Divided in Death (In Death #18)(36)

Especially since she was long dead.

Since they hadn't bothered to go back that far, or dig that deep, they didn't know about Siobhan Brody, or his aunt and the rest of the family he'd discovered in the west of Ireland. His newfound relations wouldn't be watched or approached or have their privacy invaded by the HSO.

But there was a fat file on his father. Patrick Roarke had been of considerable interest to the HSO, as well as Interpol, the Global Intelligence Council, and other covert organizations the HSO had pooled for data. He discovered that they'd considered recruiting him at one point, but had judged him too volatile.

Volatile, Roarke mused with a dark chuckle. Well, he could hardly argue with that.

They'd tied him to Max Ricker, and that was no surprise. Ricker had been a clever man, and his network spread all over the planet, and off, with rich pockets of weapons and illegals running among other business ventures. But he'd been entirely too vain to cover all of his tracks.

Patrick Roarke was considered one of Ricker's occasional tools, and not a particularly deft one. Too fond of the drink and other chemicals. And not discreet enough to warrant a higher position, much less a permanent one on Ricker's payroll.

But seeing the association in black-and-white made the fact that Eve had been the one to lock Ricker in a cage all the more gratifying.

He'd nearly closed the file again when he caught a notation about travel to Dallas. The time, the place made his blood run cold.

Patrick Roarke traveled from Dublin to Dallas, Texas, on circular route and under the name Roarke O'Hara. Arrived Dallas 5-12-2036 at seventeen-thirty. Was met at airport by subject known as Richard Troy aka Richie Williams aka William Bounty aka Rick Marco. Subjects traveled by car to Casa Diablo Hotel where Troy was registered as Rick Marco. Roarke rented a room under O'Hara.

At twenty-fifteen, subjects exited hotel and traveled by foot to the Black Saddle Bar, where they remained until oh two hundred. Transcription of conversation attached.

There was more-standard surveillance reports that covered three days with the two men coming and going, having meetings with others of their kind in bars, in dives.

A great deal of drinking and posturing, and bits and pieces discussed about movement of munitions from a base in Atlanta.

Max Ricker. Roarke didn't need the transcript to tell him both his father and Eve's had been on the fringes, at least, of Ricker's network. They knew the men had met, in Dallas.

Days before, he thought, only days before Eve had been found, battered and broken, in an alley.

They'd known all that, he thought, and so had the HSO.

Subject Roarke checked out of hotel at ten thirty-five the following morning. He was driven by Troy to the airport where he took a shuttle to Atlanta.

Troy returned to hotel room shared with female minor. Surveillance on Roarke passed to Operative Clark.

"Female minor," Roarke repeated. "You bastards. You bloody bastards, you had to know."

And with a rage so strong it sickened him, he brought up Richard Troy's HSO file.

***

It wasn't yet dawn when she stirred, and felt his arms go around her. So gently around her. Half dreaming, she turned to him, turned into him and found the warmth of his body, then the warmth of his lips on her lips.

The kiss was so tender, so fragile somehow, that she could let herself drift into it even as she floated on that twilight sleep.

In the dark, she could always find him in the dark and know he'd be there to soothe her or arouse her. Or to ask those things of her.

She threaded her fingers through his hair, cradling his head as she urged him to deepen the kiss. Deeper, a mating of lips and tongues, and still soft as a dream she was already forgetting.

For now there was only Roarke, the smooth glide of his skin over hers, the lines of him, the scent and taste. She was already filled with him as she murmured his name.

His mouth trailed over her like a benediction. Cheeks, throat, shoulders, then pressed delicately on the slope of her breast to linger where her heart beat.

"I love you." His lips formed the words against her breast. "I'm lost in love with you."

Not lost, she thought, and smiled in the dark even as her pulse thickened. Found. We're both found.

He cradled his head there a moment-cheek to heart-and closed his eyes until he could be sure he had his fiercer emotions in check, until he could be sure his hands would be gentle on her.

He had a searing need to be gentle.

She sighed, soft and sleepy, and was content, he knew, to be wakened like this. No matter what had been done to her, her heart was open for him, and that open heart lifted him beyond anything he'd expected to become.

So he was gentle when he touched her, and when he roused her to peak it was lovely and sweet.

When he slipped inside her, they were one shadow moving in the dark.

She held him there, close in the big bed under the sky window where the light was going pearl gray with dawn. She could stay like this for an hour, she thought. Stay quiet and joined and happy before it was time to face the world, the job, the blood.

"Eve." He pressed his lips to her shoulder. "We need to talk."

"Mmm. Don't wanna talk. Sleeping."

"It's important." He drew away, though she groaned a protest. "I'm sorry. Lights on, twenty percent."

"Oh, man." She clapped a hand over her eyes. "What is it? Five? Nobody has to have a conversation at five in the morning."