In Death 22 - Memory in Death

Dennis Mira, bless him. You didn’t have the simplicity of home and family. You had obstacles and pain and horrors. And you overcame them. That’s your gift, Eve, and your burden.”
    “I fell apart when I first saw her in my office. I just crumbled.”
    “Then you picked yourself up and went on.”
    Eve let her head fall back. Roarke had been rightagain. She’d needed to come here, to say it out loud
    to someone she trusted. “She made me feel afraid, sick with fear. As if just by being there, she could
    drag me back. And it wasn’t even me she cared about. If I wasn’t hooked to Roarke, she wouldn’t have given me a second thought. Why does that bother me?” She closed her eyes.
    “Because it’s hard not to matter, even to someone you dislike.”
    “I guess it is. She wouldn’t have come here. Not much to squeeze out of a cop, unless that cop happens to be married to billions.”
    She opened her eyes now, gave Mira a puzzled look. “He has billions. Do you ever think of that?”
    “Do you?”
    “Sometimes, this kind of time, and I can’t really get a handle on it. I don’t even know how many zeros that is because my brain goes fuzzy. And I don’t know the number that goes ahead of them because
    once you have all those zeros it’s just ridiculous anyway. She tried to shake him down.”
    “Yes, he gave me the basics. I’m sure he handled it appropriately. Would you have wanted him to pay
    her off?”
    “No.” Her eyes went hot. “Not one cent out of the billions. She used to tell me I didn’t have a mother
    or a father because I was so stupid that they’d tossed me away because I wasn’t worth the trouble.”
    Mira lifted her wine, sipped, to give herself a chance to push back her own anger. “She should never
    have passed the screening. You know that.”
    “She was smart. I look back now, and I see she was smart, the way you have to be to run long cons or quick scams successfully. She played the system, figured the ins and outs. I think, well, you’re the head doctor, but I think she believed her own bullshit. You have to believe the lie to live it, to make others
    see you the way you need to be seen.”
    “Very possibly,” Mira agreed. “To have lived it for so long.”
    “She had to figure she deserved the money, had earned it. Had to believe she’d worked and sacrificed, and given me a home out of her humanitarian nature, and now, hey, how about a little something for
    old times’ sake? She was a player,” Eve said, half to herself. “She was a player, so maybe she played
    too deep with somebody. I don’t know.”
    “You could pass this off. In fact, you may be asked to do so.”
    “I won’t. I think I’ve got that covered. I’ll call in favors if I have to, but I’m going to see it through. It’s necessary.”
    “I agree. That surprises you?” Mira asked when Eve stared at her. “She made you feel helpless and worthless, stupid and empty. You know better than that, but you needto feelit, to prove it, and to
    do that you’ll need to take an active part in resolving this. I’ll say just that to Commander Whitney.”
    “That has weight. Thanks.”
    * * *
    When she stepped through the door of her home, Summerset was looming like a black crow in the
    foyer, fat Galahad at his feet. She knew by the gleam in his beady eyes he was primed.
    “I find myself surprised,” he said in what she figured he considered droll tones. “You’re out for
    several hours, yet you returndare I say almost fashionably dressed, with nothing torn or bloodied.
    A remarkable feat.”
    “I find myself surprised that no one’s bothered to beat you into a pulpy mass just on the general
    principle of your ugliness. But the day’s young yet, for both of us.”
    She whipped off her coat, dumped it on the newel post just because she could, and strutted up the
    stairs. The quick and habitual sally made her feel marginally better. It was just the thing to take Bobby’s devastated face out of her head, at least temporarily.
    She went straight to her office. She would set up a murder board here, set up files and create a
    secondary base, on the off chance Whitney vetoed both her and Mira. If she was ordered to step aside, officially, she intended to be ready to pursue the work on her own time.
    She engaged her ‘link to touch base with Morris.
    “I’m going to come by in the morning,” she told him. “Am I going to get any surprises?”
    “Head blow did the job, and was incurred about