Betrayal in Death

Mick gave a careless burst of laughter. "Well, when has that ever stopped a man from taking a sample here and there. Hurts no one, does it?"

Roarke watched the gates of his home open, a graceful, silent motion. "Once, I recall the lot of us, you and Bri and Jack, Tommy, and Shawn as well – got half-pissed on home brew. And as we sat around the question came up as to what the one thing in the world would be we'd want and need most. The one thing we would give up anything else to keep. Do you remember that, Mick?"

"Aye. The brew put us in a philosophical state of mind on that occasion. I said I'd be more than satisfied by a great sea of money. For then I could buy all the rest, couldn't I? It seems to me Shawn, being Shawn, wanted a dick big as an elephant's, but he was more pissed than the rest of us, and wasn't considering the logistics of it."

He turned his head, studied his friend. "Now that I'm thinking of it, I don't recall you said anything, made that selection of the one thing."

"I didn't, no. Because I couldn't see what it might be. Freedom, money, power, going one bloody week without having the old man pound on me. I couldn't decide, so I didn't say. But I know it now. Eve. She's my one thing."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Since Eve arrived home first, she made up what she could of lost time by heading straight to her office and sending the transmission to Mavis.

Her incoming data light was on. She booted it up, and began to scan the files, standing behind her desk with her palms pressed on its top.

Stowe matched her profile, Eve mused. The woman was thorough and she was efficient. The official data was less than she'd hoped for, but the agent's side notations were illuminating.

Been copying the files for personal use all along, haven't you? Eve decided. I'd have done the same.

It appeared that Stowe had begun to take Feeney's tact of cross-referencing the victims by friends, family, business associates. All of those individuals had been questioned, a select few had been taken into an official interview as suspects.

Nobody played out.

Eve shifted documents, read on, then smiled thinly. It looked as though the FBI had run into some of the same tangled tape with Interpol as she had with the Bureau. Nobody wanted to share.

"One of the many reasons he keeps sliding through."

She sat back, considered. He knows something about law enforcement, she thought. Knows about the bumps and the ruts and the paperwork, the politics and the grandstanding.

He counted on it.

Do a job in one place, bounce to another, and work there or take a nice holiday until things chilled out again. Hit Paris, zip back to New York, take in the opera, do some shopping, contemplate the view from your penthouse terrace while the French cops are chasing their own tails.

A quick trip to Vegas II, a little gambling to amuse yourself, hit your target, and take a luxury shuttle back home before Interplanetary gets the data up.

She glanced up as Roarke walked in. "Maybe he can pilot."

"Hmmm?"

"You can't always depend on public transpo, even premier class. You got delays, equipment failures, cancellations, rerouting. Why risk it? Private plane or private shuttle. Maybe both. Yeah, I can put McNab on that. Be like picking a needle out of a… a hill of needles, but we could get lucky. How come the cat didn't follow you in?"

"Deserted me for Mick. They're fast mates now."

He wrapped his arm around her from behind, nuzzled her neck. "Shall I tell you how you looked striding across that restaurant tonight?"

"Like a cop. Sorry. I didn't have time to change."

"A very sexy cop. Long legs and lots of attitude. I appreciate you taking the time."

"Yeah?" She turned. "I guess you owe me one."

"At the very least."

"I might have a way for you to pay up."

"Darling." His hands began to roam. "Happy to."

"Not that way. You're always good for sex."

"Why… thank you."

"So…" She nudged him back before his hands got too busy, then sat on the desk. "I had a couple of meets after the briefing. First was with Peabody."

"That was good of you."

"No, it wasn't. I can't count on her to focus if she's moping around, can I? Don't grin at me. It'll piss me off." She blew out a breath. "McNab gave her a hard shot by talking about his hot date tonight."

"A standard and unimaginative ploy."

"I don't know anything about ploys. It hit the mark. Left her all sad and shaky. So I fed her ice cream, and let her dump on me. Now you get to hear it."

"Do I get ice cream?"

"I don't want to see anything from the ice-cream food group for at least two weeks."

She filled him in, mostly because she wanted assurance she'd made the right moves, said the right things. He knew more about the lending a shoulder deal than she did.

"He's jealous of Monroe. Understandably."

"Jealousy is a small, ugly emotion."

"And a human one. At this point, I'd say that his feelings for her are stronger, or at least clearer, than hers for him. It would be frustrating. Is frustrating," he corrected, skimming his fingers along her jaw. "As I remember very well."

"You got your way, didn't you? Anyway, I'm hoping it blows over and they go back to sniping at each other like they used to, instead of groping in maintenance closets."

"You really should try to rein in that wild romantic streak."

"I'm not going to say I told you so."

He laughed at her, at both of them. "Yes, you are."

"Okay, I did tell you. We're in the middle of a messy investigation and they're trying to score off each other, and sulking. They're cops, damn it."

"That's right. But they're not droids."

"Okay, okay." She threw up her hands. "But they better table it until we close this. Moving on, Whitney used his arm and got me some additional data on Mollie Newman."

"Ah, the justice's minor entertainment."

"Entertainment for him maybe. Upshot is she was his niece through marriage. A nice, impressionable kid who did well in her classes and wanted to be a lawyer. The justice was going to help her out there, and apparently just helped himself. I'm leaving her out of it, at least for now."

"You might get closer after a little chat with her."

"I might, but it's not worth it." She'd worked those angles everywhere they would fit and had decided they simply didn't fit at all. "Yost doesn't worry about ID, so her seeing him means nothing. I don't think he touched her, not his style."

"He wasn't being paid to."

"Exactly. And her medical indicates illegals and sexual molestation. I'd hang Exotica and the molestation on the judge, the Zoner on Yost to put her down while he did the job. I don't need her to build a case, so unless it looks like there was some co

No one would understand better, Roarke thought. "Then we'll leave her be."

"Meanwhile, Feeney popped into the briefing with some very interesting data, right out of Jacoby's and Stowe's sealed profiles."

If they'd been playing poker, his mildly interested expression would have pulled in the pot with a hand full of trash. "Is that so?"

"Don't give me that. It had your fingerprints all over it."

"Lieutenant. I've told you before, I never leave fingerprints."

"I told you before I didn't want you veering off the regulations to get me information."

"And I haven't."

"No, you just used Feeney as a bridge."

"Did he say that?" When she hissed, he smiled. "Apparently not. I can only assume this data received from some unidentified source proved useful."

She scowled at him, pushed off the desk to pace away. Paced back. Then gave up and told him about her meeting with Karen Stowe.