Portrait in Death (In Death #16)(46)

Faces streamed by.

"This isn't right," Hastings muttered. "She's not in here. I took them, goddamn it. Four or five candids, two posed. I took more of her than anyone else outside the freaking wedding party. I took those shots."

"I believe you." Considering, Eve tapped her fingers on her thigh. "Couple of things here, Hastings. Are you willing to take a Truth Test?"

"Fuck. Fuck. Yeah, what the hell."

"I'll set it up." She glanced at her wrist unit. Too late in the day to schedule one. "For tomorrow. Now, who worked with you on this job?"

"How the hell do I know? It was freaking January."

"You got files, records?"

"Sure, on the jobs, on the images, on the shoots. Not on assistants. I go through assistants like toilet paper, and toilet paper's a lot more useful."

"You pay them, don't you?"

"More than they're worth," he began, then blinked. "Right. Right. Lucia takes care of it. She'll know."

***

For the first time since he'd laid eyes on Eve, Roarke was relieved she wasn't there when he got home. Ignoring a quick tug of guilt, he went directly upstairs rather than heading back to Summerset's quarters to check on him.

He needed time. He needed privacy. He needed, for Christ's sweet sake, to think.

It could all be a hoax. It probably was, he told himself as he coded into the secured room that held his unregistered equipment. It likely was a hoax, some complicated, convoluted scheme to bilk him out of some ready cash, or to distract him from some upcoming negotiations.

But why use something so deeply buried in his past? Why, for God's sake, try to tangle him up with something he could, and bloody well would, unravel quickly enough?

It was bullshit. Bollocks.

But he wasn't quite sure.

Because he wanted a drink, a little too much, he opted for coffee, strong and black, before turning to the sleek black console.

He'd had this room built, had added all the security precautions personally. For one purpose. To get around the all-seeing eye and the sticky tendrils of CompuGuard. There was some business, even for the legitimate businessman he'd become, that was no one's concern but his.

Here, in this room with its privacy screened windows, its secured door, he could send and receive any communiqu‚'s, conduct any searches, hack into anything he had the time or skill to pursue without alerting CompuGuard.

There had been a time, not so long ago in the grand scheme of things, when he'd used the equipment in this room for purposes not quite legal-as much for fun, he could admit, as for profit. Perhaps even more out of simple habit.

He'd grown up a thief and a grifter, and such habits were difficult to break. Especially if you were good.

He'd always been good.

So good, it had been a very long time since he'd needed to steal to survive. He'd shed his criminal associations and activities, layer by layer, slicking on the polish money could bring.

He'd made something of himself, he thought now, as he looked around the room. Had begun to, in any case.

Then there'd been Eve. His cop. What could a man do when he was so utterly besotted but shed more layers?

She'd been the making of him, Roarke supposed. And still, for all they were to each other, there was a core in him even she couldn't touch.

Now someone had come along, some stranger trying to make him believe that everything up to now-everything he'd done, everything he was, everything he wanted-rested on a lie? A lie, and murder?

He crossed to a mirror. His face, his father's face. All but one and the same, and there was no getting around it. It wasn't something he thought about often, even considered. Which was why, he imagined, having it slapped hard in that face this way shook him down to that hard, cold, unreachable core.

So, he would deal with it. And be done with it.

He sat behind the glossy, U-shaped console, laid his palm on the screen against the slick black. It glowed red as it scanned his palmprint. And his face was set, like stone.

"This is Roarke," he said. "Open operations."

Lights winked on, machines began their quiet, almost human hum. And he got to work.

First, he ordered a deep-level search on Moira O'Bannion. He would know her better than she knew herself before he was done.

The first level was basic. Her date and place of birth, her parents and siblings, her husband and children. Her work record. It jibed with what she'd told him, but he'd expected that.

A good con required a good foundation, didn't it? Who knew that better than he did?

She had to be lying. Had to be, because if she wasn't...

Pain and panic crashed in his gut. He bore down, stared at the data on-screen. She had to be lying, and that was that. He only had to find the first chink, and the rest of her fanciful story would crumble.

As the layers peeled away, he studied her medical records, her financials, and those of her family. With a deadly calm he stripped away her privacy, and that of everyone connected to her.

It took him a full hour and he found nothing that sent up a flag.

He got more coffee, settled himself again, then spoke the command he'd hoped to avoid.

"Run search on Siobhan Brody, born County Clare, Ireland, between 2003 and 2006."

WORKING... THIRTY-THREE FEMALES BORN DURING THAT TIME PERIOD UNDER THIS NAME.