18 Portrait in Death

Author:J.D. Robb
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

Epilogue

Her puke green police issue was in front of the house when Roarke arrived, so he knew Eve was home before him.

He wasn't ready to talk to her or anyone else for that matter. But he could hardly ignore the fact that the man who'd stood in as his father for most of his life was laid up with a broken leg.

He'd check on Summerset, then try to sweat out some of the fatigue and frustration in the gym, swim a few laps. Maybe get good and drunk. Whatever worked.

Meetings hadn't. The day-to-day demands of running or overseeing his business hadn't. Nothing had been able to erase the image of a pretty redhead with a bruised face from his mind.

So he'd just try something else.

He stepped inside, relieved—and guilty for the relief—that Eve wasn't in the foyer, or the front parlor. At the moment, he was forced to admit he wasn't feeling quite equipped to go up against her again.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so bloody tired, and so off his stride.

Setting his briefcase aside, he glanced toward the wide curve of stairs. Likely she was up and at work in her home office, and with any luck she'd be busy with whatever case was occupying her for some time yet.

Still, he hesitated. He wasn't handling her well. Wasn't handling a bloody thing well, come to that. He just needed a bit more time to himself. A man was entitled to that, wasn't he?

Surely a man was entitled to a little time to think, for Christ's sake, when his whole life had been turned inside out.

He dragged a hand through his hair and cursed under his breath as he walked back to Summerset's quarters.

He heard the blast of music from three rooms away, and nearly turned on his heel in retreat. Mavis. God knew he adored the woman, but he didn't have the energy for her just now.

On the other hand, with her there, he could make this duty visit all the quicker.

At any other time it would have amused him to see his dignified majordomo stripped to the waist and stretched out in a sleep chair having blue goo slathered on his face. Trina, one of the few people on or off planet who actively terrified his wife, was doing the honors as she shuffled her feet to the beat of one of Mavis's music discs.

She'd chopped off her raven black hair close to the scalp and had a neon pink design of a butterfly dyed over the crown. She'd repeated the motif with temporary tattoos—or so he assumed—at the corner of her mouth, and in a running line, necklace style, over her shoulders and along the tops of her impressive breasts.

Her partner in crime was pouring some sort of pink foam into a wide pitcher. There was no way to tell whether it was intended for topical or internal use.

Mavis still had her bells on, and had donned a sunny yellow romper with a woman wearing a black g-string and leather boots painted across the butt.

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