Page 138 of Bonded in Death

Despite the guests, when they walked in, Summerset loomed in his black suit. Not unlike, Eve realized, the suit Potter had worn when he’d shotather.

The cat sat at his feet, then rose, stretched, before walking over to ribbon through her legs, then through Roarke’s.

“Briefing, my office in ten. Everyone.”

“Very well. There was a brief bulletin regarding an unidentified male deploying an illegal weapon in the East Village this afternoon.”

“Ten minutes,” Eve repeated, and went up the stairs.

“She’s a bit out of sorts,” Roarke told him. “She’ll explain.”

“There’s a bit of blood on her trousers.”

“You always had a sharp eye. She’ll explain that as well. Or I will. Where are our guests?”

“Scattered about. I’ll bring them up.”

When Roarke joined Eve, she stood updating her board. The cat stretched out on her sleep chair.

“Why don’t I check on your search? I may be able to filter and refine.”

“It’ll probably need a lot of both if I want to find him this decade.”

“You’re discouraged, and you shouldn’t be.”

“I’ll get over it.”

“You identified him, proved he faked his own death, established his motive, brought his kill list to a safe location. Located a bomb, saw it deactivated. You saved lives. And now you have the face he bought himself.”

She’d pat herself on the back for all that later. Because…

“He’s going to escalate. I don’t know how, when, but the way he aimed at those civilians today?” She stepped back from the board. “I saw his face, the look on it. He wanted to distract and delay me, yeah, but it was more. He enjoyed the idea of it, like he was back in the past. In a street war. It was a tactic, sure, and it worked. But it was more.

“If we don’t find him soon, stop him soon, someone’s going to die. It won’t be one of The Twelve. He can’t get to them as long as they’re here. He’ll pick someone else, someone he can get to. He won’t count the risk. He lives for the risk.”

Hands in pockets, she circled the board. “Someone he can get to. Potentially use to get to them, or me. Or you,” she said, turning to him. “You’re in it, too. You’re Summerset’s, you’re mine, and he knows it. And you’re a big, shiny risk.”

“Is that what’s worrying you? I can promise you, he won’t get to me. Should he try, he’ll not only fail, but you’ll have him.”

“I don’t think he will.” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “It’s too direct, and he’d know how covered you are. For a risk-taker, he’s still a coward. Direct confrontation, not so much. Duplicity, betrayal, that’s his style. But I’m allowed to worry some. Marriage Rules.”

“Of course. I’m refining this here and there, then I’m opening a bottle of wine. Or, considering our guests, two bottles.”

“I’m working.”

“And a glass of wine hasn’t impaired you before. It may relax you enough to open a new channel.”

“I could use a new damn channel.”

When he finished refining, he went into the kitchen, and Eve sat to scan the search results as they trickled in.

He came back with a tray holding a platter of various cheeses, thin crackers, olives. Little plates, little napkins.

“You’re always feeding people.”

“We both went hungry often enough as children. So we know, or should, that hunger can distract, cause the mind to stay unfocused. And food, well, it can open those channels.”

He set the food on the table, opened her terrace doors to air washed clean by the day’s rain.

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