“I’ll see you at Central.”

He clicked off.

“Unusual,” Roarke commented. He’d already turned off the vid. “For the commander to contact you personally, and to yank you in this way.”

“Something hot,” Eve replied and shoved the communicator back in her pocket. “I’ve got nothing hot open. Not that it would have him tagging me directly when I’m not on the roll. Sorry.” She glanced over. “Screws vid night.”

“It’ll keep. But as my evening is now open, I believe I’ll go with you. I know how to keep out of the way,” he reminded her before she could object.

He did, she admitted. And since she knew he’d changed his own schedule, possibly postponing acquiring a small country or planetoid, it seemed only fair.

“Then let’s get moving.”

H e knew how to stay out of the way when it suited him. He also knew how to observe. What Roarke saw when they arrived at the park were a number of black-and-whites, a small army of uniforms and crime scene techs.

The media people who had a nose for this sort of thing were there, firmly blocked by part of that army. The barricades had been erected, and like the media and the civilian gawkers, he would have to make his observations from behind them.

“If you get bored,” Eve told him, “just take off. I’ll make my own way back.”

“I’m not easily bored.”

He watched her now, observed her now. His cop. The wind kicked at her long black coat, one she’d need as this first day of March was proving as brutal as the rest of 2060 had been. She hooked her badge on her belt, though he wondered how anyone could mistake her for anything other than a cop, and one with authority.

Tall and rangy, she moved to the barricades in strong strides. Her hair, short and brown, fluttered a little in that same wind-a wind that carried the scent of the river.

He watched her face, the way those whiskey-colored eyes tracked, the way her mouth-that had been so soft and warm on his-firmed. The lights played over her face, shifting those angles and planes.