“Okay.”
“Maybe you could . . .” Mavis gestured toward the murder board.
“Oh, right.” She covered it.
“Ice. Second.”
Mavis dashed out, and as she dashed back, Eve heard Bella’s cheerful jabbering.
The kid wore what Eve decided was a Mavis and Leonardo–style slicker. More pink, lots of shiny, and decorated with rainbows. She, too, wore boots, with multicolored bows in lieu of laces, along with a frilly skirt, and a dazzling smile.
She wiggled out of Mavis’s arms, chanting: “Das, Das, Das!”
Then launched herself at Eve with a height and velocity that made Eve think the kid might develop one hell of a standing jump shot.
She hauled Bella up because what choice did she have. Said, “Hey.”
“Das!” Bella threw back her head, laughed like a lunatic so her blond curls shook against the pink unicorn clips tucking it back from her ridiculously pretty face.
Bella caught Eve’s face in her hands, shook her head, then linked arms tight around Eve’s neck. Sighed. “Das, Das, Das.”
“We haven’t said anything—unless in sort of code about top secret because somebody could blab,” Mavis explained. “But I’m pretty sure she knows something happy’s coming, and you’re the reason.”
“I’m not. I just—”
Bella leaned back, kissed Eve’s cheek. Earnestly she babbled, patting her hands on Eve’s face, then brushing them into Eve’s hair. She pulled one of the unicorns out of her curly mop, and with a kind of ferocious concentration, shoved it into Eve’s choppy hair.
“Oh hey, I don’t—”
“Pretty!” Bella beamed sunshine smiles. “Das pretty.” And kissed Eve again.
“My Bellamina, that’s so sweet, and generous. She’s learning to share. It’s important to share.” Mavis spoke directly and very deliberately to Eve—with the pretty scary addition of a steely mom stare.
“Right.” And now, Eve thought, she had a freaking pink unicorn in her hair.
“And that’s not even the present. I guess that’s an extra. Bellisima? Do you want to give Dallas her present?”
“Das!” She wiggled down. “’Res’nt, Das. Bella do. Pretty!”
Mavis took a roll of thick paper tied with a ribbon out of her enormous bag, handed it to Bella.
Smiling, lashes fluttering, Bella held it up to Eve. “Bella do. Das.”
Eve sat, untied the ribbon, unrolled the paper.
Blobs of color, splotches of more, covered it along with finger swirls and prints, dots, and shaky lines.
She said, “Wow.”
“Bella loves to paint. Finger painting’s her specialty. When I told her we were coming to see you today, she wanted to make you a painting.”
“It’s great.” And rivaled, she thought, one of Jenkinson’s most eye-burning ties for impact.
Bella crawled up into Eve’s lap, wiggled her butt down. She took Eve’s hand so they pointed together.
“Das,” she said. “Ork. Somshit. Gah-ad.” She tapped, then moved up. “Das Ork how.”
“Sss,” Mavis prompted.
“How-sss. Like cas . . .” She looked at Mavis.
“Sil.”
“Cas-sil.”
“It kinda is,” Eve agreed, a little surprised she could interpret the words, even if she still saw only blobs and splotches. “It’s really great, kid.”
More babbling, along with hopeful blue eyes. This time Eve had to look to Mavis.
“She’s hoping you’ll put it up.”
“Oh. Ah, yeah, sure. I . . . I’m going to take it home. I have to show it to Roarke, and we’ll put it up.” Somewhere.
“And Somshit?”
“Yeah. Him, too.”
“Gah-ad?”
“The whole deal. It’s great,” she said again because, strangely, it sort of was. “Thanks.”
On a happy sigh, Bella laid her head against Eve’s shoulder.
“We have to go, my Belle, and Dallas has to work.”
“Want Das.”
“We’ll see Dallas soon, but we have to go home, finish packing for our trip.”
“Go whoosh!” Bella scrambled around to face Eve, jabbering and howling with laughter.
“She loves to fly and go on trips.”
“Where are you going?”
Mavis hauled Bella up. “To New L.A. The Oscars, remember?”
Stupid, stupid Oscars. “I didn’t know you were going.”
“Not just going. I’m performing.” In a rare show of nerves, Mavis pressed a hand to her belly. “‘Hold on Tight’ is up for Best Song, and they asked me to perform. It’s not going to take it—I think ‘Take Your Rest’ has it locked, but . . . Jeez, Dallas, I’m performing at the freaking Oscars. I’m a little terrified.”
“You’ll kick ass.”
“Ass,” Bella echoed.
“Sorry.”
Mavis shook her head. “I can use the kick ass. And I’m going to try to do that.” She tipped her head to Bella’s. “Who’d’ve thought? Who’d’ve thought I’d ever have the chance to kick it at the Oscars. And I wouldn’t if it wasn’t for you.”
“Oh, bull . . . ony.”
“Primo save. It’s true. You and Roarke opened the door, and here I am. I’m never going to forget it. So, you better watch.”
“Wouldn’t miss.”
“You watch,” Mavis repeated. “Because I’m going to kick it. For my Bellamina, for my honey bear. But this time? This time most of all for you and Roarke. Gotta jump, we’re leaving tonight. Tell Dallas bye, baby.”
“Bye, Das!”
“Flip side,” Mavis said. “Cha.”
Bella blew kisses over Mavis’s shoulder as they clipped out.
Eve looked down at the finger painting. A castle-house, Roarke, a fat cat, and, okay, Somshit.
You just never knew where life would take you.
Or death, either, she thought.
She gathered her things, headed out. Despite the tie—yellow flowers over a sea of green that made her eyes want to bleed—she walked to Jenkinson’s desk.
“Anything hits I need to know, tag me. Otherwise handle it. I’m working from home.”
“Sure thing, boss.” His gaze drifted up; his lips twisted into a smug smirk.
“What?”
“Just thinking how you rag on my ties, but you got a pink unicorn in your hair.”
“I—crap!” She reached up, dragged it out. “Not on purpose. Yours is deliberate.”
Because she couldn’t just ditch it, she stuffed the clip in her pocket and tried to stride out with dignity.
* * *
By the time she got home, Eve had a reasonable plan of attack for the work. She walked in just as Summerset walked down the stairs.
His eyebrows arched up. “Has there been an alien invasion? Perhaps a zombie apocalypse?”
“We’ve got the zombie right here.” She stripped off her coat, tossed it over the newel post as he continued down. Then she dug into her file bag. “I’m supposed to show this to you.”
She unrolled the painting, held it up. “Mavis brought the kid by. It’s her work—the kid’s not Mavis’s.”
He smiled—and that was creepy. “Yes, I see. Very colorful.”
“It’s the house, and . . . the rest of us.” Eve tapped a blob. “She says this is you.” And waited a beat. “Somshit.”
He laughed—and that was way creepy. “I’m flattered.”
“Well, anyway.” Eve rolled it up again. “She wants me to put it up somewhere.” This time she waited longer than a beat.
“Naturally. It’s a long tradition in many families to display a child’s artwork on the friggie.”
“Why?”
“The kitchen’s often considered the hub or heart of the house. Though that might not be the case for you, I would think your office kitchen would serve.”
“Right.” She started up the stairs, stopped when he spoke again.
“The unrestricted love of a child is a precious gift.”
“I get that.”
“I thought you would tell him, was sure of it. I was wrong.”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “I didn’t have proof,” she began, and he said nothing. “And what good would it have done, for him, if I’d told Roarke I suspected the man he thinks of as his father killed Patrick Roarke?”
“I thought you would tell him,” Summerset said again, simply. “Due to—beyond our personal . . . friction—your duty to the law, and your loyalty to Roarke.”
“Those are exactly the reasons I didn’t tell him.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Guess not.” She started to continue up, stopped. “Okay, here it is, then it’s done. I believe absolutely in the law, the need for it, the rules of it, the need and rules of it that lead to justice. I’d be nothing without believing that. But that was a different time and place, and circumstances. You had no one in authority you could trust to serve and protect, to stand for you when a fucking monster threatened to rape, torture, and kill two children. He’d have followed through on that threat because there was no one to stop him. You did. Roarke’s here because you stopped Patrick Roarke, because you protected the child he was at that time, in that place, in those circumstances. That’s enough for me.”
“There were no cops such as you in that time and place.”
“Times change.” She continued up. “Put it away.”
“Perhaps I can,” Summerset agreed.
She stopped one more time. “You don’t get points for teaching him to be a better thief.”
That creepy smile snuck back. “His talent there was innate.”