Salvation in death

“As I said. A new photo was provided by the applicant, along with copies of all necessary data. It’s a common way to make the switch.”

“Prints?”

“Well then, that’s where the cost comes in. You’ll need to grease the right palms or have a skill with hacking, and an unregistered. So you’d be switching the fingerprints all the way back, replacing with your own. And that means transferring them from childhood on, if you want to be thorough-and he did. It’s the first change where the hitch is most easily tripped. After that, it’s you, isn’t it? In your new skin.”

She frowned up at him. “How many forged IDs have you provided and/or used in your shady career?”

He smiled. “It’s a good living for a young lad with certain skills and considerable discretion, but was hardly my life’s work.”

“Hmm. Yeah, I ran the prints. They come up Flores, so he went deeper and hacked, or paid someone to hack, into the database to change them. The rest is pretty standard identity theft.”

“To do otherwise, to save a few pe

“Having the face work though, that adds coin, time, trouble. That’s long haul.” She pushed away from her desk, to think on her feet, to move through it. “That’s major commitment.”

“To go to those lengths, and for that amount of time, means you’d be giving up yourself, wouldn’t it? Your name, your face, the co

“He wanted more than that. I think he came back here, to New York, to that neighborhood specifically. He picked this place, so he knew this place. He was hiding, and needed to change the face-and he was patient.” She thought back, murmured, “ ‘And thus, having had long patience, he got the promise.’ ”

“Is that so?”

“I figure the patient get run over in Promiseland more than half the time, but the Bible says no. He had that passage highlighted in his. And this other one…” She had to walk back to her desk to look it up. “ ‘With me are riches and honor, enduring wealth and propriety.’ ”

“A promise of money, respect, stature,” Roarke speculated. “Yeah, all of that fits, and for some all of that’s worth killing for, and waiting for. It’s nice to have familiar surroundings while you wait-and maybe you even get a charge out of seeing people you know, and knowing they don’t recognize you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “People tell priests stuff, right? Intimate, personal stuff. That would be a kick, wouldn’t it?”

“I had an acquaintance once who sometimes posed as a priest.”

“Because?”

“Cons. As you say, sins are confessed, which is handy for blackmail, and collection plates are passed regularly. I didn’t like the gambit myself.”

“Because?”

“Well, it’s rude, isn’t it?”

She only shook her head. She knew the things he’d done, and yet understood he was the kind of man who’d find bilking si

“Maybe that’s part of it. Maybe he blackmailed one of the si

She turned away from the desk, wandered around the room. “But I’m not going to get it, not going to get the thing, until I get him. Who was he? I need the tat. I need the lab to push through the reconstruct of the tattoo. That’s something. Figuring he had it removed and the face work done around six years ago, and getting a bead on where the actual Flores was last alive and well will give me an area to focus on.”

She looked back at Roarke, who simply sat where he was, watching her. “There’s always echoes, right, always shadows? That’s what you e-geeks say about the hacking, the layering, the wiping data. And there’s always a way to get down to those echoes and shadows.”

“Almost always,” Roarke replied.

They wouldn’t find yours, Eve thought. But how many had Roarke’s resources or skill? “If he was as good as you, or could pay someone as good as you, he wouldn’t have been playing priest in Spanish Harlem. He’d have been hiding out and waiting for whatever it was on some balmy beach.”

“I can’t fault your logic.”

“It’s all speculation. It’s all projection. I don’t like working that way. I’ll get Feeny and EDD digging into this tomorrow.”

“And you? What will you do tomorrow?”

“I’m going back to church.”

He rose, moved to her. “Well then, let’s go sin first.”

“Even I know it’s not a sin if you’re married.”

He leaned down, nipped her bottom lip. “What I have in mind might be.”

“I’m still working here.”

He flipped open the top button of her shirt as he backed her toward the elevator. “Me, too.” And the next as he nudged her inside the car. “I love my job,” he said, then brought his mouth down to hers.

And he was good at it, she thought, as his hands got busy and her pulse jumped to gallop. She let the kiss take her under, and was already sunk deep when the elevator doors reopened and her shirt hit the floor.

The cool air whisked over her bare skin; her eyes blinked open.

He backed her toward the roof terrace where the open glass dome let in the night. “What-” Then his mouth took hers again, and she could all but feel her brain dissolving.

“We had a walk outside, dined al fresco.” He pressed her back into the stone rail. “We’ll consider this a hat trick.”

She slid her own hands down, found him hard. “Well, I see you brought your hockey stick.”

With a laugh he flipped open her bra-the simple white cotton she preferred and that never failed to allure him-and toyed first with the fat diamond she wore on a chain. “Now I feel I should come up with something clever to say about your puck, but everything that occurs sounds crude.”

He skimmed his hands over her breasts. Small and firm, with the diamond he’d given her gleaming between them. He felt the trip of her heart under smooth skin, and the warmth of her spread under his hands. However clear her eyes, however much humor in them, he knew she was already as aroused as he.

He turned her, eased her down on the edge of a wide, padded chaise. “Boots,” he said, and lifted one of her feet. She leaned back on her elbows, watching as he stood in front of her pulling off one boot, then the other.

Naked to the waist, her skin glowing a little in the pale light of the urban moon, the faint smirk on her face-irresistible. He sat beside her to take off his own shoes, shifting to meet her mouth again when she went to work on the buttons of his shirt. And she angled, straddled him, pressed herself to him.

She dived now rather than sank. Into the heat, the need, the wonder they brought to each other. Now, as ever, it was a shock to the system, a stu

He loved her, wanted her, needed her, just as impos-sibly as she loved, wanted, needed him. Miraculous.

He murmured to her, first her name. Just Eve. Only Eve. Then in Irish. A grha. My love. His love. And the rest was lost as his hands guided her, as in a dance, and she bowed back for him.

Those lips skimmed up her torso, a warm, gentle line, then his mouth took her breast with a quick, stu

Everything and all things. That was Eve for him. Nothing he’d ever dreamed of, even in secret in the dirty alleys of Dublin, approached the reality of her. Nothing he possessed could ever be as precious. The taste of her in the cool night, in the pale light, stirred a craving he understood would never be fully sated.

He rose, lifting her with him, feeling that craving spike and tear when her mouth went wild on his. Once again he pressed her back to the stone, now dropping her to her feet as he yanked her trousers down. As she dragged at his.