With a cry of fury, Lucias snatched up the base of the lamp, used it like a club.

"We're men! Men!" Blood sprayed over the chair, the rug as McNamara slumped to the side, flailed out to try to defend himself. "They'll send us to prison. To prison. Stupid old bastard!" He staggered to his feet, screaming as he pounded his grandfather to the floor. "I won't go in a cage because you have no vision."

Breath heaving, Lucias stepped back, tossed the bloodied lamp aside.

"My God." Kevin's voice was soft, almost reverent. "Is he dead?"

McNamara's face was bloody, his mouth agape. Still panting, Lucias crouched down and checked for a pulse. "No, not yet." Then he sat back on his haunches and forced himself to think. "But he will be. He has to be. He'd give us over to the police, give us over like we were nothing."

Though his breathing was shallow, Kevin nodded. "We can't let that happen."

"We'll finish it." Lucias got carefully to his feet. "But not here. We have to take him away from the house, make it look like a robbery."

"You… I've never seen anything…"

"I've done us both a favor." Staring down at his grandfather, Lucias patted Kevin's arm. He was in control again. Perhaps, he realized, fully in control for the first time in his life. "He's outlived his usefulness. And he's a danger to us. So, we take him out of the equation."

"It has to be done. But, my God, I've never seen so much blood."

"If you're going to be sick, get it over with."

"No, I'm not going to be sick." He couldn't look away. "So much blood. It's… fascinating. The others, the women, it was almost gentle, really. But this…" He moistened his lips and his face was pale and shining as he looked at his friend. "How did it feel? When you struck him? How did it feel?"

Lucias had to stop and consider. His hands, slick with blood, were steady now. His mind already clearing. "Powerful," he decided. "Extremely. Energizing."

"I want to try it."

"We'll finish him off together then. But not here." Lucias checked his wrist unit. "We have to work quickly. I have a date tonight."

It didn't take long, all things considered.

It was a matter of pulling his grandfather's car into the garage. As a point of pride and control, Dr. McNamara made a habit of driving himself nearly everywhere. He wouldn't, Lucias thought, drive himself to his final destination. With Kevin's help, he wrapped his grandfather's nude body in plastic and folded it into the trunk.

"He might have told someone he was coming here," Kevin pointed out.

"Low probability. He disliked sharing personal business."

"Your grandmother?"

"Her least of all." Lucias tossed the bag of clothes and valuables into the trunk. "It wouldn't have occurred to him to bother, nor would it occur to her to ask if he had any plans. Now." He slammed the trunk closed, brushed his hands together. "You've reprogrammed the droid?"

"Check. There'll be no record we had any company."

"Excellent. We have the location for disposal your computer scan indicated was the best for our purposes. You follow in your car, we finish it, then dump him and the goodie bag. You did weigh it down enough, didn't you?"

"Absolutely. It'll sink to the bottom of the river."

"And he won't. Perfect. We torch the car, drive back home. And I have plenty of time to dress for my evening out."

"You're a cool one, Lucias. I've always admired that about you."

"Thank you. Well, we'd best be off. You know, this will be a record. Two perfect crimes in one night. I'll have to claim the lion's share of points for the first, though."

"I can't argue about that." Kevin gave him a friendly smack on the shoulder.

"Clean as a whistle," Eve said as she studied Lucias's data. That either makes him a droid or a… what's that term Mavis uses? Dweebazoid. No school infractions, no traffic violations. Following right along with the family tradition, too."

"That's why they're called family traditions," Roarke pointed out. "What will ours be, I wonder? Crime, of course, but which side of the spectrum?"

She spared him a look. "He's got his own residence here in the city. I'm going to make time to talk to him. He's rolling in money, so he's a hit there. He's got knowledge of chemistry."

"Attractive young man," Roarke commented, nodding toward the picture beside the written data."Young being the operative word. He's barely been out of university a full year."

"I'm checking him out. And I'll use checking him out to see if it makes his grandfather a little more forthcoming."

"He pissed you off."

"That's affirmative. And I'm going to piss him off right back when I get authority to open the sealeds."

"I can get that data for you."

"I've already had you do an unauthorized and illegal computer block. Let's leave our black marks to a minimum."

"The block may save a life. That's no black mark. And I can get you some of that sealed data by perfectly legal means. A single 'link call to a source at Allegany who worked on the project. If you want names to run, I'll get you names."

"Just a call?"

"Very simple."

"Then do it."

"All right, but it'll cost you."

Because she recognized the gleam in his eye, she narrowed her own. "Get out. I'm not paying for information with sex."

"Consider it taking one for the team," he suggested, and tumbled her into the sleep chair.

By the time she'd paid up, her ears were ringing and every ounce of tension had melted out of her body. It seemed her bones had melted along with it as she discovered when she tried to stand.

She wore only her boots and the diamond pendant he'd once given her.

"You know if you hadn't become a cop, you might have had a future in porn vids. And I mean that in the best possible way. Christ, Eve, you're a picture."

"Don't even think about trying for a second round. I want that data, pal."

"A deal's a deal." He rose, fluidly, wearing nothing but his grin. "Why don't you order us up a meal of some sort," he suggested as he started for his office. "I'm starving."

She watched him go.Talk about pictures, she thought. If she didn't consider herself on duty, she'd have been tempted to sprint after him, tackle him, and sink her teeth into his really superior ass.

Instead she'd settle for an AutoChef burger.

She leaned down, scooped up her clothes.

"Catch!"

She straightened and, as her arms were full, took the robe he tossed her in the face.

"Might as well be comfortable," he said. "And oh, darling? I could use a glass of wine."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A cheeseburger wouldn't have been his first choice, particularly with the Savignon Blanc '55. But it was Eve's show.

"Why didn't you tell me about this guy before?"

He watched Eve shake a blizzard of salt over her fries, and winced. "Had your blood pressure checked lately?"

"Just answer the question."

"You had a lot of irons in the fire, so I took this one. Stiles was bound to be more cooperative with me than with you. As illustrated by the fact that after only minimal grousing, he's digging through his files and his memory. You'll have your data by the time we finish this delightfully adolescent meal. More onion rings?"

"You trust him?"

"I do, yes. Stiles makes a career out of being irritable, but under the rough exterior is an equally rough but honest interior. You'd like him."

It was plain Roarke did, and she trusted his instincts. "What I need is project staff who got a little too involved with the experimentation. People who might have taken it home with them. Their family, friends, associates."