by J. D. Robb
“Ah, nice to meet you.” She started to extend a hand, and was enveloped in a bear hug by the older, passed to the younger for the same treatment.
“Thanks for having us.”
“That’s Connor’s Maggie there, nursing their young Devin.”
“Pleasure.” Maggie sent Eve a slow, shy smile.
“Scattered about on the floor would be Celia and Tom.”
“She’s got a blaster.” Since it was the girl who made the whispered observation, Eve assumed it was Celia.
“Police-issue combo.” Instinctively Eve laid her hand over it. “It’s on stun. Lowest setting. I . . . I’ll go up and put it away.”
“Somebody punched her face.” Tom didn’t bother to whisper.
“Not exactly. I should go up, and . . .” Hide.
“My mother.” Sinead tugged Eve forward another step. “Alise Brody.”
“Ma’am. I’m just going to—”
But the woman got to her feet. “Let’s have a good look at you. Don’t you feed her, boy?” she demanded of Roarke.
“I try.”
“Good face, strong jaw. Good thing if you’re going to have to take a punch here and there. So you’re a cop, are you now? Running about after murderers and the like. Good at it?”
“Yes. I’m good at it.”
“No point in doing something and not doing it well. And your family? Your kin?”
“I don’t have any family.”
She laughed, hard and long. “God sake, child, like it or no, you’ve got one now. Give us a kiss here, then.” She tapped her cheek. “And you can call me Granny.”
She wasn’t much of a cheek kisser, but there didn’t seem to be any choice.
“I really need to just . . .” Eve gestured vaguely toward the doorway.
“Roarke’s told us you’re in the middle of an investigation.” Sinead gave her an easy pat. “Don’t mind us if you need to be doing something.”
“I just—a couple of things. For a minute.”
She started out, started to take her first easy breath. Roarke caught up with her at the stairs. “How’d you get the bruise this time?”
“Minnesota backhand. I should’ve done something about it before I got here. I should’ve locked my weapon in my vehicle.” The fact Roarke looked so ridiculously happy only flustered her more. “And I shouldn’t have tried to get the kid—the Sean kid—to stop hammering me with questions by telling him there’d been a murder in Rockefeller Center last year.”
“Certainly not to the last, as you say murder to a young boy, you’ve only enticed him.” He slid an arm around her waist, rubbed his hand up and down her torso. “You don’t have to be what you’re not with them. That, at least, I’ve learned. I appreciate you tolerating this, Eve. I know it’s not entirely comfortable for you, and the timing turned out poor.”
“It’s okay. It’s the number of them that threw me off, especially since so many of them are kids.”
He leaned in, just to brush his lips over her hair. “Would this be the best time to tell you there are several more having a swim?”
She stopped dead. “More?”
“Several. One of the uncles stayed back, along with a scatter of cousins and my grandfather. They’re minding the family farm. But that leaves a number of other cousins, and their children.”
Children. More. She wasn’t going to panic; what was the point. “We’re going to need a turkey the size of Pluto.”
He turned her, drew her in, pressed his lips to the side of her neck.
“How you holding up?” she asked him.
“There are so many feelings coming and going inside me.” He rubbed her arms, stepped back.
Touching her, she realized, keeping contact maybe because both of them needed it.
“I’m so pleased they’re here. I never thought to have any blood of mine under my roof.” He gave a quick, baffled laugh. “Never thought I had any I’d care to welcome. And still, I can’t catch up with them. I don’t know what to make of them, that’s God’s truth.”
“Well, Jesus, there’s so many it’d take you a couple years just to sort through and assign names to faces.”
“No.” But he laughed again, more easily. “That’s not what I meant. I’m happy they’ve come, but at the same time, I can’t get used to having them. They . . . I can’t think of the word. Flummox is closest. They flummox me, Eve, with their acceptance, their affection. And there’s part of me, part that’s still the Dublin street rat, that’s waiting for one of them to say: ‘Roarke, darling, how about a little of the ready, since you’ve so much to spare.’ It’s uncalled for, and unfair.”
“It’s natural. And it’d be easier for you if they did. You’d understand that. So would I.” She angled her head. “Am I really supposed to call her Granny? I don’t think I can get my mouth around it.”
He brushed a kiss on her brow. “It’d be a great favor to me if you’d try. Just think of it as a kind of nickname, that’s what I’m doing yet. Now if you need to work, I’ll make your excuses.”
“Nothing much left for me to do but wait. Mostly waiting now for the media to hit, and the feds to scramble. Departmentally, the case is essentially closed. Except, I was going to ask you to get me schematics, blueprints on the Center. If the base isn’t at the school, I’m betting it’s there. Maybe auxiliaries scattered. But there’s got to be an operation center.”
“I can do that. I can get a search started, and check in on it by remote.”
“That’d be good. And maybe we could run another search and match on Deena. Use the image from the discs from Brookhollow. Possibly she’s got more ID with that basic appearance. Could get lucky.”
“But the case is essentially closed,” he said dryly.
“Departmentally. But I’m damned if this is getting away from me until I’ve tried every avenue.”
There were more of them. Eve let names and faces buzz through her brain. It seemed there was at least one of every specimen, from seventy years to less than that many days. Every one of them was inclined to talk.
As Sean seemed determined to shadow her every move, she concluded that young boys were much like cats. They insisted on giving their company to those who most feared or distrusted them.
As for her cat, Galahad made an appearance, regally ignored everyone under four feet until he clued in that this variety of human was more likely to drop food on the floor, or sneak him handouts. He ended in a gluttonous coma, tubby belly up under a table.
She escaped the party Roarke escorted out for what Sean called the city tour, and with her head ringing from endless conversation, slipped up to her office.
The case wasn’t closed, she thought, until it was closed.
She sat at her desk, ordered the data from Roarke’s unit, and studied the blueprints on record for the Icove Center.
There could be others, and Roarke agreed. His computer would continue to search for unrecordeds. For now, she’d work with these.
God knew it was enough.
“Computer, delete all public areas.”
She crossed back and forth in front of the screens, studying the accesses, the floor space.
Because it was there. She was sure of it now. It was ego as well as convenience. He’d have based his most personal project in the enormous center that bore his name.
That’s where he spent his free time. Those days and evenings never booked. Just a quick walk or drive from home.
“Delete patient areas. Hell of a lot of space yet, for labs, for staff sectors, for administration. Wasting my time, probably wasting my time,” she muttered. “Feds’ll run through the place like ants in another day, two at the most.”
The NYPSD couldn’t lock it down. There were civilian patients to consider, privacy laws to wrestle, and the sheer size of the place would make a reasonable search all but impossible.
But the feds would have the juice for it, and the enhanced equipment. Probably should leave this end to them. Let them wrap it
up.
“Screw that. Computer, give me lab areas, one at a time, beginning with highest security. Unilab’s got some research on this site, some of the mobiles must have pieces of the project,” she said quietly when the new image came up. “But how do you find which ones without slapping a lock on all of them?”
Which meant legal wrangles from every country where they had facilities. Civil suits, undoubtedly, from staff and patients.
“They’re mobile. Good networking tool, so maybe one of the ways they move graduates from school to placement. Maybe. Nobel Prize, my ass—they’re going to be shut down before this is over.”
She swung around at the sound in her doorway. Sinead stopped, backing out.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got myself turned around, and when I heard you talking I came this way. Then when I saw you were working, I tried to slip out again.”
“I was just thinking out loud.”
“Well now, I do the same all the time myself.”
“You didn’t go with the others.”
“I didn’t, no. I stayed back to help my daughter and daughter-in-law with their babies. The lot of them are sound asleep now. And I thought to myself I’d find that beautiful library Roarke showed us earlier, have a book and a little lie down. But I got lost as Gretel in the woods.”
“Gretel who?”
“Hansel’s sister. It’s a fairy tale.”
“Right. I knew that. I can show you the library.”
“Don’t trouble yourself, no. I’ll come upon it. You’re working.”
“Not getting anywhere anyway.”
“Could I see, do you think, just for a moment?”
“See what?”
“The police part of things . . . well, I’m not as bloodthirsty as our Sean, but I can’t help wondering. And it looks more like a little flat than a cop’s office.”
It took Eve a moment to translate flat into apartment. “Actually, Roarke kind of replicated my old apartment. It was one of his ways of luring me in, getting me to move in here.”
Sinead’s smile was very warm. “Clever, and sweet. I find him to be both, though you can see the fierceness in him, the power all over him. Do you wish us all back to Clare, Eve? I won’t be offended.”
“I don’t. Really. He’s—” She wasn’t sure how to put it. “He’s so happy that you’ve come. He isn’t unsure about much, but he’s unsure about you—all of you. Especially you. He’s still, I guess, grieving, for Siobhan, still guilty on some level about what happened to her.”
“The grief’s natural enough, and probably good for him. But the guilt is useless, and it’s aimed wrong. He was just a baby.”
“She died for him. That’s how he sees it, and always will. So having you here . . . Especially having you here, it means a lot. I wish I knew more how to handle it all. That’s all.”
“I wanted to come, so much. I’ll never forget the day he came, the day he sat in my kitchen. Siobhan’s boy. I wanted . . . Oh, look at me, going foolish.”
“What’s wrong?” The sudden sheen of tears had Eve’s stomach knotting. “What is it?”
“I’m here. And there’s part of me can’t stop thinking how much Siobhan would have loved to be. How proud she’d be of everything her son’s accomplished. What he has, what he’s become. I wish I could give her even an hour of my life that she could stand here and talk to his wife in their beautiful home. And I can’t.”
“I don’t know much about it, but I’d guess she’d be glad you’re here. I guess she’d be grateful you’ve, well, you’ve taken him in.”
“Just the right thing to say. Thanks for that. I’m happy to stand in as his mother, and sad that my sister had so little time with her child. He has our eyes. Not the color, the shape of them. It comforts me to look in them, and see that part of us. Of her. I hope it comforts him to see her in me. I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Wait. Wait.” Eve held up a hand, let the thoughts circle. “Your brother, the one who’s here.”
“Ned.”
“He went to Dublin looking for your sister and her baby.”
“He did.” Her mouth set. “And was nearly beaten to death for it. Patrick Roarke.” She all but spat it. “The police were no help. We knew she was gone, our Siobhan. We knew but had no proof of it. We tried to find him for her, and nearly lost Ned.”
“Hypothetical. If you’d known where to find Roarke when he was a kid, how to get to him, what was happening to him, when he’d been a boy, what would you have done?”
Those lovely eyes went hot and hard. “If I’d known where that bastard had my sister’s child, my blood and bone, my heart that he’d murdered? That he was treating that child worse than you’d treat a stray dog, trying to train him to be what he himself was? I swear before God, I’d have moved heaven and earth to get to that boy, to get him away, to get him safe. He was mine, wasn’t he? He was, is, part of me.”
“Son of a bitch! Sorry,” she said when Sinead’s eyebrows shot up. “Son of a bitch.” And she leaped to her desk ’link. “Lieutenant Dallas. Get me the lead officer on duty,” she barked. “Now.”
“This is Officer Otts, Lieutenant.”
“Determine location of student Diana Rodriguez, age twelve. Immediately. Security check, full parameter. I’m staying linked until you report affirmation on both. Move your ass!”
Sinead’s eyes were wide, and for a moment resembled her grandson’s. “Well now, you’re formidable, aren’t you?”
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Eve kicked her desk as Sinead looked on. “Her mother. Waiting for her mother. Well, who the hell’s her mother? Not that bogus data listing, that’s for damn sure. Deena. She meant Deena.”
“I’m sure she did,” Sinead replied softly.
“Lieutenant, Diana Rodriguez can’t be located. I’ve ordered a full search of the facilities and the grounds. There’s been an unreported breach in the southwest wall. I’m checking on that.”
“You’re checking on it.”
Sinead stood, fascinated, as Eve verbally chewed Officer Otts down to bare bone.
20
“I SHOULD’VE THOUGHT OF IT. I SHOULD’VE known.” She had to calm down, Eve told herself. Feeney was on his way. They’d use the homer implant. They’d track the kid.
“You have thought of it,” Roarke reminded her.
“After it was too late to stop it. To use it. You got a top security facility, you’ve got seasoned cops, and still she walks in, gets the kid, walks out.”
“She’d studied the system, Eve. She’d gotten through it once before. And her motivation was very strong.”
“Which makes me more of an idiot for not realizing the kid was key. She wants to stop it. Will kill to stop it. That’s what I focused on. But the kid, more than a replica of her. She’s from her.”
“Her child,” Roarke agreed. “Obviously knowing Diana existed was one thing. Seeing her, face to face, pushed getting her out to priority.”
“She wasn’t trained the same as Avril,” Eve pointed out. “Look at her records. Languages, electronics, comp sciences, martial arts training, international law and global studies, weaponry, explosives. Light on domestic sciences.”
“Training her to be a soldier.”
“No, a spook.” Furious with herself, she shoved at her hair. “I’m betting spook. Infiltrate covert ops, move up the ranks. But she used her training to get out, stay gone. The murders looked professional because they were. They looked personal because they were.”
“They . . . encoded her . . .” Roarke said, for lack of a better term, “. . . to do exactly what she did.”
“That’s the point, and the point Legal will use if and when she goes to trial. See here? They shifted training with Diana somewhat. Trying to prevent her from repeating the same pattern. Add in more of the domestic sciences, push art appreciation, theater, music. Blah, blah. Maybe, maybe it would’ve worked. But here comes the intangible. She sees the person she considers her mother.”
He was working on the center, manually now, his sleeves rolled up, his hair tied back. “If they’ve based anything here, they’ve covered themselves brilliantly. Every area is fully accounted for.”
“Okay, forget that, forget it.” She pressed her fingers to her temples as if to clear her brain. “This is your place, your base. Where do you put it?”
He pushed back, considered. “Well, you go under. This isn’t the sort of thing you can run cleverly in plain sight. That’s the most fun, of course, but you can’t mix this—or not all of it, not the core of it—in with the work-a-day. Some of the lab business, yes. With the setup they’ve got, you’ve plenty of checkpoints there. Certainly you could do alterations, sculpting, the subliminals, whatever you liked in any number of locations. But for the creating, the—for lack of a better word—the gestating. You’d need maximum cover.”
“Sublevel, then.” She leaned over him, studied the screen. “How do we get in?”
“Are we breaking and entering, darling? You’ll get me stirred up.”
“Cut it out. Nobody’s stirring anything with a houseful of relatives. It’s too distracting.”
“I’d point out they’re all tucked up neatly in bed now, but the idea of breaking into the Center has me distracted. First you walk in.”
“One of the public areas. Emergency care, maybe. Most vulnerable to security, right?”
“Most likely. And as good as any. Let’s have a look.”
“You look. I have to think. Would she take her along? Take the kid?”
Because she felt a certain kinship with Deena, she asked herself what she’d do.
“Doesn’t seem to follow. You pull her out of what you consider a dangerous situation, you don’t dump her into another. But she’d keep her close. She’d put her where she feels it’s safe. With Avril, or where Avril can get to her. If so, she has to contact Avril. Already has,” she said, nodding to herself. “No move on Diana’s legal guardians in Argentina. I’m betting Avril got word to her, and Deena caught another flight back, or aborted the flight she was on.”