Kindred In Death

In the lab, Roarke finessed, twisted, prodded. He’d grabbed the amorphous tail of the ghost and was fighting to hold it. “Do you see it?” he demanded.

On a wall screen, Feeney’s eyes were narrowed to slits. “I’ve got eyes, don’t I? You need to recalibrate the bypass, then-”

“I’m bloody well doing that.” Roarke swiveled to another comp, keyed in another code.

“I can box it from here.” On another screen, McNab paced. “If we ride the back end from here-”

“Keep working the enhance,” Feeney snapped. “I’ve got it.”

“Roarke.”

“Not now!” the order shot out at Eve from Roarke, and from the two males on the wall screens.

“Jesus, wall of geek,” she muttered. Then saw the other image, a shadow on shadows.

“You’re pulling him out.”

“We’ve got him, but by our bleeding fingernails. Quiet. If we can’t lock this, we’ll have to do it all again.”

As she watched, the screen began to blur with white dots. She heard McNab say, “No! Damn it, no! It’s another strain. Jesus.”

“Not this time,” Roarke snapped. “The pattern’s there. Reverse the code, every other sequence.”

Eve could see the light sheen of sweat on Feeney’s face, hear the steely determination in Roarke’s voice.

The dots on screen faded.

“We did it!” McNab cried out.

“Not quite yet,” Roarke’s voice eased slightly. “But we bloody well will.”

She didn’t know what they were doing, but the shadow on screen shimmered so she feared it would vanish. Then it steadied, stilled.

“Locked!” McNab called. “We locked the bastard. Rocking-freaking-A.” He leaped up into a victory dance.

“Christ.” Roarke leaned back. “I could use a pint.”

“I’m damn well having one. Good work, every damn one of us,” Feeney said.

“Ah… is that it?” As Eve gestured to the shadow, every eye, on screen or in the room, turned a jaundiced look on her.

“We broke through the virus,” Roarke told her. “We pieced together this image from distorted pixels. We performed a bloody miracle. And no, that’s not it. That’s it for now.”

“We’ll start enhancing, defining, cleaning it up,” Feeney told her, then took a long pull from a bottle of brew. “It’s going to take hours, maybe a day, but it’s there, and we can pull it out. And while we’re doing that, we’ve got the sequence and coding locked down to get the rest of it. We’ll be able to give you the little son of a bitch walking right in the door.”

“That’ll be a cap on it. Meanwhile, thanks to Jamie, I’ve got a name, and a point of origin. Darrin Pauley, age twenty-three. Data claims he lives in Sundown, Alabama, south of Mobile, with his father, Vincent Pauley. I’ve got no co

“He’s no more in Alabama than my ass is,” Feeney put in.

“No, but his father is. I ran him, and he’s gainfully employed, living with his wife and twelve-year-old daughter, in Sundown.”

“Could be a blind,” Feeney suggested.

“Could, but the family resemblance is striking. He needs to be interviewed, now, and face-to-face.”

Roarke glanced at the equipment he’d begun to enjoy again. “I suppose we’re going to Alabama this evening.”

“You suppose correctly.”

14

SHE HAD TO APPRECIATE BEING MARRIED TO A man who could call up one of his own private jets in a fingersnap and pilot it if he had a mind to.

In this case, he did, which was a big advantage. She could sit, continue doing runs, argue with Peabody, bounce theories off her personal pilot, and basically ignore the view out the windscreen.

“I’d’ve been ready in five minutes,” Peabody complained. Her face sulked on screen while in the background McNab continued his e-work in incomprehensible geek.

“It would’ve taken you thirty minimum to get to the transpo. He’s not going to be there, Peabody. You’re not going to miss the collar, for Christ’s sake. And I need you right where you are, digging down to find a New York address or contact for Darrin Pauley. Employment, driver’s license, criminal, finances, medical. Each and every fucking thing.”

“I could do that while-”

“You can have a plane ride another time.”

Peabody’s pout perked, just a little. “When?”

“God. Dig. Now.”

“I will. Am.”

“And work the shoes and the outfit angle. Check to see if he has a credit or debit under that name. If not, we’re going to cross the data you have with males with the initials DP. He used Darian Powders’s ID. Stick with the familiar, so maybe he has other aliases with those initials.”

“That’s good. I’ll-”

“That’s it. Bank a few hours’ sleep because we’re briefing a full team at seven hundred. Book the conference room. I’m out,” Eve said and broke transmission.

“While I find myself, as always, excited by your commanding demeanor,” Roarke said, “this member of the team isn’t available at seven tomorrow.”

She suppressed the urge to swear, because damn it, she could’ve used him. “Civilians get a pass.”

“I can reorder a few things if Feeney can use me, and be available to him about the same time I managed it today.”

“If it works for you. He’s not going to be in Alabama. He needs the payoff of seeing, firsthand, MacMasters devastated. And he’s been in New York for some time. Maybe not for five years, maybe not the whole time since his stint at Columbia, but for a while now. Keeping an eye on things, spi

“Then why are you? Wait until after the memorial.”

“Calculated risk.” She wanted to stand up, pace, but the size of the plane, the expanse of the night, the emptiness outside the windshield kept her in place. “Off chance he is there. Very off chance, but it can’t be ignored. Better chance, his father knows where he is, and I can get it out of him. Then shut the father’s communications down until we take the bastard down. The other end of it is, I get nothing, the father tips Pauley off, and he’s in the wind. But…”

“You don’t think so.”

“Family man, long marriage, another kid. No criminal other than a minor bust for disturbing the peace when he was in his twenties. Solid employment record, mid-level salary, small house in the ’burbs, mortgage. Is this guy going to risk his wife and daughter, that little house, the job, the life, to dodge a police investigation into the rape-murder of a girl? Risk charges of obstruction, accessory after the fact, and anything else I can use to pressure him?”

“Depends, I’d say, on how much he loves his son, and how far he’d go to protect him.”

“I wouldn’t understand that kind of love, the kind that shields monsters. I don’t think it is love. If he does love this sick, son of a bitch, I’ll use that. He needs help. Help us to help him. If I don’t find him, someone else might. He killed a cop’s kid, and someone else might put that above the law.”

She drummed her fingers on her thigh, tried to ignore the shimmy of the plane as they started to descend. “I’ve got to take another risk.” She tagged Baxter at home. “Take the sketch,” she ordered without preamble. “Get Trueheart and canvass the coffeehouses, clubs, hangouts around the university, and on campus.”

“Now?”

“No, gee, whenever you feel like it. Jamie worked an imaging program at Columbia. Check in with him, let him know you’re in the field. And, if it isn’t too much trouble, if it doesn’t interfere with your plans for the evening-”

“Jesus, Dallas, bust my balls.”

“Your balls have never interested me, Baxter.”

“Again, ouch.”

“Take the sketch around MacMasters’s neighborhood. Anything pops, tag me. Otherwise, briefing at seven hundred, Central, confer ence room.”