by J. D. Robb
He wondered that a woman who was so skilled in observation, in studying the human condition, couldn’t see that what he felt for her was often as baffling and as frightening to him as it was to her.
Nothing had been the same for him since she’d walked into his life wearing an ugly suit and cool-eyed suspicion. He thanked God for it.
Feeling sentimental, he realized. He supposed it was the Irish that popped out of him at unexpected moments. More, he kept replaying the nightmare she’d suffered through a few nights before.
They came more rarely now, but still they came, torturing her sleep, sucking her back into a past she couldn’t quite remember. He wanted to erase them from her mind, eradicate them. And knew he never would. Never could.
For months, he’d been tempted to do a full search and scan, to dig out the data on that tragic child found broken and battered in a Dallas alley. He had the skill, and he had the technology to find everything there was to find: details the social workers, the police, the child authorities couldn’t.
He could fill in the blanks for her, and, he admitted, for himself.
But it wasn’t the way. He understood her well enough to know that if he took on the task, gave her the answers to questions she wasn’t ready to ask, it would hurt more than heal.
Wasn’t it the same for him? When he’d returned to Dublin after so many years, he’d needed to study some of the shattered pieces of his childhood. Alone. Even then, he’d only glanced at the surface of them. What was left of them were buried. At least for now, he intended to leave them buried.
The now was what required his attention, he reminded himself. And brooding over the past—there was the Irish again—solved nothing. Whether the past was his or Eve’s, it solved nothing.
He gathered up the discs and hard copies he’d need for his afternoon meetings. Then hesitated. He wanted another look at her before he left for the day.
But when he opened the connecting doors, he saw only McNab, stuffing what appeared to be an entire burger in his mouth while the computer droned through a background search.
“Solo today, Ian?”
McNab jerked from a lounging to a sitting position, swallowed too fast, choked. Amused, Roarke strolled over and slapped him smartly on the back.
“It helps to chew first.”
“Yeah. Thanks. Ah . . . I didn’t have much breakfast, so I thought it’d be okay if I . . .”
“My AutoChef is your AutoChef. The lieutenant’s in the field, I take it.”
“Yeah. She hauled Peabody out about an hour ago. Feeney headed into Central to tie up some threads. I’m working here.” He smiled then, a quick flash of strong white teeth. “I got the best gig.”
“Lucky you.” Roarke managed to find a French fry on McNab’s plate that hadn’t been drowned in ketchup. He sampled it while he studied the screen. “Running backgrounds? Again?”
“Yeah, well.” McNab rolled his eyes, shifting so his silver ear loops clanged cheerfully together. “Dallas has some wild hair about there might be some way-back connection, some business between Draco and one of the players that simmered all these years. Me, I figure we already scanned all the data and found zippo, but she wants another run, below the surface. I’m here to serve. Especially when real cow meat’s on the menu.”
“Well now, if there is some bit of business, you’re unlikely to find it this way, aren’t you?”
“I’m not?”
“Something old and simmering, you say.” Considering the possibility, Roarke hooked another fry. “If I wanted to find something long buried, so to speak, I’d figure on getting a bit of dirt under my nails.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Sealed records.”
“I don’t have the authority to open sealeds. You gotta have probable cause, and a warrant, and all that happy shit.” When Roarke merely smiled, McNab straightened, glanced at the entrance door. “Of course, if there was a way around all that off the record—”
“There are ways, Ian. And there are ways.”
“Yeah, but there’s also the CYA factor.”
“Well then, we’ll just have to make sure your ass is covered. Won’t we?”
“Dallas is going to know, isn’t she?” McNab said a few minutes later, when their positions were reversed and Roarke sat at the computer.
“Of course. But you’ll find that knowing and proving are far different matters, even to the redoubtable lieutenant.”
In any case, Roarke enjoyed his little forays into police work. And he was a man who rarely saw a need to limit his enjoyments.
“Now you see here, Ian, we’ve accessed the on-record fingerprints and DNA pattern of your primary suspects. Perfectly legitimate.”
“Yeah, if I was doing the accessing.”
“Only a technicality. Computer, match current identification codes with any and all criminal records, civil actions and suits, including all juvenile and sealed data. A good place to start,” he said to McNab.
Working . . . Access to sealed data is denied without proper authority or judicial code. Open records are available. Shall I continue?
“Hold.” Roarke sat back, examined his nails. Clean as a whistle, he thought. For the moment. “McNab, be a pal, would you, and fetch me some coffee?”
McNab stuck his hands in his pockets, pulled them out, did a quick mental dance over the thin line between procedure and progress. “Um. Yeah, okay. Sure.”
He ducked into the kitchen area, ordered up the coffee. He dawdled. McNab didn’t have a clue how long it would take to bypass the red tape and access what was not supposed to be accessed. To calm himself, he decided to see if there was any pie available.
He discovered to his great delight that he had a choice of six types and agonized over which to go for.
“Ian, are you growing the coffee beans in there?”
“Huh?” He poked his head back in. “I was just . . . figured you’d need some time.”
He was a sharp tech, Roarke thought, and a delightfully naive young man. “I think this might interest you.”
“You got in? Already? But how—” McNab cut himself off as he hurried back to the desk. “No, I’d better not know how. That way, when I’m being charged and booked, I can claim ignorance.”
“Charged and booked for what?” Roarke tapped a finger on a sheet of paper. “Here’s your warrant for the sealeds.”
“My—” Eyes goggling, McNab snatched up the sheet. “It looks real. It’s signed by Judge Nettles.”
“So it appears.”
“Wow. You’re not just ice,” McNab said reverently. “You’re fucking Antarctica.”
“Ian, please. You’re embarrassing me.”
“Right. Um. Why did I ask for Judge Nettles for the warrant again?”
With a laugh, Roarke got to his feet. “I’m sure you can come up with some appropriately convoluted cop speak to justify the request if and when you’re asked. My suggestion would be a variation on a shot in the dark.”
“Yeah. That’s a good one.”
“Then I’ll leave you to it.”
“Okay. Thanks. Ah, hey, Roarke?”
“Yes?”
“There’s this other thing.” McNab shifted from foot to foot on his purple airboots. “It’s kind of personal. I was going to work around to talking to the lieutenant about it, but, well, you know how she is.”
“I know precisely.” He studied McNab’s face, felt a stir of pity wrapped around amusement. “Women, Ian?”
“Oh yeah. Well, woman, I guess. I gotta figure a guy like you knows how to handle them as well as you handle electronics. I just don’t get women. I mean I get them,” he rushed on. “I don’t have any problem with sex. I just don’t get them, in an intellectual sense. I guess.”
“I see. Ian, if you want me to discuss the intricacies and capriciousness of the female mind, we’ll need several days and a great deal of liquor.”
“Yeah. Ha. I guess you’re in a hurry right now.”
&nbs
p; Actually, time was short. There were a few billion dollars waiting to be shifted, juggled, and consumed. But Roarke eased a hip on the corner of the desk. The money would wait. “I imagine this involves Peabody.”
“We’re, you know, doing it.”
“Ian, I had no idea you were such a wild romantic. A virtual poet.”
Roarke’s dry tone had McNab flushing, then grinning. “We have really amazing sex.”
“That’s lovely for both of you, and congratulations. But I’m not sure Peabody would appreciate you sharing that piece of information with me.”
“It’s not really about sex,” McNab said quickly, afraid he’d lose his sounding board before he’d sounded off. “I mean, it is, because we have it. A lot of it. And it rocks, so that’s mag and all. That’s how I figured it would be if I could ever get her out of that uniform for five damn minutes. But that’s like it, that’s all. Every time we finish, you know, the naked pretzel, I have to bribe her with food or get her going about a case or she’s out the door. Or booting me out, if we landed at her place.”
Roarke understood the frustration. He’d only had one woman ever try to shake him off. The only woman who mattered. “And you’re looking for more.”
“Weird, huh?” With a half laugh, McNab began to pace. “I really like women. All sorts of women. I especially like them naked.”
“Who could blame you?”
“Exactly. So I finally get a chance to bounce on the naked She-Body, and it’s making me crazy. I’m all tied up inside and she’s cruising right along. I always figured women, you know, mostly they were supposed to want the whole relationship thing. Talking about stuff so you come up with all those nice lies. I mean, they know you’re lying, but they go along with it because maybe you won’t be later on. Or something.”
“That’s a fascinating view on the male/female dynamic.” One, Roarke was certain, would earn the boy a female knee to the balls if ever voiced in mixed company. “I take it Peabody isn’t interested in pleasant lies.”
“I don’t know what she’s interested in; that’s the whole deal.” Wound up now, he waved his arms. “I mean, she likes sex, she’s into her work, she looks at Dallas like the lieutenant has the answers to the mysteries of the universe. Then she goes off with that goddamn Monroe son of a bitch to the opera.”
It was the last, delivered with vitriol, that had Roarke nodding. “It’s perfectly natural to be jealous of a rival.”
“Rival, my ass. What the hell’s wrong with her, going around with that slick LC? Fancy dinners and art shows. Listening to music you can’t even dance to. I ought to smash his face in.”
Roarke thought about it a moment and decided, under similar circumstances, he’d be tempted to do just that. “It would be satisfying, no doubt, but bound to annoy the woman in question. Have you tried romance?”
“What do you mean? Like goofy stuff?”
Roarke sighed. “Let’s try this. Have you ever asked her out?”
“Sure. We see each other a couple, three nights a week.”
“Out, Ian. In public. In places where you’re both required, by law, to wear clothes of some kind.”
“Oh. Not really.”
“It might be a place to start. A date, where you’d pick her up at her apartment at a time agreed upon, then take her to a place where food and entertainment are offered. While enjoying that food and/or entertainment, you might try having a conversation with her, one that doesn’t directly involve sex or work.”
“I know what a date is,” McNab grumbled, and felt put upon. “I haven’t got the credit base to take her places like that bastard Monroe.”
“Ah, therein lies one of the wonders of the female mind and heart. Go with your strengths, take her places that appeal to her sense of adventure, romance, humor. Don’t compete with Monroe, Ian. Contrast with him. He gives her orchids grown in greenhouses on Flora I, you give her daisies you picked from the public field in Greenpeace Park.”
As the information, the idea of it, processed, McNab’s eyes cleared. Brightened. “Hey, that’s good. That could work. I guess I could try it. You’re really into this shit. Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” Roarke picked up his briefcase. “I’ve always been a gambling man, Ian, and one who likes to win. If I were to wager on your little triangle, I’d put my money on you.”
The idea pumped up McNab’s mood so high he forgot about the pie in the kitchen and got straight to work. He was having such a good time planning out his first date with Peabody, he nearly missed the data that scrolled on-screen.
“Holy shit!” He jumped back up on his boots, did a little dance, and grabbed his communicator.
“Dallas.”
“Hey, Lieutenant, hey. I think I’ve got something. Criminal charges, assault and a civil suit—bodily harm, property damage and blah blah, both filed by Richard Draco, June 2035. Charges were dropped, then sealed. Civil action settled to the tune of five million smackeroonies and sealed. Defendant in both cases was—”
“How did you access sealeds, McNab?”
He blinked, and his mind went blank. “How did I what?”
“Detective, how did you access sealed records without the proper authority or the orders of the primary investigation to obtain said authority?”
“I . . .”
“Where’s Roarke?”
Even on the small communicator screen he could see flames leap into her eyes. “Roarke?” Though he had a bad feeling it was already too late, McNab tried to shift his expression into innocence, confusion, and righteousness all at once. “I don’t know. I guess he’s working somewhere. Um . . . did you want him for something?”
“Has he been playing with you?”
“No, sir! Absolutely not. I’m on duty.”
Her eyes stared out from the communicator screen for a very long twenty seconds. He felt sweat begin to slip greasily down the center of his back.
“I . . . as to how I accessed data, Lieutenant, it occurred to me that, well, previous backgrounds had been negative, and your instincts, which I respect and admire and trust absolutely, indicated there should be something. So I took what you could call a shot in the dark. That’s it, a shot in the dark, and communicated our position to Judge Nettles, who agreed to issue the proper authority. I have the warrant.”
He picked it up, waved it. “It’s signed and everything.”
“I just bet it is. Is this going to spring back and bite my ass, McNab? Think carefully before you answer, because I promise you, if it bites mine, it’s going to have a chew fest on yours.”
“No, sir.” He hoped. “Everything’s in proper order.”
“I’m ten minutes away. Hold everything . . . in proper order. And McNab, if I see Roarke’s fingerprints anywhere, I’m going to wring your skinny neck.”
The first thing Eve did when she walked back into the house was hit the house scanner. “Where is Roarke?” she demanded.
Roarke is not currently on the premises. He is logged, at this time, at his midtown offices. Shall I direct a transmission for you, Darling Eve?
“No. Sneaky bastard.”
“It called you darling, sir. That’s so sweet.”
“One of Roarke’s little jokes. And if I hear it repeated, I’ll have to kill you.”
She headed up the stairs out of habit. Peabody sighed again, knowing there were numerous elevators that would be delighted to save them the climb.
When they walked into the office, she smirked at McNab on principle, but she did offer up a quick little prayer for his skinny neck. She’d grown, however reluctantly, fond of it.
He sprang to his feet, leading with the warrant. “All proper and official, sir.”
Eve snatched it away, took a good, hard look. The tension in her shoulders unknotted muscle by muscle. She was dead sure Roarke was behind this sudden bounty of data, but the warrant would pass muster.
“Okay, McNab. You can live for the time being. Contact Feeney, put him on a conference-link and let’s
see what we’ve got.”
What they had was twenty-four years old, but it was violent, petty, mean-spirited, and provocative.
“So the sophisticated Kenneth whopped big time on one Richard Draco.”
“Really big time,” Peabody put in. “He knocked out two teeth, busted his nose, bruised his ribs, and managed to break several articles of furniture before security got through the door and pulled him off.”
“It says in the civil action that Draco was unable to work for three weeks, suffered emotional damage, extreme embarrassment, physical trauma, and, this is my personal favorite, loss of consortium. Both the criminal charges and the civil action were taken against Stiles in his birth name, Stipple, which he legally changed to his current stage name immediately after the suit was settled.”
Eve turned the new data over in her mind. “He made a deal with Draco to take the payment and I’m banking it was more than the aforesaid five million smackeroon-ies to agree to having all of it sealed. The media didn’t get hold of it, and that had to cost, too.”
“Twenty-four years ago,” Peabody pointed out. “Neither of them were major names. But from what we know of Draco, he’d have whined to the press unless it was worth his while not to.”
“He could have spewed it out any time. Could have continued to hold it over Stiles’s head. Bad for the image developed.” Still she shook her head. “I can’t see Stiles being overly worried about this coming out now. He’s an established celebrity. He could spin it into a positive. ‘Ah, my wild youth’ or some such thing. It’s why he broke Draco’s balls that’s the key.”
She checked her wrist unit, figured angles. “McNab, continue search and scan. If you turn up anything else interesting, relay it to me or Feeney. I’ll be at Central. Feeney? Reserve us an interview room, first available.”
“You hauling him in?” Feeney asked.
“Yeah. Let’s see how he does on my stage. Peabody, have Dispatch send some uniforms to Kenneth Stiles’s address. I want him to have a ride in a black and white.”