Portrait In Death

WORKING… ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETE ALL TASKS IS TWENTY-THREE POINT FIVE MINUTES.

"Whatever. Switch display to map on file while working.

SWITCHING DISPLAY…

She moved forward, studying the routes and locations she'd already highlighted. Nothing matched the names she was ru

"Where do you work?" she queried aloud. "Where do you store your vehicle? Who are you?Why are you?"

Light, she thought. Light equals energy, life. Light equals soul. There's no image without light. No life without light.

Something stirred in her brain. She tilted her head as if to bring it to the surface.

And her 'link beeped.

"Damn it." She crossed over to answer. "Dallas."

"There she is. Hello, darlin'."

"Roarke." Every other thought flew out of her head, slapped away by love and worry. "Where are you?"

"In Dublin's fair city." He gri

"Are you… Are youdrunk?"

"Well and truly pissed, that I am. We're well into the second bottle now. Or maybe it's the third. Who's counting?"

"Who's we?"

"Me and my old boyhood mate, Brian Kelly. He sends all his love and devotion."

"Right." They'd gotten plowed before, foolishly buzzed on wine while on holiday. But she'd never seen Roarke stupidly drunk. His beautiful eyes were blurry, and his wonderful voice so thick with Ireland and slurred from drink, she could barely understand him. "You're at the Pe

"We're not, no. I don't believe. No," he verified after glancing around. "Don't appear to be in the pub. This much whiskey deserves a more private setting. We're drunk in Bri's flat. Come quite some ways from the shanties, Bri has. Nice cozy flat here. That's him you hear singing now about Molly Malone."

"Uh-huh." So he was safe then, she thought, and wouldn't go stumbling out of the pub and in front of a maxibus. "I guess it's after midnight there. You should go lie down now, get some sleep."

"Not ready to sleep, don't want the dreams. You'd understand that, wouldn't you, my one true love?"

"Yeah, I would. Roarke-"

"Found out some things today that I don't want to think about quite yet. Drowning them for the night. Found out some things from one of my father's old mates. Bastard. Didn't kill him, you'll be pleased to know. But I wanted to."

"Don't go anywhere tonight. Promise me you'll stay in Brian's flat. Drink yourself unconscious, but don't go anywhere."

"Not going anywhere till tomorrow. Heading west tomorrow."

"West?" She got an image of cattle ranches and mountains and long, empty fields. "Where? What, Montana?"

He laughed until she thought he'd burst. "Christ, is it any wonder I'm besotted with you? West in Ireland, my darling, darling Eve. I'm bound for Clare tomorrow. Odds are they'll kill me the minute they see my face-his face. But it has to be done."

"Roarke, why don't you stay with Brian another day. Let things settle down some. Then… What the hell was that?" she demanded when she heard a violent crash.

"Ah, Brian's down, and appears to have taken a table and lamp with him. Passed out flat on his face, poor sod. I'd best go try to haul his ass up and into bed. I'll ring you up tomorrow. See that you take care of my cop. I can't live without her."

"Take care of my drunk Irishman. I can't live without him either."

He blinked those blurry eyes in confusion. "What, Brian?"

"No, you idiot. You."

"Oh." He gri

"Good night." She stared at the blank screen, wishing she could just reach through it and haul him back to where he belonged.

The computer was just detailing her matches when Peabody and McNab strolled in. "Summerset's fine," Peabody told her. "He gets the skin cast off tomorrow and can start walking for short periods."

"Picture me doing handsprings. Matthew Brady, Ansel Adams, Jimmy Olsen, Luis Javert. Who are these guys?"

"Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter, theDaily Planet " McNab supplied.

"You know him?"

"Superman, Dallas. You've got to get more exposure to pop culture. Comics, graphic novels, vids, games, toys. See, Superman's this superhero from the planet Krypton who's sent to Earth as a baby, and-"

"Just the highlights, McNab."

"He disguises himself as mild-ma

"Photographer, check. And the other two?"

McNab shrugged his bony shoulders. "Got me."

"Ansel Adams was a photographer," Peabody supplied. "My father's got some of his prints. Nature stuff, powerful."

"And Matthew Brady." She went to the computer for that one. "Another photographer. Three for three. No other matches in family names, street address. And behind door number two?"

Her eyes went flat and hard. "We've got a wi

"McNab, get me everything you can on Henri Javert."

"On it."

"Peabody, there's a couple dozen matches here for Luis. Trim it down. Children," she said with a fierce grin, "we've got his scent."

She worked until she thought her eyes would bleed, worked long after she'd sent Peabody and McNab off to do whatever they were going to do on the gel bed.

When her thoughts began to blur as well as her vision, she crawled into the sleep chair for a few hours down. She didn't want another night alone in the big bed.

And still the dreams found her, and tugged her with icy hands from exhaustion to nightmare.

The room was familiar. Terrifyingly so. That hideous room in Dallas where the air was brutally cold and the light was washed with dirty red. She knew it was a dream and fought to will herself out of it. But she could already smell the blood-on her hands, on the knife clutched in them, splattered on the floor, seeping out of him.

She could smell his death, and the vision of it-of what she'd done, what she'd become to save herself-was etched on her mind.

Her arm screamed with pain. The child's arm in the dream, the woman's who was trapped in it. It was burning hot where he'd snapped the bone, burning cold up to the shoulder, down to the fingertips that dripped with red.

She would wash it off. That's what she had done then, that's what she would do now. Wash off the blood, wash away the death in the cold water.

She moved slowly, like an old woman, wincing at the sting between her legs, blocking out the reason for it.

It smelled metallic-the water, the blood-how could she know? She was only eight.

He'd beaten her again. He'd come home, not quite drunk enough to leave her be. So he'd beaten her again, raped her again, broken her again. But this time she'd stopped him.

The knife had stopped him.

She could go now, away from the cold, away from this room, away from him.

"You never get away, and you know it."

She looked up. There was a mirror over the sink. She could see her face in it-thin, white, eyes dark with shock and pain-and the face behind it.

So beautiful, with those magic blue eyes, the silky black hair, that full mouth. Like a picture in a book.