"Give him mine when you talk to him. Peabody, take some personal time." "Yes, sir. Thank you."

"That's very kind of you," Phoebe said. "I wonder if it's possible for us to have a little of your time. You must be busy," she went on before Eve could speak, "but I'd hoped we might have a meal together tonight. With you and your husband. We have gifts for you."

"You don't have to give us anything."

"The gifts aren't from obligation but from affection, and we hope you'll enjoy them. Delia's told us so much about you, and Roarke and your home. It must be a magnificent place. I hope Sam and I will have an opportunity to see it."

Eve could feel the box being built around her, see the lid slowly closing. And Phoebe only continued to smile serenely while Peabody suddenly took an avid interest in the ceiling.

"Sure. Ah. You could come for dinner." "We'd love to. Would eight o'clock work?"

"Yeah, eight's fine. Peabody knows the way. Anyway, welcome to New York. I've got some... stuff," she finished lamely and eased back to escape.

"Lieutenant? Sir? Be right back," Peabody murmured to her parents and lit out after Eve. Before they'd gotten to her office door, the noise level in the bullpen rose again.

"They can't help it," Peabody said quickly. "My father really likes to bake, and he's always bringing food places." "How the hell'd they get all that here on a plane?"

"Oh, they don't fly. They'd have come in their camper. Baking all the way," she added with a fluttery smile. "Aren't they great?"

"Yeah, but you've got to tell them not to bring cupcakes every time they come in to see you. We'll end up with a bunch of fat detectives in sugar comas."

"Snagged you one." Peabody brought out the cupcake she held behind her back. I'll just take a couple hours, Dallas, get them settled in." "Take the rest of the day."

"Okay. Thanks. Really. Um..." She winced, then closed the office door. "There's this thing I should tell you. About my mother. She has the power." "The power of what?"

"The power to make you do things you don't want to do, or don't think you want to do. And she'll get you to say stuff you don't mean to say. And you may even babble."

"I don't babble."

"You will," Peabody said mournfully. "I love her. She's amazing, but she's got this thing. She just looks at you and knows." Frowning, Eve sat. "Is she a sensitive?"

"No. My father is, but he's really strict about not infringing on people's privacy. She's just... a mother. It's something to do with being a mother, but she's got this deal in spades. Man, Mom sees all, knows all, rules all. Half the time you don't even know she's doing it. Like you inviting them for dinner tonight, when you never invite people to dinner."

"I do, too."

"Uh-uh. Roarke does. You could've said you were busy, or hey, fine, let's meet at some restaurant or whatever, but she wanted to come to your house for dinner, so you asked her."

Eve had to stop herself from squirming in her chair. "I was being polite. I do know how."

"No, you were trapped in The Look." Peabody shook her head. "Even you are powerless against it. I just thought I should tell you." "Scram, Peabody."

"Scramming, sir. Oh and um..." She hesitated at the door. "I had a sort of date with McNab tonight, so maybe he could come along to dinner. That way, you know, he could meet them without it being as weird as it would be otherwise." Eve put her head in her hands. "Jesus." "Thanks! I'll see you tonight."

Alone, Eve sulked. She scowled. Then she ate the cupcake.

"So they painted my office, and stole my candy. Again." At home, in the spacious living area with its glossy antiques and gleaming glass, Eve paced the priceless Oriental carpet. Roarke had only just arrived home, so she'd had no one to bitch to for the past hour.

As far as she was concerned, a bitching partner was one of the top perks of marriage.

"And Peabody finished up all the paperwork while I was gone, which meant I didn't even have that to do." "She should be ashamed.

Imagine, your aide doing paperwork behind your back."

"Watch the smart-ass remarks, pal, because you've got some explaining to do as well."

He just stretched out his legs, crossed his feet at the ankles. "Ah. So how did Peabody and McNab enjoy Bimini?"

"You're a real Lord Bountiful, aren't you? Sending them off to some island so they can run around naked and slide down waterfalls." "I take that to mean they had a good time."

"Gel-beds," she muttered. "Naked monkeys." "Excuse me?"

She shook her head. "You've got to stop interfering in this... thing they've got going."

"Maybe I will," he said, lazily. "When you stop seeing their relationship as some sort of bugaboo."

"Bugaboo? What the hell is that?" She scooped a frustrated hand through her hair. "I don't see their thing as a bugaboo because I don't even know what that means. Cops-"

"Deserve lives," he interrupted. "Like everyone else. Relax, Lieutenant. Our Peabody has a good head on her shoulders."

Blowing out a breath, Eve dropped into a chair. "Bugaboo." She snorted. "That's probably not even a word, and if it is, it's a really stupid word. I gave her a case today."

He reached over idly to toy with the fingers she'd been tapping restlessly against her knee. "You didn't mention you'd caught a case today."

"I didn't. I dug one out of the cold files. Six years back. Woman, pretty, young, upwardly mobile, married. Husband's out of town, comes back and finds her dead in the bathtub. Homicide poorly disguised as self-termination or accident. His alibi's solid, and he comes off clean as a whistle. Everyone interviewed says how they were the perfect couple, happy as clams."

"Do you ever wonder how we determine the happiness of the clam?"

"I'm going to give that some real thought later. Anyway, there are letters hidden in her underwear drawer. Really explicit sex letters from someone who signs his name C."

"Extramarital affair, lover's spat, murder?" "The primary of record thought so."

"But you don't?"

"Nobody ever found the guy, nobody ever saw the guy, nobody she knew ever heard her speak of the guy. Or so they said. I went by to see the husband, met his new wife and kid. Little girl, couple years old."

"One could assume, justifiably, that after his period of mourning, he moved on, made a new life." "One could assume," she replied.

"Not that I ever would, of course. Under similar circumstances, I'd wander aimlessly, a broken man, lost and without purpose." She looked at him skeptically. "Is that so?"

"Naturally. Now you're supposed to say something along the lines of you having no life at all without me in it."

"Yeah, yeah." She laughed when he bit the fingers he'd been playing with. "So back to the real world. I think I know how it went down. A couple of good, hard pushes and it's closed instead of cold." "But instead of pushing, you gave it to Peabody."

"She needs the experience. A little more time won't matter to Marsha Stibbs. If Peabody goes down the wrong channels, I'll steer her back." "She must be thrilled."

"Christ, she's got stars in her eyes."

It made him smile. "What was the first case Feeney handed you?"

"Thomas Carter. Got into his sedan one fine morning, coded in, and the sucker blew up, sending pieces of him flying all over the West Side. Married, two kids, sold insurance. No side pieces, no enemies, no dangerous vices. No motive. Case stalled, went cold.

Feeney dug it out, told me to work it."

"And?"

"Thomas Carter wasn't the target. Thomas K. Carter, second-rate illegals dealer with a gambling addiction was. Asshole hired hitman tapped the wrong guy." She glanced back to see Roarke still grinning at her. "And yeah, I remember how it felt to be handed the file and to close it."

"You're a good trainer, Eve, and a good friend."

"Friendship has nothing to do with it. If I didn't think she could handle working the case, I wouldn't have given it to her." "That's the trainer part. The friendship part should be here shortly."

"Dinner. What the hell are we going to do with them when we're not eating?"

"It's called conversation. Socializing. Some people actually make a habit of doing both, on practically a daily basis."

"Yeah, well some people are screwy. You're probably going to like the Peabodys. Did I tell you that when I got back to Central, they were feeding the bullpen cupcakes and cookies? Pie."

"Pie? What kind of pie?"

"I don't know. By the time I got there all that was left of it was the dish-and I think somebody ate that. But the cupcakes were amazing. Anyway, Peabody came back in my office and said all this weird stuff about her mother."

He toyed with the ends of Eve's hair now, enjoying the streaky look of it. He'd have understood perfectly Boyd Stibbs's claim of not being able to keep his hands off his wife. "I thought they got along very well."