«He fool around?»
«Excuse me?»
«It's war, he's away from his family. His life's on the line. Did he sleep with anybody?»
«I don't see the purpose in so crude a question, but no, not that I was aware of. He was devoted to his family and his work.»
«Okay. I'll get back to you.» She got to her feet. «Roarke?»
She moved out of the room, heard Roarke murmur something before he followed her. She waited until they were upstairs before she spoke. «You didn't tell him anything about the data we found.»
«No. And it's an uncomfortable position.»
«Well, you're going to have to be uncomfortable for a while. I don't know if his murder had its roots back as far as the Urban Wars, but it's something I want to think about. Unless his killer was able to shed a good decade surgically or through enhancements, she wasn't born during that time either. But…«
«She had a mother, a father. And they would have been.»
«Yeah. Another possibility. War orphans. Could've started experimenting, treating, placing.» She paced the bedroom. «It isn't tidy, is it, just to leave kids scavenging around on the streets, during a war, after the madness of war? Some of them won't survive, and you're in the business of survival. You're interested in improving that quality of life. But also appearance. See a lot of carnage during a war. Maybe it twisted him up.»
She checked her wrist unit. «Where the hell's my warrant?»
She dropped down on the sofa, studied Roarke thoughtfully. «How'd you feel back then, when Summerset took you in off the streets?»
«I got fed, got to sleep in a bed. And nobody was beating the bloody hell out of me on a daily basis.» The man who'd seen to that, Roarke thought, had given him a great deal more than clean sheets and food for his belly. «I was half dead anyway when he took me in. By the time I was able to think clearly, get out of bed, I was over my shock at my luck. Considered that he might be a mark, which he disabused me of the first time I tried to pick his pocket. And I learned to be grateful, for the first time in my life.»
«So when he told you what to do, when he educated you, housed you, set rules, you went along.»
«He didn't put shackles on me. I'd've slipped the locks and run. But yes.»
«Yeah.» She leaned her head back, stared at the ceiling. «And then he becomes family. Father, mother, teacher, doctor, priest. The ball of it.»
«In essence. Ah, speaking of family. Several members of mine will be coming over from Clare. Now that I've done the thing, I don't know quite what to expect.»
She looked back at him. «Well, that makes a pair of us.»
8
TICK-TOCK, Eve thought, and scowled at the 'link she'd set on the dining room table. There was a cheery fire in the hearth and some sort of fancy pig meat on her plate.
«Don't you know a watched 'link never beeps.» She shifted her gaze to Roarke as he stabbed some meat from her plate onto his fork and held it out to her. «Be a good girl and eat your dinner.»
«I know how to feed myself.» But because it was there, she took the offering. Damn good pig. «He'll have wiped documents by now.»
«Anything you can do about that?»
«No.»
«Then you might as well enjoy your dinner.»
There were some sort of fancy potatoes to go with the fancy pig. She gave them a try. «They've got to have money hidden somewhere. You interested in finding it?»
Roarke sipped his wine, cocked his head. «Lieutenant, I'm always interested in finding money.»
«Whether or not this warrant comes through, I'm going to want the money trail. Funding for whatever this project is, fees or profit generated from it.»
«All right. Plans are to have the meal in here.»
She frowned at him. «We are having the meal in here.» She stabbed some pork, held it up. «See?»
«Thanksgiving, Eve.» And he could admit he was a bit wound up about it as he was so completely unsure of his steps.
He knew how to handle people, parties, meetings, his very complicated wife. He knew how to run an interplanetary empire, and still carve out time to dabble in murder cases. But how the hell was he going to handle family?
«Oh, right. Turkey, sure.» Eve looked vaguely around the room with its huge table, stunning art, glints of silver, and warm, glowing wood. «Well, this would be the place for it. So this assignment? It would be official. No slippery stuff.»
«Well, you take the fun out of it, don't you?»
«I can get authorization for a full-level financial search. Icove's murder, the several working theories. Blackmail, whacked-out former patient, the possibility it was a professional and/or terrorist hit.»
«None of which you subscribe to.»
«I don't eliminate them,» Eve said. «But they're bottom of my list. I've also got the secured and encoded discs to add weight to the authorization. I can argue that whatever this project was, it led to the murder. Push all that together, and I can get authorization without offending any sensibilities. Not saying Icove was dirty, but that something to do with his work—and income from same—led to his murder.»
«Clever of you.»
«I'm a clever gal. Until I have more, I don't make noises about possible human hybridization or sex slavery or companion training. Get me the money, so I can.»
«Good as done, then.»
He tried to relax into his dinner and not worry about the logistics of this event he'd started. The transportation was no problem. He'd already seen to that. And housing them, well, the place was big enough to tuck them in even if the whole lot of them hopped the shuttle.
But what the hell was he going to do with them once they got here? It wasn't like entertaining business associates or even friends. He had relations, for God's sake. How was he supposed to get used to having them, dealing with them, when he'd lived nearly the whole of his life without them?
Now they were going to be under his roof, and he hadn't a clue what they would expect.
«Should we have something separate for the children, do you think?»
«What?» Eve frowned at him as she poked at the food on her plate. «Oh, that. Hell, I don't know. You're supposed to know how to do this stuff.»
His face was a mirror of his frustration. «And how am I supposed to know how to do something I've never done before?» He scowled into his wine. «It's unnerving, that's what it is.»
«You could contact them, say something's come up. Cancel.»
«I'm not a bloody coward,» he muttered in a way that made her think he'd considered doing just that. «And it would be rude as well.»
«I can be rude.» Shifting work to one side, she gave it some thought. «I like being rude.»
«That's because you're so good at it.»
«True. You could tell them that due to my obsessive involvement in a juicy murder case, Thanksgiving's been cancelled. No turkey for you. See, then it's all on me. Me bloody wife's driving me starkers,» she said in an exaggerated Irish accent while she waved the water glass around. The lieutenant, she's working all the day and half the night as well, and not giving me five minutes of her precious time. What's a man to do, then? Bugger it.»
He sat silent a moment, just staring at her. «I don't sound a bit like that, nor does anyone of my acquaintance.»
«You haven't heard yourself when you're drunk, which you would be out of frustration with my selfish behavior.» She shrugged, drank some water. «Problem solved.»
«Not nearly, but thanks for the strange and generous offer. Well. Back to murder, which as it happens is a simpler matter for both of us to deal with.»
«Got that right.»
«Why do you suppose a man of Icove's stature would dabble, if your theory's correct, in gray medicine?»
«Because he could, that's one. And because he was hoping to build a—what do you call it?—better mousetrap. The human body's flawed, right. It breaks down, needs regular repair and maintenance. It's fragile. He grew up seeing its fragility with his parents' work. Then, with his mother's accident and subsequent suicide. His wife's death, and the whole ugly nightmare of the Urbans. So how much of a rush would it be to try to make it perfect, to make it stronger, more durable, smarter? You've already done considerable work toward that goal, and gotten accolades for it. Gotten way rich for it. Why not take it up a level?»