Vengeance in Death

He sighed again, wet his throat, and went on with it. "But Roarke, he was blind to the signals she was sending, deaf to the invitation in that warm voice. There he sat with the girl of my dreams offering him glory, and he kept noting figures in a tattered little book, adding them up, calculating his profits. For a businessman he ever was. Then Je

Brian rolled his eyes at that while one of the women leaned over the booth where Roarke sat with Eve and good-naturedly pinched his biceps. "Well, the boy wasn't a cad for all his wicked ways," Brian continued, "and he put his book away in his pocket and went off with her into the back. A frightful long time they were gone I'm after telling you, with my heart broken to bits behind Maloney's bar. When come out they did, with hair all mused and clothes askew, and a bright-eyed look about them, I knew Je

"Sixteen years old we were, the three of us, and still dreaming about what our lives might be. Now Maloney's pub is mine, Roarke's profits too many to count, and Je

There were a few tears at the end of it, and conversation began again in murmurs. Bringing his glass, Brian walked over, sat across from Roarke. "Do you remember that night?''

"I do. It's a good memory you brought back."

"Perhaps it was ill-ma

"I'd need a heart of stone to do that." Maybe it was the air, or the music, or the voices, but they made her sentimental. "Did she know how you felt about her?"

"Then, no." Brian shook his head, and there was a warm gleam in his eye. "And later, we were too much friends for else. My heart always leaned toward her, but it was in a different way as time passed. It was the thought of her I loved."

He seemed to shake himself, then tapped a finger on Roarke's glass. "Well now, you're barely drinking. Have you lost your head for good Irish whiskey living among the Yanks?"

"My head was always better than yours, wherever I was living."

"You had a good one," Brian admitted. "But I remember a night. Oh, it was after you'd sold off a shipment of a fine French bordeaux you'd smuggled in from Calais – begging your pardon, Lieutenant darling. Are you remembering that, Roarke?"

Roarke's lips moved into a smirk, and his hand brushed its way down Eve's hair. "I smuggled more than one shipment of French wine in my career."

"Oh, no doubt, no doubt, but this night in particular, you kept a half dozen bottles out, and were in a light and sharing frame of mind. You pulled together a game – a friendly one for a change – and we sat and drank every drop. You and me and Jack Bodine and that bloody fool Mick Co

Roarke picked up his glass now and savored a sip. "I recall being a bit light in the pocket the next morning when I woke up."

"Well." Brian gri

"No."

"Sing?" Eve sat up. "He sings?"

"No," Roarke said again, definitely, while Brian laughed.

"Prod him enough, and keep his glass full, and you'd get a tune out of him."

"He hardly even sings in the shower." She stared thoughtfully at Roarke. "You sing?"

Struggling between amusement and embarrassment, he shook his head and lifted his glass. "No," he said again. "And I don't plan to get drunk enough to prove myself a liar."

"Well, we'll work on that some." Brian winked and rose. "For now then I'm going to have them play a reel. Will you dance with me, Eve?"

"I might." She watched him walk off to liven up the music. "Getting drunk, singing in pubs, and tickling barmaids in the back room. Hmmm." She shot a long, speculative look at the man she married. "This is very interesting."

"You do the first, the others come easy."

"I might like to see you drunk." She put a hand on his cheek, glad to see the sadness had faded from his eyes. Wherever he had gone that afternoon was his secret, and she was satisfied that it had done him good.

He leaned forward to touch his lips to hers. "So I could tickle you in the back room? There's your reel," he added when the music brightened.

Eve glanced over, saw Brian coming back her way with neat, bouncing little steps. "I like him."

"So do I. I'd forgotten how much."

Sunshine and rain fell together and turned the light into a pearl. In the churchyard stood ancient stone crosses, pitted from age and wind. The dead rested close to each other, intimates of fate. The sound of the sea rose up from beyond rocky cliffs in a constant muted roar that proved time continued, even here.

There wasn't a single airbike or tram to spoil the sky where clouds layered over the blue like folded gray blankets. And the grass that covered the hills that rose up toward that sky was the deep emerald of hopes and dreams.

It made Eve think of an old video, or a hologram program.

The priest wore long traditional robes and spoke in Gaelic. The burying of the dead was a ritual only the rich could afford. It was a rare sight, and a crowd gathered outside the gates, respectively silent as the casket was lowered into its fresh pit.

Roarke rested his cheek on the top of Eve's head, gathering comfort as the mourners made the sign of the cross. He was putting more than a friend into the ground, and knew it. He was putting part of himself, a part he'd already thought long buried.

"I need to speak with the priest a moment."

She lifted a hand to the one he'd laid on her shoulder. "I'll wait here."

As he moved off, Brian stepped up to her. "He's done well by Je

"He loved her."

"There's nothing quite so sweet as the first love of the young and the lonely. You remember your childhood sweetheart?''

"I didn't have one. But I understand it."

Brian laid a hand on her shoulder, gave it a quick squeeze. "He couldn't have done better than you, even if you did make the unfortunate mistake of becoming a cop. Are you a good one, Lieutenant darling?"

"Yeah." Something in the way he'd asked had her looking over, into his face. "It's what I'm best at."

He nodded, and his thoughts seemed to drift as he shifted his gaze. "Christ knows how much money Roarke's passing the priest in that envelope."

"Do you resent that? His money?"

"No indeed." And he laughed a little. "Not that I don't wish I had it as well. He earned it. Always was the next game, the next deal with our lad Roarke. All I wanted was the pub, and since I have my heart's desire, I suppose I'm rich as well."

Brian looked down at the simple black skirt of her suit, the unadorned black pumps Eve wore. "You're not dressed for cliff walking, but would you take my arm and stroll along that way with me?"