IN ORDER TO WORK WITHOUT GOING MAD, Roarke erected a mental wall of silence. He simply put himself behind that wall and filtered out the ringing, the clacking, the voices, and electronic beeps and buzzes.

Initially, he’d taken the names A through M, with Eve working on the second half of the alphabet. How could he possibly employ so many brunettes with names beginning with A? Aaronson, Abbott, Abercrombie, Abrams, and down to Azula.

It hadn’t taken long before it had been monumentally clear two people weren’t enough to handle the contacts.

Eve pulled in more cops, and the noise level increased exponentially.

He tried not to think about the time dripping away while he sat, contacting employees he didn’t even know, had never met, would unlikely ever meet. Women who depended on him for their livelihoods, who performed tasks he, or someone else who worked for him, created and assigned to them.

Each contact took time. A housekeeper at a hotel wasn’t accustomed to receiving a call at home, at work, on her pocket ’link from the owner of that hotel. From the man in the suit, in the towering office. Each call was tedious, repetitious, and he was forced to admit, annoyingly clerical.

Routine, Eve would have called it, and he wondered how she could stand the sheer volume of monotony.

“Yo, Irish.” Callendar broke through Roarke’s wall, poking him in the arm. “You need to get up, move around, pour in some fuel.”

“Sorry?” For a moment, her voice was nothing more than a buzz within the buzz. “What?”

“This kind of work, the energy bottoms if you don’t keep it pumped. Take a break, get something to power up from Vending. Use a headset for a while.”

“I’m not even through the bloody B’s.”

“Long haul.” She nodded, offered him a soy chip from the open bag at her station. “Take it from me, move around some. Blood ends up in your ass this way, not that yours isn’t prime. But you want to get the blood back up in your head or your brain’s going to stall.”

She was right, he knew it himself. And still there was a part of him that wanted to snarl at her to mind her own and let him be. Instead he pushed back from the station. “Want something from Vending, then?”

“Surprise me, as long as it’s wet and bubbly.”

It did feel good to be on his feet, to move, to step away from the work and the noise.

When he walked out, he noted cops breezing along, others in confabs in front of vending machines. A man, laughing wildly, was quick-marched along by a couple of burly uniforms. He didn’t rate even a glance from the others in the corridors.

The place smelled of very bad coffee, he thought, old sweat, and someone’s overly powerful and very cheap perfume.

Christ Jesus, he could’ve used a single gulp of fresh air.

He selected a jumbo fizzy for Callendar, then just stood, staring at his choices. There was absolutely nothing there he wanted. He bought a water, then took out his ’link and made a call.

When he turned, he saw Mira walking toward him. There, he decided, was the closest thing to fresh air he was likely to experience inside the cop maze of Central.

“I didn’t realize you were still here,” he said.

“I went home, couldn’t settle. I sent Dennis off to have dinner with our daughter, and came back to do some paperwork.” She glanced down at the enormous fizzy in his hand, smiled a little. “That doesn’t strike me as your usual choice of beverage.”

“It’s for one of the e-cops.”

“Ah. This is difficult for you.”

“Bloody tedious. I’d sooner sweat a year running an airjack than work a week as a cop.”

“That, yes, not at all the natural order for you. But I meant being used this way, and not knowing why, or by whom.”

“It’s maddening,” he admitted. “I was thinking a bit ago that I don’t know the bulk of these women we’re trying to contact. They’re just cogs in the wheel, aren’t they?”

“If that’s all they were to you, you wouldn’t be here. I could tell you that you’re responsible for none of what’s happened, or may happen to someone else. But you know that already. Feeling it, that’s a different matter.”

“It is,” he agreed. “That it is. What I want is a target, and there isn’t one. Yet.”

“You’re used to having the controls, and taking the actions, or certainly directing them.” She touched a sympathetic hand to his arm. “Which is exactly what you’re doing now, though it may seem otherwise. And that’s why I’m here, too. Hoping Eve will give me some job to do.”

“Want a fizzy?”

She laughed. “No, but thanks.”

They walked in together, then separated as Roarke went back to his station and Mira crossed to Eve.

“Give me an assignment,” Mira said. “Anything.”

“We’re contacting these women.” Eve explained the list, the approach, then gave Mira a list of names.

 

W earing black-tie, he settled into his box in the Grand Tier of the Metropolitan Opera House. He richly anticipated the performance of Rigoletto. His newest partner was secured and sleeping. As for Gia…well, he didn’t want to spoil his evening dwelling on that disappointment.

He would end that project tomorrow, and he would move on.

But tonight was for the music, the voices, the lights, and the drama. He knew he would take all of that home with him, relive it, reexperience it while he sipped a brandy in front of the fire.

Tomorrow, he would stop the clock.

But now, he would sit, tingling with pleasure, while the orchestra tuned up.

 

H e ordered a freaking deli, was all Eve could think when the food began to roll in. There were trays and trays of meats, bread, cheese, side salads, sweets. Added to it, she saw two huge bags—distinctly gold—of the coffee (real coffee) he produced.

She caught his eye, and hers was distinctly hairy. He only shook his head.

“No lip,” he said.

She pushed her way through the schoolyard rush to his station. “A word.”

She moved out of the room, and when he joined her the din from the war room was a clear indicator no one else objected to the possibility of corned beef on rye.

“Listen, I went along with the pizza parlor, but—”

“I have to do something,” he interrupted. “It’s little enough, but at least it’s something. It’s positive. It’s tangible.”

“Cops can spring for their own eats, and if I clear an order in, I’ve got a budget. There are procedures.”

He turned away from her, turned back again with frustration simply rolling off of him. “Christ Jesus, we’re buried in shagging procedures already. Why would you possibly care if I buy some fucking sandwiches?”

She stopped herself when she felt the teeth of her own temper in her throat. “Because it’s tangible.” She pressed her fingers into her eyes, rubbed hard. “It’s something to kick at.”

“Can’t you take an hour? Look at me. Look at me,” he repeated, laying his hands on her shoulders. “You’re exhausted. You need an hour to stretch out, to turn off.”

“Not going to happen, and by the way, you’re not looking so perky yourself.”

“I feel like my brain’s been used as a punching bag. It’s not the time, or even the lack of sleep so much. It’s the unholy tedium.”

That made her frown—and put her back up again, a little. “You’ve done cop work before.”

“Bits and pieces it comes clear to me now, and that with some challenge and a clear end goal.”

“Challenge? Like risking your life and getting bloody.”

Calmer, he circled his head on his neck and wondered how many years it might take to get the last of the kinks out. “A lot more appealing, sad to say, than sitting in front of a screen or on a ’link for hours on end.”

“Yeah. I know just what you mean. But this is part of it, a big part of it. It’s not all land to air chases and busting in doors. Listen, you can take an hour in the crib. Probably should. I’ll clear it.”

He flicked a finger along the dent in her chin. “Not only does that sound extremely unappealing, but if you’re on, I’m on. That’s the new rule until we’ve finished this.”

Arguing took energy she didn’t have to spare. “Okay. All right.”

“Something else is wrong.” He put a hand under her chin, left it there even when she winced and tried to knock it off. “Shows what happens when your brain’s used as a punching bag that I didn’t see it before. What is it?”

“I figure having some murdering bastard who slipped by us before back torturing and killing women under our noses is pretty much enough.”

“No, something else in there.” It was the “slipped by us” that clicked for him. “Where’s Feeney?”

For an answer, she shifted, and kicked the vending machine so viciously it sent off its security alarm.

Warning! Warning! Vandalizing or damaging this unit is a crime, and punishable by a maximum of thirty days incarceration and a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars per offense. Warning! Warning!

“All right, then,” Roarke said mildly, and taking her arm, pulled her down the corridor. “Let’s just take this to your office before we’re both arrested for attempting to steal fizzies.”

“I don’t have time to—”

“I think making time is in everyone’s best interest.”

He took her straight through, so the scatter of cops on weekend evening shift barely glanced over.

Inside her office, he closed the door, leaned back against it while she kicked her desk. “When you’re done abusing inanimate objects, tell me what happened.”

“I screwed up, that’s what happened. Fuck, fuck, and shit. I messed up.”

“How?”

“What would it have taken me? Ten minutes? Five? Five minutes to give him the rundown before the briefing. But I didn’t think of it, never crossed my mind.” Obviously at wit’s end, she fisted her hands on either side of her head and squeezed in. “What the hell’s wrong with me that it never crossed my mind?”

“Once more,” Roarke suggested, “with clarity.”

“Feeney, I didn’t feed him the new data, tell him about the new angle we’d work. That the suspect had contacted the target, lured her to him rather than doing the grab on the street. The way we’d worked the first case. Damn it!”

Her desk took another slam with her boot. “I just lumped him in with everyone else, didn’t take into account that he’d led the first investigation. All I had to do was pull him aside, tell him, ‘Hey, we’ve got something fresh.’ Give him a little time to take it in.”

“He didn’t react well, I take it?”

“Who could blame him?” she tossed back. Her tired eyes were dark with regret. “Jumped on me with both feet. And what do I do? I get my back up, that’s what I do. Can’t just say, hey, I’m sorry, I got caught up in the roll and didn’t think it through. No, can’t say that. Oh well, shit!”

She covered her face a moment, heeled away the tears that got away from her. “This isn’t good.”

“Baby, you’re so tired.”

“So the fuck what? So I’m tired, that’s the job, that’s the way it is. Tired means nothing. I bitch slapped him, Roarke. I told him to take a break, to go home. Why didn’t I just knock him down and rub his face in it while I was at it?”

“Did he need a break, Eve?”

“That’s not the point.”

“It certainly is.”

Now she sighed. “Just because it was the right call doesn’t mean it was right. He said I didn’t respect him, and that’s not true. That’s so far from any truth, but I didn’t show him respect. I told you before, the other one was on him—that’s command. All I did by handling it this way was add to that weight.”

“Sit down. Oh, for Christ’s sake, sit for five minutes.” He strode over, all but lifted her bodily into her chair. “I know something about command, and it’s often not pretty, nor comfortable, and very often it’s not fair. But someone had to make the calls, the decisions. Maybe you didn’t account for his feelings, and you can regret that if it helps you. But the simple fact is, you had a great deal more on your mind than coddling Feeney.”

“It’s not coddling.”

“And he had a great deal on his, and obviously needed to vent some of the pressure,” Roarke continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Which he did, quite handily, I’d say, on you. Now you’re both feeling sorry for yourselves.”

Her mouth dropped open in sheer shock for two seconds, then twisted into a snarl. “Bite me.”

“I hope to have the energy for that at some point in the near future. You told him to go home because you understood, even if you were angry and hurt, you understood he needed to step away for a time. He went because ............