"Moving, Lieutenant."
CHAPTER NINE
Eve wasn't one for breaking rules, yet she found herself standing outside the locked door of Roarke's private room. It was disconcerting to realize that after a decade of going by the book, she could find it so easy to circumvent procedure.
Do the ends justify the means? she wondered. And are the means really so out of line? Maybe the equipment in the room beyond was unregistered and undetectable to Compuguard and therefore illegal, but it was also top of the line. The pathetic electronics budgeted to the Police and Security Department had been antiquated nearly before it was installed, and Homicide's slice of the budget pie was stingy and stale.
She tapped her fingers on her pocket where the disc rested and shifted her feet. The hell with it, she decided. She could be a law-abiding cop and walk away or she could be a smart one.
She placed her hand on the security screen. "Dallas, Lieutenant Eve."
The locks disengaged with a quiet snick and opened into Roarke's huge data center. The long curve of windows, which were shielded against sun and flybys, kept the room in shadows. She ordered lights, secured the door, and walked over to face the wide, U-shaped console.
Roarke had programmed her palm and voice print into the system months before, but she'd never used the equipment alone. Even now that they were married, she felt like an intruder.
She made herself sit, snugged the chair into the console. "Unit one, engage." She heard the silky hum of high-level equipment responding and nearly sighed. Her disc slid in smoothly, and within seconds had been decoded and read by the civilian unit. "And so much for our elaborate security at NYPSD," she muttered. "Wall screen on full. Display data, Fitzhugh File H-one two eight seven one. Split screen with Mathias File S-three oh nine one two."
Data flowed like water onto the huge wall screen facing the console. In her admiration, Eve forgot to feel guilty. She leaned forward, scanning birth dates, credit ratings, purchasing habits, political affiliations.
"Strangers," she said to herself. "You couldn't have had less in common." Then her lips pursed as she noted correlations on a section of purchasing habits. "Well, you both liked games. Lots of on-line time, lots of entertainment and interactive programs." Then she sighed. "Along with about seventy percent of the population. Computer, split screen display, brain scan both loaded files."
With an almost seamless segue, Eve was studying the images. "Increase and highlight unexplained abnormalities."
The same, she mused, eyes narrowed. Here the two men were the same, like brothers, twins in the womb. The burn shadow was precisely the same size and shape, in precisely the same location.
"Computer, analyze abnormality and identify."
Working… Incomplete data… Searching medical files. Please wait for analysis.
"That's what they all say." She pushed away from the console to pace while the computer juggled its brain. When the door opened, she spun around on her heel and very nearly flushed when Roarke walked in.
"Hello, Lieutenant."
"Hi." She dipped her hands in her pockets. "I – ah – had some trouble with my unit at Cop Central. I needed this analysis, so I… I can put a hold on it if you need the room."
"No need for that." Her obvious discomfort amused him. He strolled to her, leaned down, and kissed her lightly. "And no need for you to fumble through an explanation as to why you're using the equipment. Digging for secrets?"
"No. Not the way you mean." The fact that he was grinning at her increased the embarrassment level. "I needed something a little more competent than the tin cans we have at Cop Central, and I figured you'd be gone for a couple more hours."
"I got an early transport back. Need some help with this?"
"No. I don't know. Maybe. Stop grinning at me."
"Was I?" His grin only widened as he slid his arms around her and tucked his hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "How was your lunch with Dr. Mira?"
She scowled. "Do you know everything?"
"I try. Actually, I had a quick meeting with William, and he mentioned that Reeanna had run into you and the doctor. Business or pleasure?"
"Both, I guess." Her brows lifted as his hands got busy on her butt. "I'm on duty, Roarke. Your hands are currently rubbing the ass of a working cop."
"That only makes it more exciting." He shifted to nibble her neck. "Want to break a few laws?"
"I already am." But she turned her head instinctively to give him better access.
"Then what are a few more?" he murmured and slid his hand out of her pocket and around her body to cup her breast. "I love the feel of you." His mouth was trailing along her jawline toward her mouth when the computer beeped.
Analysis complete. Display or audio?
"Display," Eve ordered and wiggled free.
"Damn," Roarke sighed. "I was so close."
"What the hell is this?" Hands fisted on her hips, Eve scanned the display on the view screen. "It's gibberish. Fucking gibberish."
Resigned, Roarke sat on the edge of the console and studied the display himself. "It's technical; medical terms, primarily. A bit out of my realm. A burn, electronic in origin. Does that make sense?"
"I don't know." Thoughtfully, she tugged on her ear. "Does it make sense for a couple of dead guys to have an electric burn hole in the frontal lobe of their brains?"
"Some fumbling with the equipment during autopsy?" Roarke suggested.
"No." Slowly, she shook her head. "Not on two of them, examined by different MEs in different morgues. And they're not surface flaws. They're inside the brain. Microscopic pinpricks."
"What's the relationship between the two men?"
"None. Absolutely none." She hesitated, then shrugged. He was already involved in a peripheral manner, why not drag him into the center? "One of the men is yours," she told him. "The autotronics engineer from the Olympus Resort."
"Mathias?" Roarke pushed off the console, his half-amused, half-intrigued expression going dark. "Why are you investigating a suicide on Olympus?"
"I'm not, officially. It's a hunch, that's all. The other brain your fancy equipment's analyzing is Fitzhugh's. And if Peabody can untangle the red tape, I'll plug in Senator Pearly's."
"And you expect to find this microscopic burn in the senator's brain?"
"You're a quick study, Roarke. I've always admired that about you."
"Why?"
"Because it's annoying to have to explain everything step by step."
His eyes narrowed. "Eve."
"All right." She held up her hands, let them fall. "Fitzhugh just didn't strike me as the type to do himself. I couldn't close the case until I'd explored all the options. I've been running out of options. I might have put it to bed anyway, but I kept thinking about that kid hanging himself."
She began to pace restlessly. "No predisposition there, either. No obvious motive, no known enemies. He just has himself a snack and makes a noose. Then I heard about the senator. That makes three suicides without logical explanations. Now, for people like Fitzhugh and the senator, with their kind of financial base, there's counseling at the snap of a finger. Or in cases of terminal illness – physical or emotional – voluntary self-termination facilities. But they took themselves out in bloody and painful ways. Doesn't fit."
Roarke nodded. "Go on."
"And the ME on Fitzhugh came up with this unexplained abnormality. I wanted to see if, on the off chance, the kid had anything like it." She gestured to the screen. "He does. Now I need to know what put it there."
Roarke shifted his eyes back to the screen. "Genetic flaw?"
"Possibly, but the computer says unlikely. At least it's never come across anything like it before – through heredity, mutation, or outside causes." She moved behind the console, scrolled the screen. "See there, in the projection of possible mental affects? Behavioral alterations. Pattern unknown. A lot of help that is."