Kindred in Death (In Death #29)(70)

“Send him to me. On screen, now,” she ordered when the transmission hummed.” She stared at the ID photo. “Good work, Jamie. Shut everything down there, wipe the search.”

“It’s him, isn’t it? It’s the bastard who killed Deena.”

She looked into Jamie’s tired and furious eyes. “You did good work,” she repeated. “We’ll brief in the morning. Go home. Get some sleep.”

She knew he wanted to argue, it was clear on his face. But he pulled it in. “Yes, sir.”

She cut transmission then turned back to the screen to study another young, attractive face.

“Hello, Darrin Pauley. You son of a bitch.”

In the lab, Roarke finessed, twisted, prodded. He’d grabbed the amorphous tail of the ghost and was fighting to hold it. “Do you see it?” he demanded.

On a wall screen, Feeney’s eyes were narrowed to slits. “I’ve got eyes, don’t I? You need to recalibrate the bypass, then—”

“I’m bloody well doing that.” Roarke swiveled to another comp, keyed in another code.

“I can box it from here.” On another screen, McNab paced. “If we ride the back end from here—”

“Keep working the enhance,” Feeney snapped. “I’ve got it.”

“Roarke.”

“Not now!” the order shot out at Eve from Roarke, and from the two males on the wall screens.

“Jesus, wall of geek,” she muttered. Then saw the other image, a shadow on shadows.

“You’re pulling him out.”

“We’ve got him, but by our bleeding fingernails. Quiet. If we can’t lock this, we’ll have to do it all again.”

As she watched, the screen began to blur with white dots. She heard McNab say, “No! Damn it, no! It’s another strain. Jesus.”

“Not this time,” Roarke snapped. “The pattern’s there. Reverse the code, every other sequence.”

Eve could see the light sheen of sweat on Feeney’s face, hear the steely determination in Roarke’s voice.

The dots on screen faded.

“We did it!” McNab cried out.

“Not quite yet,” Roarke’s voice eased slightly. “But we bloody well will.”

She didn’t know what they were doing, but the shadow on screen shimmered so she feared it would vanish. Then it steadied, stilled.

“Locked!” McNab called. “We locked the bastard. Rocking-freaking-A.” He leaped up into a victory dance.

“Christ.” Roarke leaned back. “I could use a pint.”

“I’m damn well having one. Good work, every damn one of us,” Feeney said.

“Ah . . . is that it?” As Eve gestured to the shadow, every eye, on screen or in the room, turned a jaundiced look on her.

“We broke through the virus,” Roarke told her. “We pieced together this image from distorted pixels. We performed a bloody miracle. And no, that’s not it. That’s it for now.”

“We’ll start enhancing, defining, cleaning it up,” Feeney told her, then took a long pull from a bottle of brew. “It’s going to take hours, maybe a day, but it’s there, and we can pull it out. And while we’re doing that, we’ve got the sequence and coding locked down to get the rest of it. We’ll be able to give you the little son of a bitch walking right in the door.”

“That’ll be a cap on it. Meanwhile, thanks to Jamie, I’ve got a name, and a point of origin. Darrin Pauley, age twenty-three. Data claims he lives in Sundown, Alabama, south of Mobile, with his father, Vincent Pauley. I’ve got no connection to either Pauley with MacMasters—yet, but he fits right down to his shy smile.”

“He’s no more in Alabama than my ass is,” Feeney put in.

“No, but his father is. I ran him, and he’s gainfully employed, living with his wife and twelve-year-old daughter, in Sundown.”

“Could be a blind,” Feeney suggested.

“Could, but the family resemblance is striking. He needs to be interviewed, now, and face-to-face.”

Roarke glanced at the equipment he’d begun to enjoy again. “I suppose we’re going to Alabama this evening.”

“You suppose correctly.”

14

SHE HAD TO APPRECIATE BEING MARRIED TO A man who could call up one of his own private jets in a fingersnap and pilot it if he had a mind to.

In this case, he did, which was a big advantage. She could sit, continue doing runs, argue with Peabody, bounce theories off her personal pilot, and basically ignore the view out the windscreen.

“I’d’ve been ready in five minutes,” Peabody complained. Her face sulked on screen while in the background McNab continued his e-work in incomprehensible geek.

“It would’ve taken you thirty minimum to get to the transpo. He’s not going to be there, Peabody. You’re not going to miss the collar, for Christ’s sake. And I need you right where you are, digging down to find a New York address or contact for Darrin Pauley. Employment, driver’s license, criminal, finances, medical. Each and every f**king thing.”

“I could do that while—”

“You can have a plane ride another time.”

Peabody’s pout perked, just a little. “When?”