1
Paperwork could kill.
Nothing, to Eve Dallas’s mind, reached the same heights—or depths—as paperwork’s terminal boredom.
And if the boredom didn’t kill you, the frustration would.
She had to survive it. As NYPSD’s Homicide Division’s lieutenant, she had to survive it.
But it seemed desperately clear to her, as she sat at her desk in her tiny office in Cop Central, that by spring of 2061, somebody sure as hell should have found a cure.
Didn’t she deserve that when she’d come in early, and full of righteousness, to tackle it? She’d known it would be thornier than usual, but even so, she’d underestimated.
It wasn’t every day she ended up taking her whole damn squad in pursuit of a contract killer. On two continents. Wouldn’t have happened, she thought as she struggled with numbers, a lot of numbers, if said contract killer hadn’t put a target on her husband’s back.
And hers.
Since he had, the men and women who served under her, along with a chunk of cops from EDD and her commander, had stood up, stepped up, and had refused to back down.
Maybe Roarke had ordered the shuttle for the flight from New York so she didn’t have to figure out how to add that terrifying expense into her budget, into her report.
Because she’d married a stubborn Irishman, and a filthy rich one.
And sure, the takedown happened on his family’s farm in Clare, with his aunt and the rest of them capping it off with enough food for an army. So no chits for meals.
But the overtime. Preapproved by Commander Whitney, yes, but Christ on a spreadsheet, the OT boggled. Then she had the regs to meet for payment due on international investigations.
Paperwork could not only kill, she thought as she gulped coffee. It could kill slowly and painfully.
Once, as she worked, her partner, Detective Peabody, clumped down the hall to Eve’s office in her pink cowgirl boots. And poked her cheery self into the room.
One snarl had her clomping away again.
And eighty-seven minutes after she’d sat down at her desk, Eve finished—every chit, every hour, every approved expense accounted for.
She submitted it—and woe be-fucking-tide any flat-nose in Accounting who questioned her. Then she laid her head on the desk, closed her glassy eyes a moment.
“No more numbers,” she muttered. “In the name of humanity, no more numbers.”
She sat up, rubbed her hands over her angular face, then back through her choppy crop of brown hair. Rising, she walked to her AutoChef, because she damn well deserved another hit of coffee.
As she drank it, she stood at her skinny window looking out at her view of New York. A tall, lanky woman, she wore good boots, smoke gray like her trousers, and the vest over her white T-shirt and weapon harness.
While her wedding ring was her only visible jewelry, she wore a fat diamond on a chain under her shirt. Both pieces Roarke had given her held equal fat slices of sentiment.
She watched the airtrams wind through a blue sky. The weather gods offered the city a perfect day in May. Sunny and seventies.
The poor bastards heading to their cubes inside one of the steel towers might not drink in much of it. But it was still there. And since she’d survived Death by Expense Report, she could appreciate it.
A good day, she thought, and tugged her window open a couple of inches.
With the kicky little breeze flowing in, she went back to her desk to see what else had piled up since her last shift.
Her communicator signaled.
She saw Dispatch on the readout.
“Dallas.”
Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Possible homicide. See the officers …
As she listened to the particulars, she grabbed her jacket off the back of her desk chair and headed out to the bullpen to get her partner.
Somebody hadn’t had such a perfect day in May.
“Acknowledged. Dallas and Peabody, Detective Delia, en route. Peabody,” she said, still moving, “we caught one.”
Her stride hitched briefly as she blinked at Jenkinson’s tie. She should be used to the detective’s insane ties by now, she thought, but who got used to fat, bug-eyed yellow bumblebees buzzing over a neon-orange field?
Nobody did. Nobody ever should.
Peabody grabbed her coat and hustled to catch up. She wore curls today, her dark hair red-streaked and bouncy.
Something else Eve couldn’t get used to.
“What’ve we got?”
“Dead body, West Fourth, two uniforms on scene. Interestingly, the nine-one-one came in from the Upper East Side. Two more uniforms being dispatched to that location to speak to the woman who called it in.”
“How does somebody on the Upper East Side know somebody’s dead in the West Village?” Peabody pondered it while Eve made a heel-turn away from the elevator, already crowded with cops, techs, civilian support heading down.
They took the glides.
“Dispatch didn’t have that data.”
“You got in early today.”
“Paperwork. Done. Don’t want to talk about it.”
“McNab and I left early enough to walk in. You’ve got to take advantage of a day like this.”
“Because, like the DB on West Fourth found out, it could be your last.”
Hoping for the best, Eve jumped off the glides to try an elevator. Since she found it only about half as full as the one on Homicide’s level, she squeezed in.
“Mostly we thought it was a really nice morning for a walk.”
They squeezed off again on the garage level. Their footsteps echoed as they crossed to Eve’s car.
“We walk a lot when we’re in the field,” Peabody continued as they got in the car. “But it’s not the same as, you know, sort of strolling along. New York in the spring. I mean, it’s just mag.”
Eve pulled out into the insane traffic, the cacophony of angry horns, the bellowing ad blimps, and the farting maxibuses that was New York in the spring.
But what the hell; on Eve’s scale it was mag, any time of the year.
“And hey, Mavis, Bella, and I spent two amazing hours in the community gardens the other day. We’ve got a nice plot going.”
Eve thought of Mavis, her oldest friend—the performer, the mother, the crazed fashion plate, the pregnant-again Mavis. She could see Mavis doing a lot of things—strange things—but digging in the dirt didn’t make the list.
“She’s really doing that?”
“She’s good at it,” Peabody confirmed. “Good hands, good eye. I grew up farming, that’s the Free-Ager way, but she’s a natural. And Bella’s so cute in her little gardening outfits. Oh, and she has a boyfriend.”
“Mavis has a what? She’s married, knocked up again and married.”
“No, Bella has a boyfriend. His name’s Ned. He’s twenty-two—months. He’s got all this curly red hair, all these freckles. Mavis dubbed him Adorablicious, and she nailed it. They’re really cute together. His parents, Jem and Linc, are just learning how to garden. Jem’s a blogger, and Linc’s a biochemist.”
“Is this gardening or a social club?”
“It can be both, that’s the beauty.” She turned her head to grin at Eve. “You’d hate it.”
No question of that, Eve thought as she hunted for parking. But still.