Roarke merely crossed to him, held out a hand.
Shoulders slumping, Jamie pulled the jammer out of his pocket. "I only borrowed one so I could see about fine-tuning a couple of functions."
"Don't hose me, Jamie. And if you continue to borrow equipment, you'll be losing your work program privileges very quickly." The jammer disappeared into one of Roarke's pockets.
"It was my prototype."
And the royalties from it, Roarke mused, would make the boy a very rich young man. But he said nothing, merely lifted an eyebrow and waited for Jamie to squirm.
"Okay, okay. Don't fry your circuits." Sulking, he looked at Roarke, looked at Eve. He was never quite sure which of them was in charge.
Either way, he knew both of them could stomp him flat before he saw them lift a foot.
It'd been easy with his parents before the divorce. His father had been in charge. After, especially after Alice died, Jamie himself had mostly been in charge.
But around here, you just never knew.
"What's the word?" he demanded.
"You're attached as Roarke's tech in a probationary capacity," Eve told him. "You step out of line, over the line, try wiggling under the line, I squash you like a bug. Now, do you see everyone in this room?"
"Yeah, nothing wrong with the orbs. So?"
"They're all the boss of you. Which means, anyone here gives you an order, including telling you to stand on your head and whistle through your teeth, you do it. Clear? Next," she continued before he had time to complain, "all data, all info, all conversations, all actions or proposed actions done or discussed pertaining to this assignment are confidential. You speak of this to no one, including your best pal, your mother, any girl you're hoping to see naked, or your pet poodle."
"I don't blab off," he said with some heat. "I know how it works. And I don't have any lame poodle. Plus, I've seen naked girls." He grinned now. "Including you."
"Careful, lad," Roarke said quietly. "Step carefully."
"You've got a smart mouth. I remember that about you." Deliberately Eve walked a circle around him. "I like a smart mouth, under certain circumstances. So instead of yanking your ears over your head and tying them in a knot, I'm going to overlook that comment. Once. Baxter, take this drone into the work area. Show him the basic setup. If he touches anything, break his fingers."
"You got it. Let's go, kid." When they reached the doorway, Baxter leaned down. "How'd you see her naked?"
"He's going to be trouble," Eve muttered.
"He'll be worth it." Roarke slid a hand over the jammer in his pocket. "Believe me."
"He's a good kid, Dallas." Feeney pushed to his feet. "Smart, and as steady as you get at that age. We'll keep him in line."
"I'm counting on it. I'm dumping him on you e-guys. Nadine and her camera are due in about twenty. She's never late. You both good to do the one-on-ones downstairs somewhere?"
"Works for me." McNab glanced toward Feeney. "I want to get that over, and get on the job."
"She doesn't come up here," Eve cautioned. "She doesn't go near the kid. Any progress, any at all, tag me. I've got a meet downtown at thirteen hundred. I'll be working out of here until then."
"Let's get started." Feeney laid a hand on McNab's uninjured shoulder. "We'll show the boy what real EDD men can do."
"Flick Baxter back this way. I need to get him set up somewhere."
"I'll take care of that. You'll want him on this level," Roarke assumed.
"Fine. And whatever that is in your pocket, Ace, keep it there."
He shot her such a hot, suggestive grin that Peabody was forced to swallow.
"Get the salacious images out of your head, Peabody," Eve ordered. "We've got work."
She started Peabody on probability scans. When you were dealing with brass and bureaucrats the more data, the more paper, the better.
Eve began a hunt for known child abusers who'd wiggled through the system and out again.
How did so many of them skate over the law? she wondered.
She backtracked, looking for any connection between one or more of her possibles and each other, between one or more and either Cogburn or Fitzhugh.
Birds of a feather, she mused. Some of them had to have sullied the same nest at one point. It was irritating to have to go by case numbers rather than names, but a great number of the files were sealed. Minor victims often had seals slapped onto their files.
Using numbers, incident reports, descriptions, she whittled it down to a short list, ran probabilities.
Since her short list was over twenty-five possibles, she worked on secondary connections.
Twelve of the minor victims had shared the same child services rep.
CLARISSA PRICE, BORN 5-16-2O2I, QUEENS, NEW YORK. ID NUMBER 8876-LHM-22. MOTHER MURIEL PRICE, FATHER UNKNOWN. MARITAL STATUS, SINGLE. EMPLOYMENT, CHILD SERVICES, MANHATTAN DIVISION. EMPLOYED SINCE 2-1-43- CURRENTLY B LEVEL.
EDUCATION: MASTER'S DEGREES, SOCIOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY EARNED FROM NYU.
NO CRIMINAL RECORD.
"Visual," she ordered and studied the image of Clarissa Price. An attractive mixed-race female, with a competent, straight-ahead look about her. Not many in Child Services lasted as long without the job adding lines and layers. But Clarissa's skin was smooth. Her reddish brown hair was curly and worn neatly pulled back at the nape.
Eve called up the home and work addresses, copied and saved the data. Then went hunting again.
This time she found a cop.
Detective Sergeant Thomas Dwier had arrested Cogburn four years earlier on possession with intent. But he'd rushed it, scooping Cogburn up without ascertaining if he'd been carrying. The arrest hadn't stuck.
He'd had better luck with an illegals dealer who supplied the uptown teenage crowd. But by the time the case had wound itself through the system, it had been pleaded down to possession and the dealer had ended up paying a fine, and walking.
He'd bumped into Fitzhugh as well, taking on a complaint of abduction and rape that had been tossed by the P.A.
Eighteen months before Dwier had worked on a team running a sting on a child pornographer. The woman had run a licensed day care center. The case had gone all the way to trial, resulting in acquittal.
Mary Ellen George, Eve thought, who according to the files, just happened to be a known associate of Chadwick Fitzhugh.
"Saddle up, Peabody." Eve stuck data discs in her bag. "We're going to make a couple of stops before The Tower meeting."
"Mary Ellen George. That was some trial." In the passenger seat, Peabody studied the data Eve had accumulated. "Did you buy that act of hers?"
"What act?"
"That shattered, innocent, schoolmarm act" Peabody glanced over, squinted. "Didn't you catch any of the trial on-screen?"
"I don't watch that crap."
"Well, you must've seen the blips in media reports, read the commentaries and stuff."
"I make it a point to avoid media reports, commentaries, editorials, and so on."
"But, sir, you've got to watch the news on-screen, or read it."
"Why?"
"Well… to keep abreast of current events."
"Why?"
"Because, because." Flustered, Peabody pushed back her uniform cap to scratch her head. "Because we live in the world."
"Yes, we do. There doesn't seem to be a thing we can do about it. Now, tell me how watching news blips and the On Trial channel is going to make me a better person."
"Just informed," Peabody answered.
"Seems to me it's only news for a few minutes. Then its old and they have to blast up something else that's news. Vicious cycle if you ask me. I don't get caught up in it because, by definition events that are current today are no longer current tomorrow. And before you know it, it's tomorrow anyway. So you've just wasted all that time getting riled up about something that's past its time when you wake up the next day."