In Death 18 - Divided in Death by authors_sort Page B

remains top level. I’ve discussed this with no one, until now, but Roarke himself. In the office. This is global security, Lieutenant,” she said with brisk disapproval in her tone. “It isn’t coffee talk.”
    “I’m not bringing it up to juice up the cookies.”
    “They’re great cookies,” Peabody piped up, and earned a scowl from Eve. “I bet you get them from a bakery.”
    Caro smiled a little. “Yes, I do.”
    “We always had fresh cookies in the house when I was a kid. Now that we’re grown up, my mom still has them around. Habit,” Peabody said, and took another bite. “You probably always had them around when Reva was a kid.”
    “I did.”
    “I guess especially when you’re raising a kid on your own, you tend to be close, and a mom gets to be even more protective.”
    “Probably.” The stiffness in Caro’s voice, in her body language relaxed. “Though I’ve tried, always, to give her room. Independence.”
    “Still worry, like you said. Like when she was with the Secret Service. Probably worried some, too, like moms do, when she got serious about Blair.”
    “Yes, a bit. Still, she was a grown woman.”
    “My mom always said we can get as old as we want, she’s still our mom. Did you run Bissel, Ms. Ewing?”
    Caro started to speak, then flushed and stared hard at the window. “I . . . she’s my only child. Yes. I’m ashamed to say I did. I know I asked you specifically not to,” she said to Roarke. “Made a point of it, even an issue of it with you.”
    “I did two levels anyway.”
    “Well, of course. Of course, you did.” Her hand fluttered to her face, then fell back into her lap. “She was an employee, after all.” She sighed now. “I knew you would do that much. You have to protect yourself, your holdings.”
    “I wasn’t only thinking of myself, Caro, or my holdings.”
    She reached out, touched his hand. “No, I know that. But I also knew, because I asked—well, demanded, really—you wouldn’t go deeper than that. And I swore to myself I wouldn’t. I absolutely would not interfere in such an underhanded way with my daughter’s life. Then I did. Another full level. And I used your resources to do it. I’m terribly sorry.”
    “Caro.” He picked up her hand, kissed her fingers gently. “I was perfectly aware of what you did. I had no problem with it.”
    “Oh.” She let out a shaky laugh. “How foolish of me. Remarkably.”
    “How could you do that, Mom?” Reva stepped into the room. Her eyes were ravaged, her hair disordered from sleep. “How could you go behind my back that way?”

Chapter 5
    Roarke got to his feet and moved so smoothly, so subtly between mother and daughter, Eve wondered if anyone noticed that he’d placed himself as Caro’s shield.
    “For that matter, Reva, so did I, go behind your back, as it were.”
    “You’re not my mother.” She bit the words off as she stepped forward, and Roarke simply shifted his body without seeming to move at all.
    “Which would mean, all in all, I had less of a right.” He spoke easily, drawing his cigarette case out of his pocket. The gesture, Eve noted, distracted Reva. If only for a moment. “Do you mind, Caro?” he asked, very pleasant.
    “No.” Flustered, she looked around, then rose. “I’ll get an ashtray.”
    “Thanks. Of course you could say I did the basic run on Blair as your employer. And that would be true.” He lit the cigarette. “True enough, but not fully true. You’re a friend of mine, as is your mother, so that was another factor.”
    Color was riding high in Reva’s cheeks, a full temper strike at the flashpoint, made no less volatile by the fact she was bundled into a petal pink robe and wearing thick gray socks. “If I can’t be trusted to—”
    “You I trust, and always have, Reva. Him I didn’t know, so why should I have trusted him? Still, I didn’t go beyond two levels out of respect for your mother.”
    “But not for me, not out of respect for me. Either