Page 24 of Fury In Death

“Maybe. I’ll find out.”

“No doubt.” He rose, pointed a warning at the cat, then lifted Eve’s chin. His finger brushed down the shallow dent in it before he laid his lips on hers.

“Take particular care of my cop today, will you then?”

“I can do that. He’s making a slow advance.”

Roarke glanced over, saw the cat had slithered about half the distance. “Honestly, boyo, you can’t possibly be hungry.”

“It’s not hunger. It’s bacon.”

With that, Eve headed downstairs. She decided it was a toss-up whether Roarke would hold the line or cave and give the cat a bite of bacon.

She went outside—a bit cool, but very bright. So he was right about the sunshades.

Her ride waited, and she found the shades in the console where either she’d put them or Roarke had.

Another toss-up.

She drove through the gates, started downtown through what, after a single block, became miserable traffic.

The city, she thought, had some of the best public transportation in the known universe. And still.

Of course, she sat behind the wheel of one of the cars inching along, looking for a break to zip forward.

But she had a reason.

Still, she settled into it, another routine. Avoiding the lumbering maxibuses, the surely insane bike messengers. On the sidewalk, people clipped right along to start their day or crowded around carts for terrible coffee or a fake egg pocket.

A deli, open for business, seemed to be doing a lot of it. A woman in a business suit skimmed along on an airboard, flipped it up at a light to wait.

Eve found herself both baffled and impressed that she did so in heels.

Some guy in running gear, obviously finished with that task, came out of a twenty-four/seven chowing down on a breakfast burrito.

She had no qualms with breakfast burritos, but if you ate one from a twenty-four/seven, you risked all matter of gastronomical issues she didn’t want to think about.

Ad blimps over Midtown blared about boot season.

She considered it always boot season.

She also considered it a reasonable enough hour to tap Louise Dimatto.

“Dallas, hey. You just caught me before my first patient.”

Louise’s hair, sunny and currently sleek, framed her pretty face. Eve knew well enough the sunny would be tousled long before the end of the day.

She might be a small woman, but she moved like a missile.

“Two minutes. You know a Bradley Chu?”

“Sure, I know Brad. He— Oh shit. Oh shit! What happened to him?”

“Not him, his father. Did you know Lawrence Chu?”

“No, not really. I met him a couple of times. Brad’s father’s dead?”

“Killed yesterday. Beaten, Louise. Beaten so when I get to the morgue, I wouldn’t be surprised if Morris tells me every bone is his body was broken.”