“You’ve still a worry in there.”
“A couple.” But she ate. Not just because she was hungry, but because she needed and wanted the fuel. “She wants to break you. She wants the big pile of money, yeah, but she really wants to hurt you along with it. How much does she know about your… former profession?”
“Well, she certainly knows details about any jobs we pulled while together. But together puts her in a very bad light as well. In any case, I don’t leave a trail. Add she tried that once, and it didn’t work for her.”
“Can she put you at Filthy Rich Estate when oops, the Duchess of Filthy Rich’s solid gold underwear goes missing?”
“First, the market’s too narrow to steal gold underwear, but had I done so, she might try to claim I was there. But again, had I done so, I would have already put myself, and solidly, elsewhere.”
He reached over for her hand. “Put that worry away. She was good. I was better.”
Not away, Eve thought, but she could—for now—put it aside.
“The other thing. I have to update EDD, Whitney, Peabody, and that’s going to bring in my bullpen, Tibble. I have to update them on Magdelana.”
“And her connection to me.”
“That’s right. I have to do that without saying the two of you pulled jobs together in the before. They’ll know it, but I can’t clarify or confirm it without putting them in a squeeze.”
“I do cause you problems,” he murmured.
“Yeah, like inventing, designing, manufacturing the magic lining that spared me a stab in the back. I think we can call it a wash. I know my people, Roarke. There’s not one of them who’d turn on you.”
“I know that. I’m honored by that. But.”
“But. I need to approach your connection to her as strictly personal, romantic. She’s the old classic. The woman dumped.”
“It’s scorned, but comes to the same.”
“You dumped her, she tried to jam you up, failed. Some years later, she tries to sex you up—”
He couldn’t stop the smile. “Really?”
“She was wrapped around you like ivy before I punched the pair of you.”
“I’ll remind you I was not wrapped around her.”
“Regardless, she tried, failed. Now—if this comes up at all—she’d like to jam you up again. More, she’s tried to have me killed. Get me out of the way on two levels—personal and over the investigation.”
“That would be true. All of that’s largely truth, except she left me, looking for a bigger payday. And the sex me up? Deliberately insulting on your part.”
“You think?” Now she smiled, sipped. “Anyway, I’ll handle it. So will you.”
“I need to be there, be part of it when you take her down. And I know you will.”
“I want you there, I need you to be part of it. That’s personal and professional.”
“All right then. Where do you want me? In the lab working with EDD, or in my office, working on the finances?”
“Maybe check in with EDD, with whoever’s working it overtime. But the finances are key.” She sat back. “Let’s get to work.”
Eve decided the hell with Earth rotation and contacted wife number four yet again.
Hair wild, eyes a little crazed, Lacey answered.
“I’m sorry to disturb you again,” Eve began.
“Whose idea was it we’d each take a day to cook? Mine. What was I thinking? Why did I think I could or should make a pot roast? The kids’d be happy with canned spaghetti, but I’m cooking this huge slab of cow.”
