In Death 22 - Memory in Death

no shape to”
    “Peabody, if you’re my friend, back off. Let me be. Just do the job,” Eve said as she got shakily to her feet. “And let me be.”
    Peabodylet her go, but she pulled out her pocket ‘link as she headed back up to Homicide. Maybe she had to back off, but she knew someone who didn’t.
    And wouldn’t.
    * * *
    Eve’s first thought was to set her vehicle on auto. But it was better to be in control, better to concentrate on navigating the trip uptown. Better, she thought, to deal with the traffic, the snags, the time, the sheer bad temper ofNew Yorkthan her own misery.
    Going home, that was the object. She’d be okay once she was home.
    Maybe her stomach was raw and her head pounding, but she’d been sick before, and unhappy before. The first eight years of her life had been a slow ride through hell, and the ones following it hadn’t been
    a damn picnic at the beach.
    She’d gotten through, she’d gotten by.
    She’d get through, she’d get by again.
    She wasn’t going to be sucked back in. She wasn’t going to be avictimbecause some voice from the
    past panicked her.
    But her hands shook on the wheel nonetheless, and she kept all the windows down to the harsh air, the city smells.
    Soy dogs smoking on a glide-cart, the sour belch of a maxibus, a curbside recycler that hadn’t been serviced in recent memory. She could take the stench of all that, and the sheer weight of aromas
    layering the air from the mass of humanity that thronged the streets and glides.
    She could take the noise, the blats and the beeps that thumbed their collective noses at noise pollution laws. The tidal wave of voices rolled toward her, through her, past her. Thousands crammed the streets, the natives clipping along, tourists gawking and getting in the way. People juggling and hauling boxes
    and shopping bags.
    Christmas was coming. Don’t be late.
    She’d bought a scarf off the street from a smart-ass kid she’d enjoyed. Green and black checks, for
    Dr. Mira’s husband. What would Mira have to say about her reaction to today’s ugly flashback?
    Plenty. The criminal profiler and psychiatrist would have plenty to say in her classy and concerned way.
    Eve didn’t give a rat’s bony ass.
    She wanted home.
    Her eyes blurred when the gates opened for her. Blurred with weariness and relief. The great, grand lawn flowed, acres of peace and beauty in the center of the chaos of the city she’d made hers.
    Roarke had the vision, and the power, to create this haven for himself, and for her the sanctuary she hadn’t known she’d wanted.
    It looked like an elegant fortress, but it was home. Just home, for all its size and fierce beauty. Behind those walls, that stone and glass, was the life they’d created together. Their lives, their memories, spilled out into all those vast rooms.
    He’d given her home, she needed to remember that. And to remember that no one could take it from
    her, no one could rip her back to when she’d had nothing, had been nothing.
    No one could do that but Eve herself.
    But she was cold, so cold, and the headache was tearing through her skull like demon claws.
    She dragged herself out of the car, swayed on a hip that now ached horribly. Then she put one foot in front of the other until she’d made it up the steps, through the door.
    She barely registered Summerset, Roarke’s majordomo, glide into the foyer. She didn’t have the energy
    to spar with him, hoped she had enough to get up the stairs.
    “Don’t talk to me.” She gripped the newel post, and the cold sweat on her palms made it slick. She pulled herself un the stairs, one tread at a time.
    The effort had her breath coming short. Her chest was so tight, so tight it felt as if someone had banded steel around it.
    In the bedroom, she pulled off her coat, let it fall, dragged off her clothes as she aimed for the bathroom.
    “Jets on,” she ordered. “Full. One hundred and one degrees.”
    Naked, she stepped under the spray, into the heat. And exhausted, lowered herself to the shower floor, curled up, and let the heat and force of the water battle the cold.
    * * *
    That’s where he found her, curled on the wet tiles with water beating over her. Steam hung like a curtain. It ripped at his heart to see her.
    He grabbed a bath sheet. “Jets off,” Roarke ordered, and crouched down to bundle her up.
    “No. Don’t.” She slapped out at him, automatic defense without any sting. “Just leave me alone.”
    “Not in this