“Good thing. Wicked effective.”

“Erotic, arousing, enhancing, without taking away the will or choice.” He lifted the flower, twirled it, then tossed it into the water where it floated. “And pretty.”

“Are all of these like that?”

“No, just the one.” He kissed her again, savored the fading heat on her lips. “But I can get more.”

“I bet.” She started to stretch, and frowned at the sound of a beep.

“Ah. Looks like we're through the first levels, and my attention's required.”

She sat up, shoved at her hair. She took one last look at blue water, white sand, and flowers strewn like jewels on the shoreline. “Playtime's over.”

He nodded. “End program.”

18

EVE SAT AT ONE OF ROARKE'S SUBSTATIONS AND began to pick her way through the lives of Kirkendall and Clinton. They needed a base of operations, a place to set up, to store equipment, to plan strategies and do sims.

A place to take someone like Meredith Newman.

She started with childhood-Kirkendall inNew Jersey, Clinton inMissouri. Kirkendall relocating toNew York with custodial parent at the age of twelve. Clinton doing the same, toOhio, at the age often. And both had enlisted in the army at eighteen. Both had been recruited into Special Forces at twenty.

Corporals Kirkendall and Clinton had both trained atCampPowell, Miami.

“It's like a mirror,” Eve said. “No, like magnets. They just kept duplicating each other's moves until they slapped together.”

“No talking.”

Eve frowned over at him. Sleeves rolled, hair tied back, he hammered at a keyboard with one hand and tapped icons on a viewboard with the other. And for the last ten minutes, he'd been muttering in a stylish combination of Gaelic-she supposed-and the weird Irish slang he fell into when revved up.

Bugger this, bollocks to that, shagging, bloody, and a heavy sprinkling of fucks that sounded more and more likeyboy as he geared up.

“You're talking.”

“Feisigh do thoin fein!” He rattled that off, sat back for a moment, and studied his board. “What? I'm not talking, I'm communing. Ah yes, there you are, you bitch.”

Communing, she thought as he hunkered over the keys. Get him. But she turned back to her own work. If she wasn't careful, she'd get caught up watching him. He made a hell of a picture when he was in the zone.

The army had-as the army did-shuffled them around over the next few years. They'd lived in military housing, even after they married their respective spouses-within three months of each other. And when they had opted to leave the military, to buy homes, they'd plunked down in the same development.

She toggled back and forth between locations, financials, added Isenberry into the mix. And slid into her own zone.

When the in-house 'link beeped beside her, she wished she could curse in Gaelic.

“Detective Baxter and Officer Trueheart have arrived and would like to speak with you.”

“Have them wait in my office.” She clicked off, then shot the data and the notes she'd been working on to her office unit. “I've got some stuff,” she said to Roarke.

“So do I. I'm in Kirkendall's CIA file right now. Busy, busy boy.”

“Tell me one thing. Do agencies like that pay fees-outside fees- for wet work? For special assignments?”

“Apparently. I'm finding a number of what's listed as 'op fees' in his file. His top seems to be a half mil-USD-for the termination of a scientist in Belingrad. He worked fairly cheap.”

“How do we manage to live in the same world when you actually exist on a plane where half a million is cheap?”

“True love hobbles us to the same post. Freelancers can get double that for an assassination. Easily.” He looked up from his work. “I was once offered that, at the tender age of twenty-to do away with the business rival of a weapons' runner. A bit difficult to turn it down- quick money-but murder for pay has always struck me as tacky.”

“Tacky.”

He just smiled at her. “I'm in now, so I'll keep with it, and run through Clinton's and Isenberry's. It won't take long now, as I've already punched through.”

“I'll be in my office. Just for curiosity, what does…” She paused, brought the Gaelic phrase back in her mind, and mangled it in the repeating.

Surprise flickered over his face as he angled his head. “Where did you hear that?”

“Out of your mouth a little while ago.”

“I said that?” He looked mildly shocked-and if she wasn't mistaken, a little embarrassed. “Well, what does come back to you. Just a flash from my youth. A very crude one.”

“Oh, then, as a cop who's worked the tidy and genteel streets of New York for eleven years and counting, I'd be shocked by crude language.”

“Very crude,” he repeated. Then shrugged. “Basically, it's fuck yourself in your own ass.”

“Yeah?” She brightened. “How do you say it again-the right way? I could use it on Summerset.”

He laughed, shook his head. “Go to work.”

She walked out, mumbling the phrase.

And walked into her office in time to see Baxter take a big bite of a loaded burger. Since there were no takeout bags in evidence, and the smell was real meat, she deduced it came from her own kitchen.

“Help yourself.”

“Thanks.” He grinned and chewed, and gestured toward Trueheart, who was chewing on an identical meal-with the grace, at least, to look slightly shamefaced. “We didn't stop for fuel. Eats are better here.”

“I'll give your compliments to the chef. Are you going to report, or just push dead cow in your mouth?”

“Both. Reached out to the primary on Moss, and on Duberry. Team working Moss, they crossed all the hatches. Nothing to go on. No specific threats filed. Moss hadn't mentioned anything to his wife, his associates, friends, neighbors, about any threats. He and his kid drove upstate to this cabin he owned one weekend a month. Man-to-man time. Fishing and shit. Vehicle was parked, private garage-full vid surveillance, droid security. Droid on showed no tampering, but had a thirty-minute break on his disc. Same with the security cams.”

“What kind of cabin?”

Baxter nodded, picked up one of the fries he had ordered along with the burger. “We thought the same. Why go through all that when it'd be easier to take him out in a cabin upstate. Troy?”

Trueheart swallowed hastily. “The cabin's in a gated, recreational community, and the security is good. The investigators believed, due to the nature of the explosive device and the ability to jam the lot security, that the possibility was strong on urban terrorism. Several other vehicles were destroyed, and the lot suffered some structural damage.”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Smarter. Add the urban terrorism element to murk the waters.”

“There was no evidence to conclude Moss was target specific, but if so, they concluded it was because he was a judge, not because of any particular case. Moss had also been approached as a possible mayoral candidate, so the team factored in politics.”

He cleared his throat, and continued when no one commented. “There was no evidence, no reason for them to look at Kirkendall at that time. He'd made no threat, and his case had been resolved about three years prior to the incident. With, ah, what we have now, we can look at Kirkendall, his pattern and pathology, and conclude that he hit Moss in the city rather than at the cabin because it, um, murked the waters. And it was more of a challenge. More of a statement.”

“Agreed,” Eve said and watched Trueheart take an easing breath. “What about the device?”

“Well, that's pretty interesting.” Baxter gestured with his burger. “And another reason the primary and team concluded urban terrorism. What they were able to sweep up from scene, then sim, indicated a military-style device. This wasn't any homemade boomer some yahoo stuck together in his basement because he was pissed off some judge made him pay child support. Lab guys creamed over it- primary's words-plaston base, and it don't come cheap, electronic trigger designed to blow when the engine engaged, and…” He made a wide gesture, pulling his arms apart. “… explode outwards for additional damage.”