Free Possession in Death by J. D. Robb

this
could be considered good practice.”
    “It’s got to be sick to even be thinking this way, but it’s probably like
making jokes in the morgue. It’s how you get through.” She untangled, sat up.
“What I’m going to do is grab a shower, then coffee, then go over your runs. I’m
going to work this like it needs to be worked and keep this other thing off to the
side. Because if I think about it too hard, I’m just going to wig out.”
    He sat up with her, took her shoulders. And what she saw in his eyes
blocked the air from her lungs. “What? What?”
    “You are who you are. I know you. You believe that?”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “You’re Eve Dallas. You’re the love of my life. My heart and soul. You’re a
cop, mind and bone. You’re a woman of strength and resilience. Stubborn,
hardheaded, occasionally mean as a badger, and more generous than you’ll
admit.”
    Fear edged back, an icy blade down the spine. “Why are you saying this?”
    “Because I don’t think you can put what’s happened aside, not altogether.
Take a breath.”
    “Why—”
    “Take a breath.” he said it sharply, adding a shake so she did so
automatically. “Now another.” He kept one hand on her shoulder as he shifted
and touched the other to her ankle.
    And the tattoo of a peacock feather.

Chapter Eight
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    She got her shower, got her coffee. She told herself she was calm—would
be calm. Panic wouldn’t help; raging might feel good, but in the end wouldn’t
help either.
    “There are options,” Roarke told her.
    “Don’t say the E word. No exorcisms. I’m not having some priest or witch
doctor or voodoo guy dancing around me, banging on his magic coconuts.”
    “Magic… Is that a euphemism?”
    “Maybe.” It helped to see him smile—to think she might be able to. “But
I’m not going there, Roarke.”
    “All right then. What about Mira?”
    “You think she can shrink Szabo out of me?”
    “Hypnosis might find some answers.”
    She shook her head. “I’m not being stubborn. Or maybe I am,” she admitted
when he cocked his eyebrows. “Right now I’d rather not bring anybody else into
this. I just don’t want to tell anybody I invited a dead woman to take up
residence in my head, or wherever she is. Because that’s what I did.”
    She shoved up, began to pace. “I said sure, come right in. Maybe if I’d been
paying attention to what she was saying, what she meant, I’d have locked the
door. Instead I’m all, yeah, yeah, whatever, because I’m trying to keep a woman
science says was already dead from bleeding out. It doesn’t make any sense,
goddamn it. And because it doesn’t, I have to set it to one side. I have to,” she
insisted. “I have to work the cases—cases—with my head, my gut. Fucking A
mine
. Which I damn well would’ve done anyway if she’d left me the hell alone.”
    “So you’ll fight this with logic and instinct?” He decided they could both use
a glass of wine.
    “It’s what I’ve got. It’s what’s mine. And if there’s any logic to this other
part, the part that makes no sense, when I find the killer, when I find Beata, it—
she—goes away. If I don’t believe that, I’m going to lock myself in a closet and
start sucking my thumb.”
    He took her the wine, touched her cheek. “Then we’ll find the killer and
Beata. And for now, we’ll keep the rest of it between you and me. Twenty-four
hours. We’ll work it your way, and I’ll find someone who can undo what was
done. If this isn’t resolved in twenty-four hours, we’ll work it my way.”
    “That sounds like an ultimatum.”
    “It most certainly is. You can waste time arguing, or you can get to work.
I’m not going to share my wife with anyone for more than a day.”
    “I’m not your possession either, pal.”
    He smiled again. “But you belong to me. We can fight about it.” He
shrugged, sipped his wine. “And you’ll have wasted part of your twenty-four.
Still, it might fire