«We'll tell her, as soon as we can.»
«What about the data removed from the private office upstairs?» «She has it. We gave it to her.»
«And the data she removed from Samuels's quarters?»
Surprise flickered. «You're very good at your work.»
«That's right, I am. What was in the files she took from Samuels?»
«We don't know. There wasn't time for her to share it with us.»
«You tell her if she gets me the data, the locations, I can slam the door on this. She doesn't have to do any more.»
«We will, when we can. We're grateful.» She lifted a platter already loaded with cookies. «Would you like a cookie?»
«Why not?» Eve said, and took one for the road.
There were kids in the yard. It gave Eve a jolt, especially when one dropped out of a tree like a monkey. He seemed to be of the male variety, and let out war whoops as he raced her car to the house.
«Afternoon!» he said, with an accent much broader and somehow greener than Roarke's. «We're in New York City.»
«Okay.» He didn't appear to consider it godforsaken.
«We've never been before, but we're having an American holiday. I'm Sean, and we've come to visit our cousin, Roarke. This is his grand house here. Me da' said it's big enough to have its own postal code. If you're after seeing Roarke, he's inside. I can show you the way.»
«I know the way. I'm Dallas. I live here, too.»
The boy cocked his head. She was bad with ages when it came to the underaged, but she figured maybe eight. He had a lot of hair the color of the syrup she liked to drown pancakes in, and enormous green eyes. His face exploded with freckles.
«I thought the lady who lived in the grand house with cousin Roarke was Eve. She's with the garda, and wears a weapon.»
«Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.» She shoved back her coat so he could see her sidearm.
«Oh, brilliant! Can I—«
«No.» She flapped the coat back before his reaching fingers made contact with her weapon.
«Well, that's all right, then. Have you blasted many people with it?»
«Only my share.»
He fell into step with her. «Were you in a fight, then?»
«No. Not exactly.»
«It looks like someone planted a right one on you. Will you be going with us on the city tour?»
Did the kid do anything but ask questions? «I don't know.» Did she have to? «Probably not. I've got… things.»
«We're after going skating at the place, the outside place. Have you done that already?»
«No.» She glanced down, and with hopes of discouraging his inexplicable attachment to her, gave him her flat-eyed cop stare. «There was a murder there last year.»
Instead of shock and terror, his face registered delicious excitement. «A murder? Who was it? Who killed him? Did the body freeze onto the ice so it had to be scraped off? Was there blood? I bet that froze so it was like red ice.»
His questions slapped at her ears like gnats as she quickened her pace to, hopefully, escape into the house.
She opened the door to voices, a great many voices.
And there was a small, human creature of undetermined sex crawling over the foyer tiles. It moved like lightning, and it was heading her way.
«Oh my God.»
«That's my cousin Cassie. Quick as a snake, she is. Best close the door.»
Eve not only closed it, but backed up against it as the crawling thing made a series of unintelligible noises, quickened the pace, and cornered her.
«What does it want?»
«Oh, just to say hello. You can pick her up. She's the sociable sort. Aren't you, Cassie darling?»
It grinned, showing a couple of little white teeth, then to Eve's horror, got a grip on the bottom of her coat and hauled itself up on its chubby legs. It said: «Da!»
«What does that mean?»
«It means most anything.»
A man dashed out of the parlor. He was tall, beanpole thin, with a messy thatch of dense brown hair. He grinned and in other circumstances Eve might have found him charming.
«There she is. I'm on watch, and I take my eyes off the monkey for a split second and she's off to the races. No need to mention this to your aunt Reenie,» he said to Sean. Then to Eve's vast relief, scooped the baby up to bounce her casually on his hip.
«You'd be Eve. I'm your cousin Eemon, Sinead's son. It's lovely meeting you at last.»
Before she could speak, he'd wrapped his free arm around her, pulled her into a hug, and into intimate proximity with what was on his hip. Tiny fingers shot out, grabbed her hair.
Eemon laughed. «She's a fascination with hair, as she has so little of it yet herself.» Competently, he tugged the fingers free.
«Um» was all Eve could think of, but Eemon flashed that smile once more.
«And here you are, barely in your own door and we've got you surrounded. We're already scattered about the place, and sure a beauty of a place it is. Roarke and some of us are in the parlor there. Can I help you with your coat?»
«Coat? No. Thanks.» She was able to ease away, peel it off, toss it over the newel post.
«Gran!» Sean raced forward, and some of Eve's tension faded when she saw Sinead step into the foyer. At least this was someone she'd already met.
«You'll never guess it.» Brimming with excitement, Sean danced in a circle. «Cousin Eve said there was a murder at the skating place. A dead body.»
«Murder usually involves a dead body.»
It occurred to Eve, quite suddenly, that murder probably hadn't been an appropriate point of conversation. «It was last year. It's okay now.»
«I'm relieved to hear it, as there's a considerable horde who's looking forward to taking a spin on the ice.» She grinned, stepped forward.
She was slim and lovely. Delicate white skin and fine features, golden red hair and sea green eyes. The same face, Eve thought, her twin—Roarke's mother—would have had if she'd lived.
She kissed Eve's cheek. «Thank you for having us in your home.»
«Oh. Sure, but it's Roarke's—«
«Whatever he built, it's the home you've made together. How is it you manage such a place?» She hooked an arm through Eve's as she walked back toward the parlor. «Sure I'd be lost half the time.»
«I don't, really. Manage it. Summerset.»
«Competent, he looks it. A bit intimidating as well.»
«I'll say.»
But she'd have handled him better than the sight in the parlor. There were so many of them. Had he said there were so many? They were all talking and eating. More kids—the couple others she'd seen outside. They must have come around the side, she thought. Or just whizzed through, invisibly.
Roarke was in the process of serving an older woman a cup of something. She sat in one of the high-backed chairs, her head crowned with white hair, her eyes strong and blue.
There was another man standing by the fireplace having a conversation with yet another who might have been his twin if you carved way the twenty-odd years she judged came between them. They appeared to have no problem ignoring the two kids who sat at their feet and poked viciously at each other.
Another woman, early twenties, sat in the windowseat, looking dreamily out while a baby of some kind sucked heroically at her breast.
Jeez.
«Our Eve's home,» Sinead announced, and conversation trailed off. «Meet the family, won't you?» Sinead's arm tightened like a shackle, and moved Eve forward. «My brother Ned, and his oldest Connor.»
«Ah, nice to meet you.» She started to extend a hand, and was enveloped in a bear hug by the older, passed to the younger for the same treatment.
«Thanks for having us.»