He rubbed a hand on her thigh. “Where would you like to go?”
“You’ve got something in mind. You always have something in mind.”
“I thought you might enjoy Greece, play tourist among the ancient sites, then there’s a villa on Corfu. Sun-washed beaches, olive groves, vineyards.”
“See, you always have something in mind. Your villa?”
He smiled. “Not yet. We’ll see how you like it.”
“Yeah, I’m going to be critical of a villa in Greece. What were you working on? On the tablet.”
“Not work. I was looking at the final design for Mavis’s studio.”
He picked up the tablet, brought it up for her.
“Seriously? It looks so…”
“Professional?”
“Yeah, it does. Sure, it’s got Mavis all over it. The colors—lots of color in that … I guess it’s a lounge or break area.”
“Energy, Mavis claims.”
“Play area for the kid, and the next one.”
“Kitchen area.” Roarke brought the view in. “Full bath, half bath, a dressing area. That for when she wants to get into costume. But the equipment, the studio proper—state-of-the-art. And she’s learned her art very well indeed.”
It shouldn’t be such a surprise, Eve admitted, to see the Mavis mix of the colorful and foolish with the absolute solid.
“Back when, I never thought she was serious, working at the Blue Squirrel. She didn’t sound serious, either. Not like now.”
“Suited her audience, got her attention. Her style’s still very much her own.”
“Hobe has a poster of her, signed, personalized, on her wall. I didn’t tell Mavis that.”
“No need, is there?”
“No. Mavis might’ve gone into Mike’s Place, it’s the kind of place she’d go for fun. Maybe even met Hobe at some point, but it doesn’t connect. So no point in telling her.”
“I’ll have a list of possible properties sometime today.”
“That’ll be good. I’m counting on the lab giving me something. Getting an early enough start I can hit there before Harvo or any of them get started on something else, so I can cut the line if I need to.”
She polished off most of the eggs. “I need to check in with Norman about the stripper. She doesn’t fit, but who says he can’t adjust? I need something I can start pulling out and tying together.”
“It’s been less than twenty-four hours.”
“Not for Hobe.”
She topped off her coffee, then took it with her into her closet. She half expected Roarke to come in, eyeball what she chose, but she heard him warning the cat to cease and desist.
She went for brown trousers, a navy jacket, and spotted a shirt that had needle-thin stripes of both.
How could he complain about that?
She hit on navy boots with brown laces she swore hadn’t been in there the day before.
When she came out for her weapon harness, her badge, and the rest, he waited until she’d shrugged into the jacket.
“You look ready to roll, Lieutenant.”
“Because I am. That five miles set me up.”
“It might’ve been the meditation.”
“Hope not, because I don’t think I can pull that off again. I think it was a, what do you call it, an aberration. Send me whatever you’ve got on that search. We can start slimming it down.”
“I’ll do that.” He rose, pointed a finger at the cat when Galahad took a very casual step toward the table. Then pulled Eve in and kissed her. “Take care of my cop.”
“I’ll do that.”
9
Since she’d left too early for the ad blimps to fly, Eve drove through the relative quiet of traffic snarls and horn blasts. She kept the windows down because the day dawned balmy.
Glide-carts already did brisk business with cart coffee guzzled by pedestrians trudging their way to work. Airtrams carried more—to or from—as did the maxibuses that could never seem to do more than poke along.
Delis and bakeries had their doors open. She caught whiffs of bagels and pastries along with the cart offerings of fake egg pockets.
She spotted a couple of dog walkers, a jogger who ran in place at the corner waiting for the light, a guy in a business suit riding an airboard. And the woman, eyes down on her ’link, he’d have mowed down when she walked in front of him if he hadn’t had damn good reflexes.
She shook her head when the woman shot up her middle finger at his back.