Page 65 of Passions in Death
She looked at the house that Roarke built as the quieting summer sun dropped in the west. Her home, she thought, inside the city that was her home.
Then she looked at him, the man who’d made home more than she’d ever known it could be.
“That was damn productive pizza.”
Chapter Ten
Eve expected Summerset to have retired to his rooms for the evening, but he loomed.
She started to make a crack about vampires rising at sunset, but the cat padded over. Then stopped an inch from her boots.
Galahad hissed, arched his back, then on a throaty growl, sent Eve a hard, feline stare out of his bicolored eyes.
“What’s your problem? The rat dog? Are you kidding me? Jesus, I never even touched that little rat dog.”
In response, Galahad turned his back on her, stuck up his tail like an exclamation point, then stalked back to Summerset.
“I can’t control every freaking dog in the city. Get over it, tubby.”
Because she felt guilty, and that made her feel ridiculous, she stalked up the stairs without another word.
“He’s a very proprietary cat,” Summerset commented to Roarke.
“So it seems. I expect they’ll both get over it. Go, relax. Enjoy your evening.”
As Roarke started up, Summerset glanced down at the cat. “Now, now, the children are home safe, and all’s well. No little rat dog could hold a candle to you.”
Apparently mollified, Galahad trotted up the stairs.
“What an interesting family we make,” Summerset murmured, and went back to his quarters to enjoy his evening.
In her office, stewing, Eve began to set up her board.
“The stripper’s grandmother had one of those yappy dogs that looks like an overgrown rat.”
“A Chihuahua?”
“Maybe. Whatever. It sniffed at my boots. I mean, for Christ’s sake, a boot-sniffing rat dog is the least of my problems out in the field. For all I know at this point, the woman with the boot-sniffing rat dog may have a murderer for a granddaughter. But he doesn’t think of that.”
“I’m quite sure he doesn’t, possibly due to the fact he’s a cat.”
Roarke watched the cat in question saunter in, ignore Eve, then take sprawling possession of her sleep chair.
He decided it was wiser not to mention it.
“I’ll just start on those financials.” And, he thought, retire from this particular field.
Eve finished the board, programmed coffee, sat at her desk to open her murder book.
The cat wasn’t the only one capable of ignoring, with attitude.
Because she knew there was something there, she started a deeper run on ChiChi Lopez.
Her great-grandparents had crossed the border into the States—documentation vague on exactly when and where. But all four of their children had been born in the U.S. The younger two, including Anna Maria Lopez, née Delgato, had been born in New York.
The restaurant had started as a food truck, then two food trucks. Anna Maria Delgato married Juan Lopez, and they had four kids while helping run the food trucks—now numbering three.
And their four kids had kids—a hell of a lot of kids, Eve noted. Among them, ChiChi, age twenty-nine.
