard of a father into a gibbering, bloody pulp. He couldn’t make the dead suffer, as Eve suffered still. But here, fate had dropped a pale substitute right
    into his hands.
    A live one. Plump and pink and prime for skinning.
    Trudy Lombard was in for a very unpleasant surprise.
    He imagined the last thing that would be on her mind when she crawled out again would be to slither her way around Eve.
    He turned, glanced around his office. He’d made it what it was. Needed to. He knew what she would
    see when she came in, out of the cold and the gray. She’d see power and wealth, space and luxury.
    She’d scent the money, though if she wasn’t brainless, she’d have some idea of the pot on his table.
    An idea that would be considerably short, come to that, he mused. He may have been legal now, but
    that didn’t mean he felt the need to make public what was in all his pockets.
    He kept books in his private office at home, updating quarterly. Eve had access to them, should she ever have any interest. Which she wouldn’t, he thought with a faint smile. She was easier with his money than she’d once been, but he was still a faint embarrassment to her.
    He wished he knew the name of the gods who’d looked down on him the day he’d met her. If he could stack everything he owned, had done, had accomplished, on one side of a scale, it still wouldn’t outweigh the gift of her.
    As he waited for time to pass, he slid a hand into his pocket, rubbed the button he carried, one that had fallen off her suit jacket the first time he’d met her.
    And as he thought of her, he wondered how soon her mind would clear and snap back. How soon she’d realize why she’d encountered this ghost from her past.
    Once she did, he mused, and closed his hand over the button, she was going to be right pissed.
    Judging the time was right, he walked back to his desk, sat, buzzed his admin.
    “Caro, you can bring her in now.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    While he waited those last moments, he chained up what was inside him. What wanted the taste of
    blood and bone.
    She was what he’d expected from his research of her. What in some circles was called a handsome womanbig and bony, her hair freshly done, her face not