J. Robb - Survivor in Death

She nodded. “You're having a baby. Can I touch it?”

“You bet. Sometimes it bumps around in there, and it feels really frosty.” Mavis laid her hand over Nixie's. “Gotta cook a while longer. In the new vid I've got this totally mag belly painting going on. Why don't you go plug the disc in. I'll come watch it with you.”

“Okay, thanks.” Nixie looked up at Eve. “You said you'd bring her, and you did. Thanks.”

When Nixie raced off to the parlor, Eve stepped up, laid a hand on Mavis's shoulder. “I appreciate this.”

“Poor kid. Man, makes you misty.” She laid a hand on her belly, blinked her emerald lashes. “Look, if I can give her a couple hours of fun, that's what it's all about. Hey! Bump!” She grabbed Eve's hand, slapped it to the side of her belly.

“Jesus, don't! Whoa!” She jerked when something kicked against her palm.

“Is that uptown or what?”

“Or what.”

But curiosity had her eyeing the ball of Mavis's belly as the little kicks continued. It was kind of… she wasn't sure. A happy little beat, and not nearly as creepy as she'd expected. “What the hell's it doing in there, dancing?”

“It's swimming and stretching and rolling. I'm so knocked up now its nostrils are opening, and he's got these little air sacs-”

Eve whipped her hand clear, tucked it safely behind her back as Mavis laughed. And her own hands gently caressed her belly as she looked toward the stairs. “Hi, Dr. Mira.”

“Mavis. I'd say you're glowing, but I've never known you otherwise. I will say you look wonderfully healthy.”

“Feeling TIT these days. Totally In Tune.”

“I didn't know you were already here,” Eve said.

“A few minutes before you. I've been upstairs speaking to Roarke. He'll be right down. Ms. Barrister, Mr. DeBlass, and their son have just been cleared through the gate.”

“I'll go keep Nixie entertained.” Mavis gave Eve a bolstering pat on the arm and swirled her way into the parlor. “Hit it, Nix!” she called out, and there was a blast of what could be called, in some cultures, music.

“I guess that's showtime,” Eve declared, and walked to the front door.

IT WAS AN ODD GROUP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, Eve supposed. Odder yet when she was trying to pay attention to the chitchat, watch the kid for reactions, structure a major operation, coordinate her team, and play hostess.

Richard and Elizabeth had weathered the storm of murder, scandal, and horror, and looked the stronger for it. She watched them both engage Nixie in conversation, together and separately. The kid was polite, and distracted enough, Eve thought, by both Mavis and a child near her own age, to enjoy herself.

It was a strange group. But from the sound of conversation, Eve seemed to be the only one who thought so.

She slipped away long enough to check on Peabody's progress with the real estate angle, and thought it showed strength of character to leave the comfort of cop work to head back down to social hour.

Elizabeth Barrister waylaid her in the foyer. “She's a beautiful child.”

“She's got spine.”

“She must, and she'll need it as time goes on. Grief comes in waves. Just when you think you've weathered one, another swamps you again.”

Elizabeth Barrister, Eve thought, knew plenty about grief. “It's a lot to take on, from your position.”

Elizabeth shook her head as she glanced toward the parlor. “We made mistakes, Richard and I. So many. Too many. And we've accepted that our daughter paid for them.”

“Senator DeBlass was responsible.”

“From your position,” Elizabeth agreed. “But she was our child, and we made mistakes. We've been given another chance with Kevin. He's lit up our lives.”

There was no question of that, Eve noted, when just saying his name litElizabeth 's face.

“We'd give Nixie a home, if she wants it. Give her a chance to heal. We'd be good for her, I think. Kevin certainly would. They're already making friends. She's been telling him about the game room, which is, apparently, the ult. I wonder if I could take them in for a while.”

“Sure. I'll show you where it is.”

Eve remembered Kevin as a scrawny kid of about six with ragged clothes and a bony cat in tow. He'd filled out, cleaned up, grown a couple of inches, and showed a gap-toothed grin as he clutched a pudgy Galahad in his arms.

“He's fat,” Kevin said cheerfully. “But he's soft.”

“Yeah, well…” Galahad aimed his dual-colored eyes at Eve in a way that promised payback for the indignity. “You don't have to carry him.”

“I like to. I have a cat named Dopey, and now I have a puppy, too, named Butch. I go to school and I eat like a horse.”

Behind them, Elizabeth laughed. “He certainly does.”

“If I had a horse.” The way Kevin slid his eyes slyly in his mother's direction told Eve he knew where the butter was best slathered. “I would ride him like a cowboy.”

“One step at a time, little man. Let's see how you handle Butch. Do you like horses, Nixie?”

“I got to pet one that pulls a carriage around the park. It was nice.”

At his first sight of the nirvana of Roarke's game room, Kevin let out a shout, dumped Galahad on the floor, and raced to the closest arcade game.

“I'll take it from here,” Elizabeth told Eve. “I've become an expert in this arena.”

With considerable relief, Eve left her to it. And took the opportunity to head back upstairs.

This time, Webster was leaning over Peabody 's shoulder.

“Stop crowding my partner,” Eve snapped.

Webster straightened, but held his ground. “I have to head downtown shortly, give my report.”

“Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. What've you got?” she asked Peabody.

“Looks like you hit on something with the properties. I've got what you call a townstone on the Moss's block. Purchased three months after the custody resolution in the name of the Triangle Group. No financing, so they plunked down the whole-considerable-shot. No income until six weeks after Moss's death. Got rentals coming in after that. Tenants are clean and unconnected as far as I can tell. Triangle Group also owns, since March 2054, a two-family building two blocks south of the hospital where Brenegan was murdered. Tenants in and out, every six months like clockwork. I think we might find some of the names from Cassandra or Doomsday in here.”

“Kirkendall, Clinton, Isenberry. Triangle Group. Cute. We tie them to it.”

“It's a tangle, Dallas.”

She paced away, paced back. Webster was a solid cop, she knew. But he was still IAB. Overtime was racking up, and nothing made the review board, the brass, the nut crunchers bitch like unauthorized OF.

But there were ways around it.

“You're past shift,” she said to Peabody. “You and the rest of the team. Clock out.”

“But we've got-”

“You're off the clock.” She smiled thinly at Webster as she spoke. “What you do with your own time, in your own home, isn't my business. Or the department's. You want to do something useful,” Eve told Webster. “Go file your report. Get them off my back for the next forty-eight.”

“I can do that. Give the detective her orders. I've gone suddenly and strangely deaf.”

“Shoot this to your desk unit and get down to Central.”

“Do you want to move on these buildings?”

“Tomorrow. Try for at least six hours' downtime. We're going to put this in place tomorrow. We move this team back to Central, avoid inquiries from IAB about what the hell we're doing here. Get a conference room booked for seven hundred tomorrow. Tell the rest of the team to do the same or work from home.”

She could see it, and in her head was already outlining strategy.