Page 84 of Concealed in Death

“Up, up, up! Das.”

“Okay, okay.” Flustered, Eve reached down. Bella took it from there, all but climbing into Eve’s arms, then clapping both hands on Eve’s cheeks while she jabbered in the foreign language of baby.

“’Kay? ’Kay?” She made an exaggerated mmmm! sound as she pressed her lips to Eve’s.

“Yeah, sure.” It was hard not to grin around a kid just that pretty and happy, but the timing... But when Eve tried to set her down again, Bella clung like a burr, dropped the foreign tongue to a hissy whisper in Eve’s ear. Then laughed deep from the belly at the joke only she knew.

And with a bounce, she twisted in Eve’s arms, gave Eve a hot moment of sheer panic before she tried to fly across to Roarke.

“Ork!”

“Good idea. Great idea.” Mentally swiping sweat from her brow, Eve shoved Bella at Roarke.

He received similar treatment—hands, jabber, kiss—and his reaction slid along the same lines as Eve’s, until Bella tilted her head to one side and batted her lashes like a pro.

Despite it all, he laughed, found she seemed less likely to slip out of his hold when she settled on his hip. “And look at you now, quite the flirt already.”

She smiled, just a little sly, played with his hair.

“Men are her playthings.” Mavis’s voice trembled a little before she sipped the wine Summerset offered her.

“Perhaps she can keep me company for a while.” Stooping, Summerset picked up the toy.

“She’d like that,” Mavis began. “If she gets in the way—”

“Pretty girls are never in the way.” Smoothly, Summerset plucked her from Roarke, balanced her on his bony hip with an ease of motion that baffled Eve. Bella launched into a fresh spate of babbling, feet cheerfully kicking in fuzzy pink boots.

“I think that can be arranged,” Summerset told her as he carried her out.

She patted his cheek, said something that sounded like “some shit.” Eve found herself puzzling over it, until she put it together.

Shum shit. Summerset.

Now that she could appreciate.

Bella grinned over his shoulder, waved a hand. “Bye-bye! Bye-bye!”

“Someshit—that’s her name for him. You gotta love it. Did he actually understand her?” Eve wondered.

“She was flirting for cookies,” Mavis said, then just sat, closed her eyes.

“Mavis, what happened?” Leonardo sat beside her, cuddled her as he would a child. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“The girls. We heard the media blast, remember? All those girls. Roarke’s building. They said it was your building.”

“Just recently, yes.”

“I think, sometimes, I think maybe it’s all a big, wicked loop. Who you know, what you do, where you are. I knew some of the girls, Leonardo. Some of the girls they found in Roarke’s building. The girls on Dallas’s dead board upstairs. His building, her case. My friends, from another life.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He pressed his lips to her hair, rocked her.

“I don’t know why it’s screwing me up like this. It was a million years ago, and I hardly thought about them, ever. But... seeing them, and knowing, and they looked like they did. Mostly like they did.”

“What can you tell me about them?” Eve began, and Roarke put a hand on her shoulder.

“Eve.”

“Look, I’m sorry.” Instead of taking a chair, Eve sat on the table directly facing Mavis. “I know it’s rough, but if you knew them, even a million years ago, something you know might help me find who killed them, and why.”