Thankless in Death

of kids—various ages—flocked around. “He’s right.”
    “I’m supposed to talk to you mostly tomorrow when you’re not so busy, but …”
    “Go ahead.”
    That laser look came back, straight into Eve’s eyes. “You said it was for all of us. My mom and my dad and my brother, and my friend. And everyone.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Then can I touch it?”
    “Sure.” Eve crouched down, watched Nixie’s face—serious blueeyes, soft cheeks, stubborn little mouth—as the girl handled the medal.
    Then Nixie looked up. “It’s important.”
    “It’s important.”
    She smiled then, and that too-adult seriousness flicked away from her face. “I have a surprise for you.”
    “What is it?”
    Nixie rolled her eyes. “A surprise . You can see it tomorrow when we come for Thanksgiving. I’m going to say congratulations to Roarke, then we have to go. Are you looking for a bad guy now?”
    “Yeah, I am.”
    “Did he kill somebody?”
    “Yeah, he did.”
    “Then you have to catch him.”
    Simple as that, Eve thought. And maybe, on some level, it was. “That’s the plan. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “And there’s our Eve.”
    Sinead enfolded her in a hard, swaying hug. Soft skin, Eve thought, soft hair, strong arms. It was weird, this hard, loving embrace, Eve decided, like wearing the uniform was weird. Not bad, just different.
    “Oh, it’s good to see you!” Hands on Eve’s shoulders, Sinead drew back, her green eyes damp, her smile brilliant. “And so stalwart you are in your uniform. We won’t be keeping you. Summerset told us you were very busy on an investigation, but we so wanted to come and see you and our Roarke honored. It meant so much to us, Eve. So much to all of us.”
    “It meant a lot to him when he saw you.”
    “His mother would be so proud, so I’ve her pride and my own to give to both of you. And I’ll be after getting a copy of one of thosephotos of the two of you. Oh, this was such a thrill for all of us. I have to let you go, as if I don’t the whole family will swarm you. We’ll wait till you’re home to do that then.”
    With a laugh, Sinead kissed Eve’s cheek.
    She got caught a couple more times before Kyung touched her arm. “Excuse me, Lieutenant, you’re needed over here for a moment. I’m extracting you,” he murmured near her ear as he steered her away.
    “Great. Good.”
    “Roarke assures me he can handle his own extraction, and I imagine he does so often.”
    “Yeah, he’s slippery.”
    “You did very, very well,” he said, maneuvering her back into the staging area, then through.
    “You, too. You got me out in under ten. I can take it from here.”
    “Then I’ll go back and have some cake.”
    That hitched her exit stride. “There was cake?”
    “You wanted out in ten.”
    “Yeah.” She sighed. “Talk about sacrifices.” But she hopped a glide and headed back to the locker room to change.
    She hung up her uniform, put the medal in its case. Then wondered what she should do with it. Her office for now, she decided. She should probably take it home, put it away there.
    She tucked it under her arm, stepped back out through the bullpen.
    Her men rose, which would have put her right back to choked if they hadn’t all been wearing sunshades. Carmichael had put the crazy horse tie back on.
    So the ovation made her laugh, and put her right back where she wanted to be.

    “Get back to work, you idiots.”
    “We saved you some cake,” Peabody told her.
    “Seriously?” The idea of so much as a crumb getting past her men was as shocking as a stunner blast.
    “In your office.”
    “I take the ‘idiots’ back. Get to work anyway.”
    She walked into her office, touched and still surprised to see the neat piece of cake on a small disposable plate on her desk. She stowed the medal in a drawer, programmed coffee.
    And sitting at her desk, broke off a corner of the cake, and got back to work herself.
    Fifty-five minutes, she thought. Longer than she’d hoped, but still the whole thing had taken under an hour. And what, she wondered, had Reinhold been up to for the last fifty-five minutes?
    H e had a plan. No reason he could see why it wouldn’t work—and he’d have some fun with it. Plus, changing things up would save him some legwork. His foot still hurt like a bitch !
    He sent the droid out with a shopping list, and instructions to buy each item at a different shop.
    And while he had the apartment to himself, he blasted music as he