Portrait In Death

"I don't know what the hell to think about yours."

Now he snorted. "Don't come much uglier. But there's a beauty in that." He looked down at his hands a moment, then blew out a windy sigh. "I never killed that girl. Never killed anyone. I like to think of ways to kill people who irritate me. Throwing them off high buildings, boiling them in oil, locking them in a dark room with live snakes, that kind of thing. It gets me through the day."

"You're a piece of work, Hastings."

"We all are. That face. That girl's face. Harmless. You know what makes people such pricks, Lieutenant Dallas?"

"They destroy the harmless."

"Yeah, they do."

"Lieutenant!" McNab waved a hand with his eyes still onscreen. "Found her."

She crossed over, studied the screen. She spotted Rachel instantly, though she was in a group of other young people. Dressed up, fussy dresses, with flowers in the background. Some sort of formal party, she imagined. Probably a wedding.

Rachel had her arm around another girl, her own head thrown back as the photo caught her in a bright, delighted laugh.

" Hastings." Eve motioned him over. "Who, what, where, and when?" she demanded.

"That's it!" His shoulder bumped McNab as he maneuvered to study the full screen, and nearly knocked the lightweight EDD man out of his chair. "I knew I'd seen that face. What is this, what is this? Yeah, the Morelli-Desoto wedding, in January. See it's labeled. There are more-"

"Don't touch the keyboard," Eve snapped. "McNab, enlarge and print the image. You've got more of her, Hastings?"

"I got the whole fricking wedding. Part of the package is I keep them for a year so people can take their time selecting. And Aunt Jane or Grandma Whoosits can come around six months later and order some. There're more of the girl there, and some I took of just her because of that face."

"McNab, run through, select any images of the victim. Enlarge and print."

He scrolled through, giving the commands. Eve saw portions of the wedding unfold-the bride and groom, the family portraits, the candids. Young people, old people, friends and relatives.

"That's the lot, Dallas."

"No. No, it's not," Hastings interrupted before Eve could speak. "I took more. I told you I took more of her, and some other faces that interested me. Subfile on this disc. Faces. They're under Faces."

McNab called it up. Eve noted Hastings hadn't bothered with the bride or groom here. There was a portrait of an old, old woman, a dreamy smile almost lost in the wrinkled map of her face. A child with icing ringing his mouth. Another, surprisingly tender, of a little girl in her party dress, fast asleep across a chair.

Faces streamed by.

"This isn't right," Hastings muttered. "She's not in here. I took them, goddamn it. Four or five candids, two posed. I took more of her than anyone else outside the freaking wedding party. I took those shots."

"I believe you." Considering, Eve tapped her fingers on her thigh. "Couple of things here, Hastings. Are you willing to take a Truth Test?"

"Fuck. Fuck. Yeah, what the hell."

"I'll set it up." She glanced at her wrist unit. Too late in the day to schedule one. "For tomorrow. Now, who worked with you on this job?"

"How the hell do I know? It was freaking January."

"You got files, records?"

"Sure, on the jobs, on the images, on the shoots. Not on assistants. I go through assistants like toilet paper, and toilet paper's a lot more useful."

"You pay them, don't you?"

"More than they're worth," he began, then blinked. "Right. Right. Lucia takes care of it. She'll know."

For the first time since he'd laid eyes on Eve, Roarke was relieved she wasn't there when he got home. Ignoring a quick tug of guilt, he went directly upstairs rather than heading back to Summerset's quarters to check on him.

He needed time. He needed privacy. He needed, for Christ's sweet sake, to think.

It could all be a hoax. It probably was, he told himself as he coded into the secured room that held his unregistered equipment. It likely was a hoax, some complicated, convoluted scheme to bilk him out of some ready cash, or to distract him from some upcoming negotiations.

But why use something so deeply buried in his past? Why, for God's sake, try to tangle him up with something he could, and bloody well would, unravel quickly enough?

It was bullshit. Bollocks.

But he wasn't quite sure.

Because he wanted a drink, a little too much, he opted for coffee, strong and black, before turning to the sleek black console.

He'd had this room built, had added all the security precautions personally. For one purpose. To get around the all-seeing eye and the sticky tendrils of CompuGuard. There was some business, even for the legitimate businessman he'd become, that was no one's concern but his.

Here, in this room with its privacy screened windows, its secured door, he could send and receive any communiqué's, conduct any searches, hack into anything he had the time or skill to pursue without alerting CompuGuard.

There had been a time, not so long ago in the grand scheme of things, when he'd used the equipment in this room for purposes not quite legal-as much for fun, he could admit, as for profit. Perhaps even more out of simple habit.

He'd grown up a thief and a grifter, and such habits were difficult to break. Especially if you were good.

He'd always been good.

So good, it had been a very long time since he'd needed to steal to survive. He'd shed his criminal associations and activities, layer by layer, slicking on the polish money could bring.

He'd made something of himself, he thought now, as he looked around the room. Had begun to, in any case.

Then there'd been Eve. His cop. What could a man do when he was so utterly besotted but shed more layers?

She'd been the making of him, Roarke supposed. And still, for all they were to each other, there was a core in him even she couldn't touch.

Now someone had come along, some stranger trying to make him believe that everything up to now-everything he'd done, everything he was, everything he wanted-rested on a lie? A lie, and murder?

He crossed to a mirror. His face, his father's face. All but one and the same, and there was no getting around it. It wasn't something he thought about often, even considered. Which was why, he imagined, having it slapped hard in that face this way shook him down to that hard, cold, unreachable core.

So, he would deal with it. And be done with it.

He sat behind the glossy, U-shaped console, laid his palm on the screen against the slick black. It glowed red as it sca

"This is Roarke," he said. "Open operations."

Lights winked on, machines began their quiet, almost human hum. And he got to work.

First, he ordered a deep-level search on Moira O'Ba

The first level was basic. Her date and place of birth, her parents and siblings, her husband and children. Her work record. It jibed with what she'd told him, but he'd expected that.

A good con required a good foundation, didn't it? Who knew that better than he did?

She had to be lying. Had to be, because if she wasn't…

Pain and panic crashed in his gut. He bore down, stared at the data on-screen. She had to be lying, and that was that. He only had to find the first chink, and the rest of her fanciful story would crumble.

As the layers peeled away, he studied her medical records, her financials, and those of her family. With a deadly calm he stripped away her privacy, and that of everyone co

It took him a full hour and he found nothing that sent up a flag.