Survivor in Death (23 page)

“Sexy talk.”

“Find me something, it'll get sexier. You're slicker than me on this stuff.”

“Darling, you're an amazon in bed.”

“Drone work, ace.” She could feel the juices bubbling inside now. “I'll take the school angle, because it's the least likely. Anything pops, anything, tag me.”

She walked over to the AutoChef, then backed off. She was too damn revved for more coffee. Better to flush some of it out. She grabbed water instead before organizing what she needed for the ready room.

She opened her door, and stopped short before she walked into Whitney.

“Sir. I didn't realize you were in the house.”

“I've just come from paying condolence calls on Knight's and Preston's families.” He glanced down at the bottle in her hand. “Does coffee now come clear and in bottles?”

“It's water, sir.”

“And has hell frozen over without me getting a report?”

“I'm sorry, I don't. . . Oh.” She gave the bottle a little frown. “I thought I should offset the caffeine.”

“I, on the other hand, could use the jolt.”

“Yes, sir.” She set her things down, went to the AutoChef.

“I'm aware you have a briefing in a moment. It'll keep. I'm also aware you have an artist coming in to work a potential witness.”

“I think she's solid, Commander. I've requested Detective Yancy. I haven't yet written my report on the interview.”

He accepted the coffee. “I saw Detective Pea body, so I have the main points. I'll attend your briefing and expect to be filled in more completely at that time. But we need to discuss something else first.”

When he closed the door, her shoulders squared. When she realized it, she reminded herself of Trueheart.

“Sit down, Lieutenant.”

She took the visitor's chair, leaving him the marginally sturdier one at the desk. But he didn't sit, simply stood with the coffee in his hand.

“It's difficult to lose men. It's difficult to accept that your orders put them in harm's way.” He looked toward her board, toward the pictures of two cops. “These aren't the first men either of us has lost.”

“No, sir.”

“But each is like the first. Each is difficult. Taking orders is less of a burden than giving them. You need to carry that weight, and stop yourself from asking if you should have done something different. You did what you had to do, just as your men did what they had to do. We may lose more in our pursuit of the scum who did this, and you are not allowed to hesitate to give the orders, you are not allowed to second guess what you know has to be done.”

“I've dealt with it, Commander.”

“You've started to. It'll come back on you when you stop, when you're away from here and the work. It'll come back on you, and you'll have to finish dealing with it. And put it away. If you have trouble doing that, speak with Mira or one of the department counselors.”

“I'll put it away. There isn't an officer in my division or in this department who should trust me if I can't. Or don't. I understood that I'd face this when I accepted the promotion to lieutenant. I understand that I'll be here again, with the faces of men I know on my board.”

“You should be captain,” he said, and she said nothing. “You know there are reasons, mostly political, why you haven't yet been offered the opportunity to test for a captaincy.”

“I know the reasons, sir, and accept them.”

“You don't know them all. I could push it, push the chief, call in some markers.”

“I don't want markers called in on my account.”

He smiled a little. “Markers are made to be called in. But I don't-- not yet--because, frankly, Dallas, I'm not ready to have one of my best street cops riding a desk. And you're not ready to comfortably ride one.”

“No, sir. I'm not.”

“We'll both know when you are. Good coffee,” he said and took another swallow. “I'll see you in the ready room.”

IN HIS OFFICE, ROARKE SET UP FOR HIS ASSIGNMENT. It continued to surprise him how much he enjoyed doing cop work. Most of his life had been spent avoiding, evading, or out-thinking cops.

Now he was not only married to one, ridiculously in love with one, but he spent a great deal of his time in a consultant capacity for the NYPSD.

Life was a bloody strange game.

Then again, perhaps it was the game of it that accounted for part of the entertainment. The puzzle that needed to be solved, with facts, with evidence, and with instinct.

They made a good team, he and his cop, he thought, as he poured himself a brandy before getting down to it. She with her ingrained cop senses, he with his ingrained criminal ones.

Just because he was retired from the shadier aspects of the law didn't mean the instincts weren't still humming.

He'd killed. Brutally, coldly, bloodily. He knew what it was to take a life, and what could drive one human to end the existence of another.

She accepted that in him, his justice-seeking Eve. Maybe not forgave, but accepted. Even understood, and that was one of his miracles.

But even at his worst, he'd never killed an innocent. Never ended the life of a child. Still, he could comprehend it, even as Eve could. They both knew evil not only existed, it flourished and grew fat, and it reveled in its pursuit of the weak and the innocent.

He had an abrupt and crystal-clear image of himself--filthy shirt, bloody nose, hard and defiant eyes--standing at the top of the steps in the stinking dump where he'd once lived in Dublin.

And there was his father--big, strapping Patrick Roarke--weaving a bit from too much drink.

You thinly you can pass off a couple of thin wallets as a day's take? I'll have the rest of it, you buggering little bastard.

He remembered the boot coming up--he remembered that still-- and his quick dodge. Not quick enough, though, not that time. He felt now as he'd felt then, the stomach-dropping sensation of falling, of knowing it would be bad. Had he cried out? Odd that he couldn't remember. Had he yelled in shock, cursed in fury, or just gone down those steps in a bone-banging roll?

What he could remember, and wasn't that a bitch, was the sound of his father laughing as the boy he'd been tumbled down the stairs. What was his age then? Five? Six? No matter.

And, well, hell, he had been holding back, hadn't he? And considered the cuts and bruises worth the ten pounds he'd stashed away.

Nixie had never been booted down the stairs by a drunken bastard who'd happened to share her blood.

And yet the child would understand about evil and cruelty, too. Poor little bit.

He glanced at his monitor, where he could see her curled under the covers of the bed they'd given her, in a room provided by strangers, with the light left dim.

She would come to understand it. Now there was only pain and confusion and grief. But she would come to, and make her choices to rebuild her life on that broken ground.

He'd made his, and didn't regret them. He could regret nothing that brought him where he was, that brought him to Eve. But he didn't wish the same for this small, fragile survivor.

The best that could be done was to win her some sort of justice.

He began a series of simultaneous searches. One on each of the Swisher adults, another cross-checking for duplicate names. Then one more on the Dysons. He doubted Eve would approve, but these were the people who would step in to raise the child. And the child was sleeping in his home, trusting him to keep her safe. He wanted to be sure they were clean.

At the same time, he continued the search for names of known terrorists, members of paramilitary or fringe military groups.

He intended to do one more, but would need the unregistered for that. Even with it, it would be tricky--which appealed to him. He wanted names of covert and special forces operators--military and government agencies who specialized in wet work and electronics. When he had those, he'd run another cross-reference on the Swishers.

He intended to leave his more standard work running while he took himself and his plan into his private office. But he glanced at the monitor again, and saw Nixie stirring in her bed.

He watched, hoping her subconscious wasn't tuning her up for another nightmare. And wondered if he hadn't made a mistake, insisting he take the night shift from Summerset. Nightmares may have become his province, but when it came to children, he was a pathetic novice.

But in another moment, she sat up in bed. She took the 'link he'd given her out from under her pillow, studied it, skimmed her fingers over it. Then she stared around the room, looking so small, so lost and sad it broke his heart.

He thought he should go in to her, try at least to soothe her back to sleep, but she climbed out of the bed. Just needs the loo or a drink of water, he decided. The sort of things a girl her age could handle on her own. He hoped.

But instead of walking to the bathroom, she went to the house scanner.

“Is Dallas here?”

There was a plaintive quality in her voice that touched him, even as he thought, “Clever girl.”

Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, is not on premises at this time.

Nixie knuckled her eyes, sniffled, and again he thought he should go to her.

“Is Roarke here?”

Roarke is in his primary office.

“I don't know where that is. You have to tell me.” Roarke rose, then sat back down as the computer relayed location and directions. Let her come to him, he decided. It seemed more normal somehow than having him intercept her, letting her know-- though she was smart enough to know it anyway--that she was being monitored even while she slept.

He looked at the work yet to be done, rubbed the back of his neck. “Computer, continue searches, text mode only, internal save. No display at this time.”

Acknowledged.

He opened other work, his own, and began to refine construction plans on another sector of the Olympus Resort while Nixie made her way to him.

He glanced up, cocked a brow, offered a smile when Nixie stepped into his doorway. “Hello, Nixie. Late for you, isn't it?”

“I woke up. Where's Dallas?”

“She's still working. Would you like to come in?”

“I'm not supposed to be up in the night.” Her voice trembled, and he imagined she was thinking of what had happened the last time she'd wandered in the night.

“I wouldn't mind the company, since you're up. Or I can walk you back to your room if you'd rather.”

She walked over to his desk in her pale pink pajamas. “Is she with the dead people?”

“No. She's working for them.”

“But my mom and dad, and Coyle and Linnie, and Inga, they were dead first. She said she would find out who. She said she--”

“She is.” Out of my sphere, he thought. Out of my bloody solar system. “Finding out who is her priority. It's the most important thing she's doing. And she'll keep doing it until she knows.”

“What if it takes years and years?”

“She'll never stop.”

“I had a dream that they weren't dead.” The tears spilled over, slid down her cheeks. “They weren't dead, and we were all there like we're supposed to be, and Mom and Inga were in the kitchen talking, and Dad was trying to sneak a snack and making her laugh. Me and Linnie were playing dress-up, and Coyle was teasing us. And they weren't dead until I woke up. I don't want them to be dead. They left me alone, and it's not fair.”

“It's not, no. It's not at all fair.” He came around, picked her up so she could lay her head on his shoulder while she cried. This, he thought, was something a man could do. He could hold a child while she wept, while she grieved. And later he could do what he could to help piece her broken life back together.

“They left me alone.”

“They didn't want to. Still, I imagine all of them are so glad you weren't hurt.”

“How can they be glad when they're dead?”

Terrifying logic, he thought, and carried her around the desk, sat with her in his lap. “Don't you think that when you die you might go to another place?”

“Like heaven.”

“Aye, like that.”

“I don't know. Maybe.” She turned her head, sighed. “But I don't want them to be there. I want them to come back, like in my dream.”

“I know. I never had a brother. What's it like?”

“They can be mean sometimes, especially if they're bigger than you. But you can be mean back. But sometimes they're fun and they play with you and tell jokes. Coyle played baseball, and I like to go to the games and watch. Is there baseball in heaven?”

“I think there must be. It could hardly be heaven if it wasn't fun.”

“If I'd been in bed, I'd be in heaven with them. I wish--”

“You mustn't.” He drew her back so she could see his face. “You mustn't wish for that, and they wouldn't want you to wish it. There was a reason you didn't go with them. Hard as that is, you have to live your life and find out what it is. It hurts to be alone, I know.”

Her face bunched up like a fist. “You don't. You're not.”

“There was a time I was. Someone took my mother from me before I was old enough to know her.”

“Is she in heaven?”

“I'm sure she is.”

“That's not fair either.” She laid her head on his chest again, patted him with her hand in a gesture of comfort that moved him, amazingly. She could offer him comfort, Roarke thought. Even now she had the heart in her to give solace. How did she come by that? Was it born in her or had it been instilled by her parents?

“I won't tell you I know how you're feeling, but I will tell you I know what it is to be alone and angry and afraid. And I'll tell you it'll get better, however much you don't think so, it will get better.”

“When?”

“Bit by little bit.” He touched his lips to her head.

She sighed again, then turned her head to study the painting on the wall. He shifted her, studied it himself. He and Eve, under the blossoming arbor on their wedding day.

“She doesn't look like police there.”

“Not on the outside anyway. She gave that to me on our anniversary. It's out in the garden here, on our wedding day. I hung it there, though it's a bit selfish of me, so I could look at it whenever I'm working here. I can see her when I'm missing her.”