“And now too black-and-white, Lieutenant. Some would depend on what he’d done, or hadn’t, and how—or if—it affects me and mine. Would unzipping it change what had happened, or balance some scale if I felt it needed to be balanced?”
“You’d keep it zipped,” she muttered. “It’s that pride again, as much as loyalty. I can get it out of Inez if I need to.”
“No doubt. He didn’t have the kill mark on his tattoo,” Roarke added.
“No, he didn’t. Unlike Lino and Chávez. His sheet had his identifying marks. But how do I find out who Lino killed when a bunch of snivelers crying ‘Oh, the poor misunderstood children’—who are killing, maiming, wreaking havoc—‘need a clean slate,’ wiped the records? If there was a record,” she added.
“Given a bit of time and the unregistered, I could get you that information—if Lino was charged, or arrested. Even questioned.”
She slanted him a look. She’d thought of that possibility already. “How much is a bit of time?”
“I can’t say until I get my hands in it.”
She blew out a breath. “I can’t make it work. As far as I know, there’s nobody’s life on the line, no imminent threat. It’s just the easy way to get around a block.”
“What’s that I hear?” He tapped his ear. “Ah yes, that would be your pride talking.”
“Shut up. It’s not pride, it’s procedure. I’m not going around the law just to shortcut procedure and satisfy my curiosity. And so what if it is pride?”
As they drove through the gates, he picked up her hand, tugged it over, and kissed her knuckles. “Here we are, two prideful people. That would be one of the seven deadlies. Want to explore any of the others? Lust would be my first choice.”
“Lust is always your first choice. And your second, and right down to your last choice.”
“Sometimes I like to combine it with greed.” Even before he stopped the car, he pressed the release for her seat belt, then gripped her shirt, pulled her over.
“Hey.”
“Maybe it’s all that talk about the old days, and youth.” Smooth and clever, he had his seat back and her straddling him. “Brings back fond memories of getting the girl naked in whatever vehicle I could . . . acquire at the time.”
“You had time for sex after grand theft auto?”
“Darling, there’s always time for sex.”
“Only on your clock. Jesus, how many hands do you have?” She bat-ted them away, but not before he’d managed to unbutton her shirt and stir her up. “Listen, if you need a bounce, there’s a perfectly good bed, probably about two dozen of them, in the house.”
“It’s not about the bounce, or not altogether.” He skimmed a finger down her throat. “It’s about the moment, and recapturing for that brief time, the foolishness of youth.”
“Speak for yourself. I didn’t have time for foolishness.” She started to reach for the door, with the intention of opening it and wiggling out, but he locked his arms around her, laughed.
“You never had sex in a car.”
“Yes, I have. You get ideas at least half the time whenever we’re in the back of one of your limos.”
“Not the same at all. That’s a grown-up venue, a limo is. It’s sophisticated sex. And here we are, crammed together in the front seat of a police issue, and the lieutenant is both aroused and mildly embarrassed.”
“I am not. Either.” But her pulse jumped, and her breath hitched when his thumbs brushed over the thin cotton covering her breasts. “This is ridiculous. We’re adults, we’re married. The steering wheel is jammed into the base of my spine.”
“The first two are irrelevant, the last is part of the buzz. Music on, program five. Skyroof open.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s not going to work. It’s uncomfortable and it’s stupid. And I have to work in this vehicle.”
“I can make you come in ten seconds.”
She actually smirked at him. “Ten,” she said, “nine, eight, seven, six, five . . . oh shit.” She’d underestimated his quick hands, his skilled fingers. He had her trousers unhooked, had her wet and throbbing. And over.
“Go again,” he murmured, and yanking down her tank, took her breast in his mouth.
He drove her, hands and mouth, while the cool air washed over her face, while her cry of release echoed into the night.
Her hands flailed out for purchase as she heard the cotton rip. That cool night air flowed over her bare skin now, a thrilling counterpoint to the heat.
She let go, he could see it, feel it. Let go of the day, the work, the worry—and more, deliciously more—that odd and appealing line she carried inside her between the should and the shouldn’t.
Once she’d had no time for foolishness. Was it any wonder he was compelled to give that to her? And all the love that wound through it and made it real?
His wife, his lover, his sweetheart groping with him in the front seat of a car while the music played and the night shimmered.
His hand bumped her weapon, and he laughed. Wasn’t that part of it, too? His dangerous and dedicated cop, yielding to him, lost in her own needs. Demanding he give and he take.
Her mouth was like fury on his, burning away at his control until he was as desperate as she. Until there was only one need, one thought. To mate.
“I can’t—how do we . . .” Her breath tangled, her body ached as she struggled to shift, to angle, to somehow defeat the confines so that he could fill her.
“Just move . . . let me—bloody hell.” He rapped his knuckles on the wheel fighting to shift her hips, banged his knees on the dash and was fairly certain she cursed because her head struck the edge of the open skyroof.
Well, they’d get over it.
She was laughing like a mad thing when they finally managed to insert tab B into slot A.
“Oh, thank Christ,” he whispered, and held her, just held her as her body rocked with laughter. “Well, when you’ve finished your laughfest, get to work. I’m pinned here and can’t get things started without a bit of help.”
“Really?” She could barely get her breath between the laughter and the . . . why was this ridiculous situation so damn sexy? she wondered. “You’re stuck?”
“Shagging poor design on your police issue.”
“More like poor design for shagging.” Watching him, she rocked—just a little. Lifted her hips—a fraction. Lowered again. “How’s that?”
“You’re killing me.”
“You started it.” She rocked again, a little more, torturing him, torturing herself. Then more, and more still, letting her need set the pace, thrilling to the control until the control was an illusion.
She felt his body tense, coil, shudder on his release, saw those amazing eyes go dark, go blind as she took him. And she rode him, chasing that peak of pleasure until she streaked over it.
She collapsed on him, as much as she was able. Her breath chugged in and out of her laboring lungs; her body quivered, trembled, then stilled. “I better not have any cause to strip tomorrow,” she told him. “Because I’m going to have steering wheel bruises on my ass.”
“You seem obsessed recently with the possibility of stripping on the job. Is there something I should know?”
“You just can’t be too careful.”
“Speaking of, how’s your head?”
“Glancing blow.” She rubbed it absently. “How do we uncouple? Or are we stuck like this until somebody finds us in the morning?”
“Give us a minute.” He nudged her back. “That was worlds better, and entirely more challenging, than any previous experience in vehicle sex.”
Look at him, she thought, his hair all messed up from her hands, buttons popped off his shirt, and his eyes all sleepy and smug. “Did you really steal rides so you could have sex in them?”
“There were all manner of reasons to steal rides. For fun, for business, and for somewhere semiprivate to bag the girl.” He leaned up to give her a quick, friendly kiss. “If you like, I
’ll steal something so you can have that experience as well.”
“Pass on that.” She glanced down at herself. “You ripped my underwear.”
“I did.” He grinned. “It was expedient. Here now, let’s see if we can pry ourselves out of this.” He slid her up until she could scoot over toward her seat, and bring her leg over him. Once they’d buttoned, fastened, and hooked, he coasted the few feet to the house, parked.
“You know, Summerset knew when we drove through the gate. And even with the narrowness of his mind, he knows what we just did out here.”
“Yes, I believe Summerset’s fully aware we have sex.”
Eve rolled her eyes as she got out. “Now he knows how long and what kind of sex.”
Shaking his head, Roarke walked with her to the door. “You’re the most fascinating prude.”
She only muttered to herself as they went inside. And if being hugely relieved Summerset wasn’t hovering in the foyer made her a prude, so be it.
Still, she made a beeline upstairs, and for the bedroom. “I’m going to go ahead and run that search, one looking for media-worthy crime or events here at the time Lino left New York.”
“Do you want help?”
“I can run a search.”
“Good. I want a shower, and an hour or two for some work of my own.”
She narrowed her eyes. She wanted a shower, too—but the man was sneaky. “Hands off in the jets,” she ordered.
He held his up, then started to undress. He was down to trousers when he frowned and crossed to her.
“Hands off out here, too,” she began.
“Quiet. You weren’t kidding about the bite on your shoulder.” She tipped her chin down, turned her head. Grimaced at the marks and bruising. “Bitch had a jaw like a rottweiler.”
“It needs to be cleaned and treated, and a cold patch would help.”
“It’s fine, Nurse Nancy,” she began, then yelped when he poked his finger on the mark.
“It will be, unless you insist on acting like a baby. Shower, disinfectant, medication, cold patch.”
She might have rolled her eyes again, but she didn’t trust him not to make his point a second time. And now the damn shoulder ached.
She let him deal with it, even to the point of adding a chaste kiss. And was forced to admit, at least to herself, that it felt better for the care.
In cotton pants and a T-shirt, she sat at her desk, coffee at her elbow, and ordered the search. While the computer worked, she leaned back to juggle the various players in her mind.
Steve Chávez. He and Lino left New York together—according to Teresa—and that was corroborated by Inez. Chávez does time here and there; Lino bobs and weaves. No convictions on record. But comparing McNab’s search with Chávez’s sheet, she noted that there were a number of times both men had been in the same area.
Old friends, hanging out?
And to the best of her knowledge, they dropped off the grid at about the same time in September of ’53. No way she’d buy coincidence.
Had Chávez come back to New York with Lino? Had he, too, assumed a new identity? Could he be somewhere else, waiting for whatever Lino had waited for? Had he eliminated Lino—and if so, why? Or was he—as she believed Flores was—dead and buried?
Penny Soto. No love lost between her and her former gang partner, Inez. She’d seen that on his face. She’d warrant an interview. She’d had more trouble with the law than Inez, but had no family to protect. And a little digging would probably turn up something Eve could use as a lever to pry information out of her.
She’d go see Soto before she headed downtown to meet Teresa at the morgue.
And maybe she’d missed a step with Teresa. She believed the woman had told her all she was capable of telling her at the time. But another round there might jiggle something else loose.
When her computer announced its task complete, Eve scanned the media reports for the weeks surrounding the time of Lino’s departure.
Murders, rapes, burglaries, robberies, assaults, one kidnapping, assorted muggings, illegals busts, suspicious deaths, and two explosions.
None of the names listed in the reports crossed her list, but she’d run them as a matter of course. Still, it was the explosions that caught her interest. They’d occurred exactly a week apart, each in rival gang territory and both had cost lives. The first, on Soldado turf, at a school auditorium during a dance, had killed one, injured twenty-three minors, two adults—names listed—and caused several thousand in damages.
The second, on Skull turf, at a sandwich joint known as a hangout, a homemade boomer—on timer as the first, but more powerful—had killed four minors, one adult, and injured six.
The police suspected retaliation for that explosion, blah blah, Eve read. Known members of Soldados were being sought for questioning.
She used her authorization to request the case files on both explosions. And hit a block. Files sealed.
“Screw that,” she muttered, and without thinking contacted her commander at home. The blocked video and rusty voice had her glancing at her wrist unit. And wincing.
“I apologize, sir. I didn’t check the time.”
“I did. What is it, Lieutenant?”
“I’m following a lead, and it involves a pair of explosions in East Harlem seventeen years ago. I believe the as-yet-unofficially identified victim may have been involved. Those files have been sealed. It would be helpful to know if any on my list were questioned or suspected of involvement.”
He let out a long sigh. “Is this a matter of urgency?”
“No, sir. But—”
“Send the request to my home and office units. I’ll have you cleared in the morning. It’s nearly midnight, Lieutenant. Go to bed.”
He clicked off.
She sulked for a few seconds. Stared thoughtfully at the doorway connecting her office and Roarke’s for a few seconds more. Roarke could get into the sealed files in minutes, she had no doubt. And if she’d thought of that before she’d tagged Whitney, she might’ve been able to justify asking Roarke to do just that.
Now she’d started the tape rolling, and had to wait for it to unwind.
She sent the formal request, added the evening’s interviews and notes to her own case file. She pinned more names and photos to her board. Teresa, Chávez, Joe Inez, Penny Soto.
Then she crossed to the doorway. “I’m done. I’m going to bed.”
Roarke glanced up. “I’ll be done shortly.”
“Okay. Ah, could you make a boomer, on timer? I don’t mean now, because, duh, I mean back when you were a kid?”
“Yes. And did. Why?”
“Could you because you’re handy with electronics or with explosives?”
“Both.”
She nodded, decided it would give her something to chew on until morning. “Okay. ’Night.”
“Who or what did Lino blow up?”
“I’m not sure. Yet. But I’ll let you know.”
15
A MORNING STORM RUMBLED OUTSIDE THE WINDOWS. The thunder, a bit dim and distant, sounded like the sky clearing its throat. Rain slid down the windows like an endless fall of gray tears.
As much for comfort as light, Roarke ordered the bedroom fire on low while he scanned the morning stock reports on-screen.
But he couldn’t concentrate. When he switched to the morning news, he found that didn’t hold his interest either. Restless, unsettled, he glanced over as Eve grabbed a shirt out of her closet. He noticed she’d removed the cold patch.
“How’s the shoulder?”
She rolled it. “It’s good. I sent a text to Peabody last night to have her meet me here this morning. I’m going to go down and head her off before she comes up and tries to cage breakfast. What?” she added when he rose and walked to the closet.
He took the jacket she’d pulled out, scanned the other choices briefly, and chose another. “This one.”
“I bet everyone I badge today is going to take special note
of my jacket.”
“They would if you’d worn the other with those pants.” He kissed the top of her head. “And the faux pas would, very possibly, undermine your authority.”
She snorted, but went with his selection. When he didn’t move, but stood in her way, she frowned and said, “What?” again.
This time he cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her mouth, very gently. “I love you.”
Her heart went gooey, instantly. “I got that.”
He turned, crossed to the AutoChef, and got more coffee for both of them.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him.
“Nothing. Not really. Miserable morning out there.” But that wasn’t it, he thought as he stood, staring out through the dreary curtain of rain. That wasn’t it at all. “I had a dream.”
She changed her plans, and instead of going downstairs walked over to the sofa, sat. “Bad?”
“No. Well, disturbing and odd, I suppose. Very lucid, which is more your style than mine.”
He turned, saw that she’d sat down, that she waited. And that was more comforting than any fire in the hearth. He went to her, handed off her coffee. And sitting beside her, rubbed a hand gently on her leg in a gesture that was both gratitude and connection.
“It might be all the talk about the old days, childhood friends, and so on kicked my subconscious.”
“It bothered you. Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“When I woke it was over, wasn’t it, and I didn’t see the point. And then, just now . . . Well, in any case, I was back in Dublin, a boy again, running the streets, picking pockets. That part, at least, wasn’t disturbing. It was rather entertaining.”
“Good times.”
He laughed a little. “Some of them were. I could smell it—the crowds on Grafton Street. Good pickings there, if you were quick enough. And the buskers playing the old tunes to draw the tourists in. There were those among them, if you gave them a cut, they’d keep the crowd pulled in for you. We’d work a snatch, pass, drop on Grafton. I’d lift the wallet or purse, pass it on to Jenny, and she to Mick, and Brian would drop it at our hidey-hole in an alley.