Survivor in Death by J. D. Robb

had her hand in his, and the cat at her feet.
    “Isn’t this a fine welcome?” Roarke shrugged out of his coat. “How are you, Nixie?”
    She looked at him—all blue eyes—and nearly smiled. “Okay. We made apple pie.”
    “Did you now?” Roarke bent to pick up the cat when Galahad slithered over to rub against his legs. “That’s a favorite of mine.”
    “You can make a little one with the leftovers. That’s what I did.” Then those eyes, big and blue, lasered into Eve’s. “Did you catch them yet?”
    “No.” Eve tossed her jacket over the newel post, and for once Summerset didn’t snark or sneer at the habit. “Investigations like this take some time.”
    “Why? Screen shows with cops don’t take very long.”
    “This isn’t a vid.” She wanted to go upstairs, clear her mind for five minutes, then start back over the case, point by point. But those eyes stayed on her face, both accusing and pleading.
    “I told you I’d get them, and I will.”
    “When?”
    She started to swear, might not have choked it back in time, but Roarke played a hand gently down her arm and spoke first. “Do you know, Nixie, that Lieutenant Dallas is the best cop in the city?”
    Something, maybe it was speculation, passed over Nixie’s face. “Why?”
    “Because she won’t stop. Because it matters so much to her that she takes care of people who’ve been hurt, she can’t stop. If someone of mine had been hurt, I’d want her to be the one in charge.”
    “Baxter says she’s a major butt-kicker.”
    “Well, then.” Now Roarke smiled fully. “He’d be right.”
    “Where are they?” Eve asked. “Baxter and Trueheart?”
    “In your office,” Summerset told her. “Dinner will be served in fifteen minutes. Nixie, we need to set the table.”
    “I’m just going to—”
    This time Roarke took Eve’s hand, squeezed. “We’ll be down.”
    “I’ve got work,” Eve began as they went up the stairs. “I don’t have time to—”
    “I think we need to make time. An hour won’t hurt, Eve, and I’d say that child needs as much normalcy as we can manage. Dinner, at the table, is normal.”
    “I don’t see what’s more normal about shoveling in food off a big flat surface than shoveling it in at your desk. It’s multitasking. It’s efficient.”
    “She scares you.”
    She stopped dead, and her eyes went to lethal slits. “Just where the hell do you come off saying that?”
    “Because she scares me, too.”
    Temper flickered over her face for a moment, then everything relaxed. “Really? Really? You’re not just saying that?”
    “Those big eyes, full of courage and terror and grief. What could be more frightening? There she stands, such a little thing, all that pretty hair, tidy jeans and jumper—sweater,” he corrected. “And that need just radiating out of her. We’re supposed to have the answers, and we don’t.”
    Eve let out a breath as she looked back toward the stairs. “I haven’t even figured out all the questions.”
    “So we’ll have dinner with her, and do what we can to show her that there’s normalcy and decency left in the world.”
    “Okay, okay, but I need to debrief my men.”
    “I’ll meet you downstairs. Fifteen minutes.”
    She found normal in her office, where a couple of cops—who’d obviously raided her AutoChef—were chowing down while they studied murder. On her wall screens, each Swisher bedroom, each victim, was displayed while Baxter and Trueheart chomped on cow meat.
    “Steak.” Baxter forked up another bite. “Do you know the last time I had real cow? I’d kiss you, Dallas, but my mouth’s full.”
    “Summerset said it was okay.” Trueheart, young and fresh in his uniform, offered her a hopeful grin.
    She merely shrugged, then turned so that she, too, had full view of the screens. “What’s your take?”
    “Big red check to everything in your report.” Baxter continued to eat, but his expression was sober now. “Slick job. And a mean one.