He turned back. "And six months later, they hooked him out of the River Liffey with enough holes in him for the fish to swim through."
Her throat had gone dust dry, but she kept her gaze steady. "Did you kill him?"
"No, but only because someone beat me to it. He was low on my list of priorities." Roarke came back, sat again. "Eve, Summerset had no part in what I did. He wasn't even aware of what I planned to do. It wasn't his way – isn't his way. He ran cons, bilked marks, lifted wallets."
"You don't need to defend him to me. I'll do my best for him." She let out a breath. "Starting now by ignoring regulations, again, and using your unregistered equipment to run names. Let's start on those lists."
He got to his feet, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips. "It's always a pleasure working with you, Lieutenant."
"Just remember who's in charge."
"I've no doubt you'll remind me. Regularly." He slipped an arm around her waist when she stood. "Next time we make love, you can wear your badge. In case I forget who's in charge."
She eyed him narrowly. "Nobody likes a smart-ass."
"I do." He planted a kiss between her scowling eyes. "I love one."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Eve stared at the list of names on the wall screen in Roarke's private room. The equipment installed there was every hacker's wet dream. He'd indulged himself in aesthetics in the rest of the house, but this room was all business.
Illegal business, she thought, since all its information, research, and communications devices were unregistered with CompuGuard. Nothing that went in or came out of that room could be tracked.
Roarke sat at the U-shaped console, like a pirate, she thought, at the helm of a very snazzy ship. He hadn't engaged the auxiliary station with its jazzy laser fax and hologram unit. She imagined he didn't think he required the extra zip, just yet.
She stuck her hands in her pockets, tapped her boot on the glazed tile floor and read off the names of the dead.
"Charles O'Malley. Murder by disembowelment, August 5, 2042. Unsolved. Matthew Riley. Murder by evisceration, November, 12, 2042. Donald Cagney. Murder by hanging, April 22, 2043. Michael Rowan. Murder by suffocation, December 2, 2043. Rory McNee, murder by drowning, March 18, 2044. John Calhoun, murder by poisoning, July 31, 2044."
She let out a long breath. "You averaged two a year."
"I wasn't in a hurry. Would you like to read their bios?" He didn't call them up, simply continued to sit, staring at the viewing screen across the room. "Charles O'Malley, age thirty-three, small-time thug and sexual deviant. Suspected of raping his sister and his mother. Charges dismissed through lack of evidence. Suspected of torture-murder of an eighteen-year-old licensed companion whose name no one bothered to remember. Charges dismissed through lack of interest. A known free-lance spine cracker and debt collector who enjoyed his work. His trademark was shattering kneecaps. Marlena's knees were broken."
"All right, Roarke." She held up a hand. "It's enough. I need you to run their families, friends, lovers. With luck we can find a computer jock or communications freak among them."
Because he didn't want to say their names again, he typed in the request manually. "It'll take a few minutes. We'll bring up the list of contacts I had on viewing screen three."
"Who else knew what you were doing?" she asked as she watched names begin to scroll on screen.
"I didn't pop into the pub after and brag about it over a pint." He moved his shoulders dismissively. "But word and rumor travel. I wanted it known in any case. I wanted to give them time to sweat."
"You're a scary guy, Roarke," she murmured, then turned to him. "At a guess, then, most anyone in Dublin – hell, in the known universe – could have gotten wind of it."
"I found Cagney in Paris, Rowan on Tarus Three, and Calhoun here in New York. The wind blows, Eve."
"Jesus." She pressed her fingers to her eyes. "Okay, this won't help. We need to cull it down to interested parties, people with a connection with one or more of… your list. People with a grudge against you."
"A number of people harbor grudges. If it was about me personally, why is Summerset being set up instead of me?"
"He's the bridge. They're walking over him to get to you." She began to pace while she thought it through. "I'm going to consult with Mira, hopefully tomorrow, but my take is if this goes back to Marlena, whoever is behind it sees Summerset as the cause. Without him, no Marlena, without Marlena you wouldn't have played vigilante. So you both have to pay. He wants you to sweat. Coming at you direct isn't going to make that happen. He has to know you well enough to understand that. But going after someone who matters to you, that's different."
"And if Summerset was taken out of the equation?"
"Well, then, it would -" She broke off, heart jumping as she whirled. "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Don't even think about it." She slapped her hands on the console. "You promise me, you have to give me your word you won't help him disappear. That's not the way to play this out."
He was silent for a long moment. "I'll give you my word to play this out your way as long as I possibly can. But he's not going in a cage, Eve, not for something I'm responsible for."
"You have to trust me not to let that happen. If you go that far outside the law, Roarke, I'll have to go after him. I won't have a choice."
"Then we'll have to combine our skill and our efforts to make sure neither of us has to make a choice. And we're wasting what time we have debating it."
Seething with frustration, she spun away. "Damn it, you make the line I have to walk thin and shaky."
"I'm aware of that." His voice was tight and warned her she'd see that cold, controlled temper on his face when she turned back.
"I can't change what I am either."
"And you're a cop first. Well, Lieutenant, give me your professional take on this." He swung around in his chair, engaging the auxiliary station. "Display hologram file image, Marlena."
It formed between them, a lovely laughing image of a young girl just blossoming into womanhood. Her hair was long and wavy and the color of sun-washed wheat, her eyes a clear summer blue. There was the flush of life and joy in her cheeks.
She was tiny was all Eve could think, a perfect picture in her pretty white dress with its scallop of lace at the hem. She carried a single tulip in her china-doll hand, candy-pink and damp with dew.
"There's innocence," Roarke said quietly. "Display hologram image, police file. Marlena."
The horror spilled onto the floor, almost at Eve's feet. The doll was broken now, bloodied and battered and torn. The skin was gray paste with death, and cold from the police camera's passionless eye. They'd left her naked and exposed, and every cruelty that had been done to her was pitifully clear.
"And there," Roarke said, "is the ruin of innocence."
Eve's heart shuddered and ripped, but she looked as she had looked on death before. In the eyes – where even now dregs of terror and shock remained.
A child, she thought, swamped with pity. Why was it so often a child?
"You've made your point, Roarke. End hologram program," she ordered, and her voice was steady. The images winked away and left her staring into his eyes.
"I would do it again," he told her. "Without hesitation or regret. And I would do more if it would spare her what she suffered."
"If you think I don't understand, you're wrong. I've seen more of this than you. I live with it, day and night. The aftermath of what one person does to another. And after I wade through the blood and the waste, all I can do is my best."