Survivor in Death

17

EVE MADE NOTES FROM SEARCH RESULTS, RAN probabilities, continued her notes. She was tired of riding a desk on this one. She wanted action. Needed to move.

Instead, she rolled her shoulders, went back to her notes.

Kirkendall v. Kirkendall to Moss.

To Duberry. To, most likely, Brenegan.

To Swisher, Swisher, Swisher, Dyson, and Snood.

To Newman.

To Knight andPreston.

Kirkendall to Isenberry.

Isenberry to Tully and Tully to Rangle.

No harm to Tully or Rangle, with countless opportunities.

Target specific.

And all circling back to Kirkendall v. Kirdendall.

“What time is it inNebraska?”

“Ah.”Peabody blinked her tired eyes, rubbed them. “Let's see, it's five-twenty here, so I think it's an hour earlier there? Do they do daylight savings? I think. An hour. Probably.”

“Why does it have to be an hour earlier there, or an hour later here? Why can't everybody just run on the same time and end the madness?”

“It has to do with the earth turning on its axis as it orbits the sun and…” She trailed off, catching Eve's narrowed glare. “You're right. Everybody should run on the same time. Dallas time. I'd vote for it. Are we going toNebraska?”

“I'm going to do everything in my power to avoid it.” Going out in the field didn't mean she wanted to go out in actual fields. With hay or grass or spooky corn. “Let's try the wonder of the 'link first.”

She opened Dian Kirkendall's file, found her sister's data. “Turnbill, Roxanne. Age forty-three. Married to Joshua, mother of Benjamin and Samuel. Professional Mother status. Okay, Roxanne, let's see what you know about your brother-in-law.”

The face that popped on her screen was a child's-a boy, Eve thought, despite the sunny halo of hair. He had a big, wide open face with the dazzle of green eyes. “Hello, hi, this is Ben. Who are you?”

“Is either your mother or your father”-or any rational adult-”at home?”

“My mom's here, but you're supposed to say who it is, then say if you can-if you may,” he corrected, “speak with somebody.”

Now kids were lecturing her on manners. What had happened to her world? “This isDallas. May I speak with your mother?”

“Okay.” There was a blur and a jumble on-screen, then a piercing shout. “Mom! Dallas is calling you. Can I have a cookie now?”

“One cookie, Ben. And don't shout near the 'link. It's rude.” The mother had the son's curls, but in a deep brunette. Her smile wasn't as open, but polite, and just a little annoyed around the edges. “Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Turnbill?”

“Yes. Look, we've blocked solicitations, so I'm sorry, but if you've-”

“I'm Lieutenant Dallas with the New York City Police and Security Department.”

“Oh.” Even that polite smile faded. “What is it?”

“I'm calling regarding your former brother-in-law, Roger Kirkendall.”

“Is he dead?”

“No, not to my knowledge. I'm trying to locate him for questioning in connection with a case. Do you have any information as to his whereabouts?”

“No. I can't help you. I've very busy so-”

“Mrs. Turnbill, it's very important that I locate Mr. Kirkendall. If you could tell me if you've had any contact-”

“I haven't, and I don't want any contact with him.” Her voice was strained, like a wire snapped tight. “How do I know you're who you say you are?”

Eve held her badge to the screen. “Can you read my ID and my badge number?”

“Of course I can, but-”

“You can verify by contacting Cop Central inManhattan. I can give you a contact number that won't cost-”

“I'll get the number. You'll have to hold.”

“Careful,”Peabody noted when the screen went to holding blue. “And a little pissy.”

“Not just careful, not just pissy. A little scared on top of it.” As she waited, Eve considered. She began to calculate how long a round trip toNebraska, including interview time, might take.

Roxanne came back on screen. “All right, Lieutenant, I've verified your information.” Her face was pale now. “You're with Homicide.”

“That's correct.”

“He's killed someone. Dian-” She broke off, bit down on her lip as if to block words. “Who has he killed?”

“He's wanted for questioning in the murders of at least seven people, including two police officers.”

“InNew York,” she said carefully. “He killed people inNew York City?”

“He's wanted for questioning for murders that occurred in New York.”

“I see. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. I don't know where he is, I don't know what he's doing. Frankly, I don't want to know. If I did, if I knew anything, I'd tell you. I can't help you, and this isn't something I want to discuss. I have to get back to my children.”

The screen went black.

“She's still scared of him,”Peabody commented.

“Yeah. And her sister's still alive. That's what she thought, just for an instant there. Oh God, he finally got to Dian. She may know more than she realizes. She needs a face-to-face.”

“We're going toNebraska?”

“No, but you are.”

“Me? Just me? Out there in the wilderness?”

“Take McNab. Backup and ballast.” And, Eve thought, as someone who'd keepPeabody from overdoing. “I want you there and back tonight. You'll do better with the mother type, the family type, than I would first shot. She'll trust you faster.”

Eve used the house 'link, interrupted Roarke in the computer lab.

“I need fast, secure transpo.”

“Where are we going?”

“Not we-Peabody. Nebraska. I'm sending McNab with her, so something that'll hold two. But quick and small. They shouldn't need to be there more than a couple of hours. I've got the exact location.”

“All right, I'll arrange it. Give me a minute.”

“Wow, just like that.”Peabody gave a little sigh. “What's it like being with a guy who can snap his fingers and get you pretty much whatever you need?”

“Convenient. Use the sister on her if you have to. Show her the dead kids.”

“Jesus, Dallas.”

“She's got kids. It'll help crack her if she's hiding anything. We can't play nice. Have McNab take the edge if you need one. Can he handle bad cop?”

“He does it really well during personal role-playing games when I'm the reluctant witness.”

“Oh crap.” Eve pressed her fingers to her eyes and prayed the image wouldn't form. “Just work her, Peabody. She must know where to find the sister. Kirkendall's ex would be a valuable tool in this investigation.”

Roarke walked in, handedPeabody a memo cube. “There's your transpo. The pilot will be waiting for you.”

“Thanks.” She gathered her file bag. “I'll contact McNab, have him meet me there.”

“I want to know when you arrive, when you leave, and when you get back,” Eve told her.

“Yes, sir.”

“Safe trip,” Roarke said, then turned to Eve whenPeabody headed out. “I've got some bits and pieces, but I'm going to need the unregistered to pull them together.”

“Show me what you've got.”

“Let's take it in there.” He ran a hand down her arm as they walked. “You're tired, Lieutenant.”

“Some.”

“It's been a stressful, emotional day.”

She jerked a shoulder when he unlocked his private office with palm and voice ID.

“And Nixie?”

“Mira came by on her way out. She said the kid was doing a little better. That the trip to the morgue… Jesus.” She covered her face with her hands. “God, I didn't think I was going to be able to hold it together in there.”

“I know.”

She shook her head, struggling even now to maintain. “The way she looked at her father, touched him. What was in her eyes when she did. Sorrow, something beyond sorrow. And you knew, seeing that, how much she loved him. That she was never afraid of him, never had to worry if he'd hurt her. We don't know what that's like. We can't. I can find the man who did this, but I can't understand what she feels. And if I can't understand, how can I make it right?”

“Not true.” He brushed her face with his fingers, took away tears. “Who are you weeping for, if not for her?”

“I don't know. I don't know. She doesn't know what I do, but she's living through it. I can't know what she knows. That kind of bond? It's different than what we've got. It's got to be. Child to parent, parent to child. That was taken from her.”

She reached up with her own hands, wiped the tears away. “I stood over my father, with his blood all over me. I can't really remember what I felt. Relief, pleasure, terror-all of it, none of it. He comes back, in my head, in my dreams, and he tells me it's not over. He's right. It's not over. It's never going to be. She makes me see it.”

“I know.” He rubbed an errant tear away with his thumb. “Yes, I know. It's wearing on you, I can see that, too. There doesn't seem to be anything either of us can do about it. You won't pass the case to someone else.” He lifted her chin with his hand before she could answer. “You won't, and I wouldn't want you to. You'd never forgive yourself for stepping aside because of personal distress. And you'd never trust yourself again, not fully, not the way you need to.”

“I saw myself when I found her. Saw myself, instead of her, huddled in a ball, coated in blood. Not just thought of it, but saw it. Just a flash, just for an instant.”

“Yet you brought her here. You face it. Darling Eve.” His voice was like balm on the burn. “The child isn't the only one who shows grace in her steps.”

“Grace isn't the issue. Roarke.” She could tell him, say this to him. “On days like this, part of me wants to go back there, to that room inDallas. Just so I can stand over him again, with his blood all over me and the knife in my hand.”

She closed her fist as if she held the hilt. “Just to kill him again, but this time to know what I feel when I do, to feel it because maybe then it'll be done. Even if it doesn't, to feel that moment when I carved him up. I don't know what that makes me.”

“On days like this, all of me wants to be the one to go back to that room inDallas. To have his blood on me, and the knife in my hands. I know exactly what I would feel. And what it makes us, Eve, is who we are.”

She let out a long breath. “I don't know why that helps when it should probably scare me. She won't feel this way, because she had that base. Because she could lay her head on her mother's dead heart and cry. She'll have sorrow, and nights when she's afraid, but she'll remember why she was able to touch her father's face, her brother's hair, and cry on her mother's breast.”

“She'll remember a cop who stood with her, and held her hand when she did.”

“They're going to throw her into the system, Roarke. Sometimes it's salvation, sometimes it's good, but not for her. I don't want her to be another case file. To cycle through that like I did. I have an idea what could be done, but I wanted to run it by you.”

His face went absolutely still, absolutely blank. “What?”

“I was thinking we could approach Richard DeBlass and Elizabeth Barrister.”

“Oh.” This time it was Roarke who let out a long breath. “Of course. Richard and Beth, good thought.” He turned away, walked away from her to stare out the window.

“If it's a good idea, why are you upset?”

“I'm not.” What was he? He didn't have the name for it. “I should've thought of them myself. I should have thought more clearly.”

“You can't think of everything.”

“Apparently not.”

“Something's wrong.”

He started to deny it, push it aside. And had to accept that it would just be one more mistake. “I can't get my mind off the child. No, that's not it, not altogether. I can't get it out of my head, all of it, not since I went to that house with you. Stood looking at those rooms where those children had been sleeping.”

“It's rougher when it's kids. I should've thought of that before I asked you to do the walkthrough.”

“I'm not green.” He whirled around, his face lit with fury. “I'm not so soft in the belly I can't… Ah, fuck me.” He broke off, ran his hands through his hair.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Obviously alarmed, she crossed over quickly, rubbed his back. “What gives?”

“They were sleeping.” Christ Jesus, would that single thing always sicken him the most? “They were innocent. They had what children are supposed to have. Love and comfort and security. And I looked in those rooms, saw their blood, and it tears at me. Tears at my gut. Tears at the years between. I never think of it. Why should I, goddamn it.”

She didn't ask of what, not when she could see it on his face. Had it only been a short time ago he'd told her he hated to see her look sad? How could she tell him what it did to her guts to see him look devastated?

“Maybe we should sit down a minute.”

“Bloody hell. Bloody buggering hell.” He stalked to the door, booted it closed. “You can't forget it, but you can live with it. And I have. I do. It doesn't beat at me as it does you.”

“So maybe when it does, it's worse.”

He leaned back against the door, stared at her. “I see myself lying in a puddle of my own blood and puke and piss after he beat me unconscious. And yet here I am, aren't I? Damn good suit, big house, a wife I love more than life. He left me there, probably for dead. Didn't even bother to throw me away as he had my mother. I wasn't worth the trouble. Why should I give a damn about that now? But I wonder, what in God's name is the purpose, Eve? What is the purpose when I come to this, and those children are dead? When the one who's left has nothing and no one?”

“You don't deal the cards,” she said carefully. “You just play them. Don't do this to yourself.”

“I cheated and stole and connived my way to what I have, or to the base of it in any case. It wasn't an innocent lying in that alley.”

“Bullshit. That's just bullshit.”

“I'd have killed him.” His eyes weren't devastated now, but winter cold. “If someone hadn't done it before me, when I was older and stronger I'd have gone for him. I'd have finished him. Can't change that either. Well.” He sighed, heavily. “This is useless.”

“It's not. You don't think it's useless when I flood it on you. I like your dick, Roarke, like it fine. But it's irritating when you think with it.”

He opened his mouth, hissed out a breath just before a choked laugh. “It's irritating when you point it out. All right then, let's finish this out with me telling you I went toPhiladelphia today.”

“What the hell for?” She snapped it out. “I told you I needed to know where you were.”

“I wasn't going to mention it, and not to spare myself your wrath, Lieutenant. I wasn't going to mention it because it was a waste of time. I'd thought I could fix it-I'm good at fixing, or buying off if fixing won't work. I went to see Grant Swisher's stepsister. To talk to her about stepping in for Nixie, now that the legal guardianship's been voided. She couldn't be less interested.”

He sat now, on the arm of a chair. “I decided to make all this my concern. Magnanimous of me.”

“Shut up. Nobody rips on you but me.” She stepped to him, caught his face in her hands, kissed him. “And I'm not because-even being pissed off about you taking an unscheduled trip-I'm proud that you'd try to help. I wouldn't have thought of doing it.”

“I'd have bought her off, if that had been an option. Money fixes all sorts of problems, and why have so bloody much if you can't buy what you like? Such as a nice family for a little girl. I'd already eliminated the grandparents-found the grandfather, by the way-on my high moral grounds. But the one left, the one I hand-selected, wouldn't fall in.”

“If she doesn't want the kid, the kid's better off somewhere else.”

“I know it. I might've been disgusted with this woman's callousness, but I was furious with myself for assuming I could just snap fingers and make it all tidy. And furious that I couldn't. If it was tidy, I wouldn't feel guilty, would I?”

“About what?”

“About not considering, not being able to consider keeping her with us.”

“Us? Here? Us?”

He laughed again, but the sound was weary. “Well, we're on the same page there anyway. We can't do it. We're not the right people for it-for her. The big house, all the money, it doesn't mean a damn when we're not the right people.”

“Still on the same page.”

He smiled at her. “I've wondered if I'd be a good father. I think I would be. I think we'd be good at it, either despite or because of where we came from. Maybe both. But it's not now. It's not this child. It'll be when we know we'll be good at it.”

“That's nothing to feel guilty about.”

“How does it make me any different from Leesa Corday? Swisher's stepsister?”

“Because you tried to make it right. You'll help to make it right.”

“You steady me,” he murmured. “I didn't even know how far off balance I'd been, and here you steady me.” He took her hands, kissed them. “I want children with you, Eve.”

The sound she made brought on a quick and easy grin. “No need for the panic face, darling. I don't mean today, or tomorrow, or nine months down the road. Having Nixie around's been considerable education. Children are a lot of bloody work, aren't they?”

“Big duh.”

“Emotional, physical, time-consuming work. With undoubtedly amazing rewards. That bond you spoke of, we deserve to have it. To make it, when we're ready. But we're not, either of us, ready. And we're not equipped to parent a girl nearly ten. It would be like-for us, anyway-starting a twisty, laborious, fascinating task somewhere in the middle, without any time for that learning curve.”

He stepped to her again, laid his lips on her brow. “But I want children with you, my lovely Eve. One day.”

“One day being far, far in the future. Like, I don't know, say a decade when… Hold on. Children is plural.”

He eased back, grinned. “Why so it is-nothing slips by my canny cop.”

“You really think if I ever actually let you plant something in me- they're like aliens in there, growing little hands and feet.” She shuddered. “Creepy. If I ever did that, popped a kid out-which I think is probably as pleasant a process as having your eyeballs pierced by burning, poisonous sticks, I'd say, 'Whoopee, let's do this again?' Have you recently suffered head trauma?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Could be coming. Any second.”

He laughed, kissed her. “I do love you, and the rest is all in the vague and misty future. In any case, we're talking about this child. I think Richard and Beth are a fine thought.”

She locked the rest away-where hopefully it would stay in some deep, dark mind vault. “They took that kid last year.”

“Kevin. Yes, they recently finalized the adoption.”

“Yeah, you mentioned it. Kid had it rough-bouncy for all of that, but he had it rough. Junkie LC of a mother who knocked him around, left him alone. They have to know how to handle kids with baggage, so…”

“They may be a good choice for Nixie. I'll talk to them, tonight if I can manage it. They'll need to meet her, and she them.”

“You could give that a push. With the Dysons bowing out, GPS is going to start squawking about fostering pretty soon. Okay. Let's get down to it. What've you got for me?”

“Some names I've ferreted out that intersect in one way or another with both Kirkendall and Isenberry.” He moved over to his console as he spoke. “Some connect to CIA, some to Homeland Security.” He glanced over at her, and thought this would be one more punch to her psyche. “Are you going to be all right with that?”

“Are you?”

“I've made my peace there, best I can. They watched an innocent, desperate child suffer for what they deemed a bigger cause. I don't forget it, but I've made my peace with it.”

“I don't forget it,” she said quietly. Eve knew it was for love of her that he'd walked away from taking vengeance on the HSO operatives who'd witnessed her abuse those many years ago inDallas -they'd witnessed a man beating and brutalizing his own daughter, and done nothing to stop it. “I don't forget what you did for me.”

“Didn't do, more accurately. In any case, to nudge this any further, to access the data on these people through these organizations, I'll need this. Roarke,” he said, laying his hand on a palm plate. “Open operations.”

Roarke, IDverified, command acknowledged.

The console came to life, lights flashing on, equipment going to a low, holding hum. She came around the console to stand with him. And saw the framed photo he kept here. The baby, all vivid blue eyes and dark thick hair, held close to the young mother with her bruised face and bandaged hand.

That was private, too, she thought, and why he kept it here in this room. Something else he was making his peace over.

“Another thing I found interesting,” he told her. “Take a look.”

He ordered an image on a wall screen.

“Clinton, Isaac P., U.S. Army, retired. Sergeant. Looks like Kirkendall,” she commented. “Around the eyes, the mouth. Same coloring.”

“Yes, that caught me, too. Particularly when I noticed the birth date.” He brought up Kirkendall's image and data.

“The same date. Same health center. Son of a bitch. Different parents listed. But if the records were altered. If-”

“I think someone was naughty, and decided it would be worth a bit of hacking into those health center records.”

“Illegal adoption? Twins separated at birth. Could it be that strange?”

“Strange,” Roarke agreed, “but logical for all that.”

“They have to know. They end up in the same regiment, the same training. Guy's got your face-or close enough to make people notice-you're going to ask questions.”

“I take it you'd like that as first order of business.”

“Go.”

“This won't take long.”

He sat, began to work by voice command and manual while she paced.

Brothers, she thought. Teamwork. Twins, pulled apart, then brought back together. By fate? Luck? A higher power's vicious sense of humor?

Would the bond be stronger then, somehow? The anger deeper. And the murders even more personal. Denied their rightful family at birth. Denied one's rightful family by the courts.

Life's a bitch, so you kill.

“Was thisClinton ever married?”

“Shush,” was Roarke's response, so she looked for herself.

“Lotof mirrors here,” she noted. “He was married-the same year as Kirkendall. One kid for him, male. Both son and wife are listed as missing, the year before Kirkendall's punching bag and kids whiffed. They take off?” she wondered. “Or not get the chance?”

“Birth mothers on hospital records are the same as on later data,” Roarke said as he worked.

“Poke around, find others listed for that same day. Twin boys, deceased.”

“Already there, Lieutenant. Another moment. And here. Onscreen. Smith, Jane-original-delivered twin boys, stillbirths. I imagine the health center, and the doctor of record, gained a healthy fee on this.”

“Sold them. Yeah, betcha that's what she did. It happened. Happens,” she corrected, “even with the laws coming down on women getting themselves inseminated and incubating fetuses for big, fat fees, it happens.”

“Target couples-with the finances for it-can outline the physical characteristics they'd like, the ethnicity and so on, bypass mainstream routes with their screenings and regulations.” Roarke nodded. “Yes, healthy newborns are always a hot commodity on the black market.”

“And this Jane Smith hits the jackpot with twins. The Kirkendalls, the Clintons, walk away with bouncing boys-and their baby broker collects the fees, divvies up the rest of the shares. I'll pass this data to somebody in Child Protection Services. They'll want to dig into it, see if they can find the birth mother, the brokers. Long shot since we're talking fifty years, and I can't take time out for it unless it leads to Kirkendall. Selling kids. Pretty low.”

“It could be better to be wanted, even bought and paid for, than to be unwanted, discarded.”

“There are legitimate agencies to handle this stuff. Even ways to conceive-if that's what you want-if you have physical limitations. People like this want to cut corners, want to ignore the law and the system in place to protect the child.”

“I agree with you. And I'd say, in these cases, the ones who were wanted, bought and paid for, when learning of it, reacted badly.”

She paced. “I had a brother, and you stole him from me. I lived a lie that was beyond my control. I will take charge. So, we've got a couple of pissed-off guys who've been trained with our tax dollars to kill. Brothers, brotherly loyalty along with semperfi.”

“I think that's the marine corps, not the army.”

“Whatever. They meet up at some point, figure it out. Or one of them figures it out and seeks out the other. You're going to end up with two halves of one coin kind of deal, and the worse for it. They've changed their faces. Not only to avoid detection, but to look more alike, to what, honor their bond? Not just fraternal twins, identical. Or as close as can be to identical. Two bodies, one mind. That's how it looks to me.”

“Both their files, as well as a few others I found, indicate assignments from both CIA and Homeland, as well as Special Ops.”

I see you now, Eve thought. I know you now. I'll find you now. “How long will it take you to get in, pull it out?”

“A bit. You're restless, Lieutenant.”

“I need…” She rolled her shoulders. “Something physical. A good workout. Haven't managed one in a few days. More, I just want to pound on something awhile. Something that hits back.”

“I can help you with that.”

She lifted her fisted hands. “Want to go a round, ace?”

“Actually, no, but give me a minute to set this up.” He gave the machines orders, in the e-speak Eve could never fully translate. “It can start without me, then I'll come back to finish it off. Come with me.”

“It'd go quicker with you working it.”

“An hour or so won't make much difference.” He drew her into the elevator. “Holoroom.”

“Holo-room? What for?”

“A little program I've been playing with. I think you'll like it. Especially considering our recent discussion of Master Lu and our mutual admiration for his skill.”

He stepped with her into the blank square of the holo-room. “Initiate martial arts program 5A,” he said with a smile whispering around his lips. “Eve Dallas as opponent.”

“I thought you said you didn't want to-”

The room shimmered, swam, and became a dojo, with a wall of weapons and glossy wood Boor. She looked down at herself, studied the traditional black gi.

“Icy” was all she could think of saying.

“How much of a workout do you want?”

She rolled to the balls of her feet, back on the heels. “Hard and sweaty.”

“I've got just the thing. Triple threat,” he ordered. “Full cycle. Have fun,” he added to Eve when three figures appeared.

Two male, Eve noted, one female. The woman was small, with her siren red hair pulled back in a sleek tail to leave her stunning face unframed. One male was black, well over six feet, solid muscle, good long reach. The second was Asian, black eyes like marbles, and the lithe sort of build that told her he'd be quick and agile as a lizard.

They waited for her to step forward, then with a snap of their gis, bowed. She mirrored the gesture, then shifted smoothly to fighting stance as they began to circle.

The woman came first, a graceful handspring followed by a scissoring kick that whizzed by Eve's face. To counter, Eve dived, swept out her legs, and landed the first blow on the Asian. Gained her feet on a roll, blocked with a forearm.

And felt the smack of flesh to flesh vibrate.

Testing moves at first, backhand, jump kick, pivot, punch.

She parried, caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, and spun to meet the woman with a stomp on her instep, a hard elbow jab to the jaw.

“Nicely done,” Roarke called out, and leaned against the wall to watch.

She took a blow that knocked her down, used her hands and her quads to flip herself back before the next landed. And the Asian spun in, caught her with a flying kick to the kidneys that sent her skidding over the floor on her belly.

“Ouch.” Roarke winced. “That one stung a bit.”

“Woke me up is all.” Breathing through her teeth, she pushed up on her arms, kicked back, and took the black guy down with two hard heels to the groin.

“That stung more,” Roarke decided, and ordered himself a glass of cabernet from the AutoChef.

He sipped contemplatively while watching his woman battle. Outnumbered, and in two cases well outweighed. But holding her own. And she needed this, this hard, physical challenge. To help vent some of those hard, emotional fists pummeling inside her.

Still, he hissed in sympathy as she took a punishing blow to the face.

Well, he thought, she was more or less holding her own.

They came at her at once, and she blocked one by flipping him over her back, evaded another with an agile shoulder roll, but the third caught her with a sharp backward kick that sent her down again.

“Why don't I tone it down a bit,” Roarke suggested.

She gained her feet, blood in her eye now. “You do, and I'll kick your ass when I'm done with these.”

He shrugged, sipped. “Your call, darling.”

“Okay.” She shook her arms, circling as they did, noting the female was favoring her left leg now, and the black male was winded. “Let's finish this up.”

She went for the black guy. He might've been the biggest, but the groin shot had hurt. Using the woman as a decoy, Eve flew into a double spin, a snapping side kick, easily blocked, and used the momentum to carry her around, push her forward so that her upper body, head, and fists all connected with the black man's crotch.

This time he went down, and stayed down.

She blocked blows with her forearms, her shoulders, gauging her ground, taking the defensive and drawing both her opponents in close.

A short-armed punch to the jaw snapped the female's head back, and the elbow Eve jabbed into her throat took her out.

Eve grabbed her falling body and shoved it at her last opponent.

He had to spin away, but came back at her. They were both puffing now, and the sweat stung her eyes. She doubled over when his foot landed in her gut. And he was fast-but not quite fast enough to snap his leg back before she gripped his ankle and heaved.

He used the move to carry himself over into a flip, punched the landing with a grace she admired. Even as she was hurling at him, springing up to a flying kick. Her heel landed on the bridge of his nose, and she heard the satisfying crunch.

“That's game,” Roarke said. “End program.”

The figures faded away, as did the dojo. She stood, in her work clothes now, catching her breath. “Good fight,” she managed.

“Not bad. You finished them up in… twenty-one minutes, forty seconds.”

“Time flies when you're… ow.” She rubbed her right inner thigh. “What I get for not warming up.”

“You pull something?”

“No.” She bent to stretch it out. “Just a little tender.” She blew her hair out of narrowed eyes as she glanced toward Roarke. “Twenty minutes?”

“Twenty-one forty. Not quite the high score. I did it in nineteen twenty-three.”

She lifted her head, squinted at him as she pulled the heel of her right foot to her butt in a stretch. “Under twenty first time out?”

“All right, no, not the first time. That took me twenty and change.”

“How much change?”

He laughed. “Fifty-eight.”

“I'd say the difference is negated as you programmed the game. Gimme a sip of that.”

He offered her the glass. “Feel better?”

“Yeah. Nothing like punching your fist into a face to brighten up the day. I don't know what that says about me either, but I don't care.”

“Then we'll have another game. Recreational hour's not up,” he said before she could protest. “Initiate Program Island-3.”

They were on a white sand beach that flowed into water of blue crystal. There were flowers-pink, white, rosy red-strewn along the shoreline. Jewel-colored birds winged into a sky as clear and blue as a glass bowl.

Floating gently on the sea was a wide white bed.

“There's a bed on the water.”

“I've never made love to you on the water. In it, somewhat under it, but never on it. You like the beach.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I like the idea of floating away with you.”

She looked at him. He wore a thin white shirt now, unbuttoned so it rippled in the breeze, and loose black pants. His feet were bare, as hers were.

He'd programmed her for white as well, she noted. Floating white dress with wire-thin straps. There were flowers in her hair. A long way from a black gi and flying fists. “From combat to romance?”

“Can you think of anything that suits us more?”

She laughed. “Guess not. I wouldn't have been able to step away like this for an hour, not a couple of years ago. I hope I'm better for it, all around.”

She took his hand, walked with him into the warm, clear water. And laughed as they rolled onto the bed. “It's like a really sexy raft.”

“And infinitely more comfortable.” He brushed his lips over hers. “I stepped away whenever I chose. But I was never able to take myself away, as I can with you. I know I'm better for it.”

In another world there was death and pain, grief and rage. And here was love. The white sand and blue water might have been fantasy, but this world was as real as the other. Because he was real, they were real.

“Let's take ourselves away, then. Float away.”

She drew him to her, mouth to mouth, heart to heart. The bed dipped gently on the blue water, and the restlessness inside her eased.

She tasted the wine on him, rich, and felt the warm, moist air bathe her skin as he touched her.

A dreaming time now, she thought. Without the hard brightness of that other world. Without the pain and the blood and the incessant violence of the everyday. Calming and soothing, a kind of easy arousal that steadied the heart and fed the soul.

When she held him like this, when her mouth was on his in a long, long kiss, she could forget what it was to be hungry and hurting. Being held like this, she knew she could go back to the hurt stronger.

She slid the shirt from his shoulders, let her hands explore warm skin, tough muscle, let herself float as the bed floated, when he nudged those thin straps down her arms.

The warrior was his. The woman who had only moments before waged combat, defeated foes with a concentrated and fearsome violence, was soft beneath him, pliant and eager and impossibly sweet.

She would battle again and again, shed blood and spill it. Yet, miraculously, she would come back to him, again and again. Soft and pliant and eager.

He murmured in Irish. My love. And trailed kisses over those strong shoulders, those long arms where muscles were carved in alabaster. He slipped a flower from her hair. Tracing it over her even as his lips traced. Making her shiver.

“This is something special.”

“The flower?”

“The flower, yes. Extra.” He twirled it on its stem while he watched her. “Will you trust me?”

“I always trust you.”

“I want to give you this. To give it to both of us.”

He flicked the petals over her breast. And with his tongue he tasted them, and her.

She arched up, floating still, still floating, but higher now as if the wave of heat lifted her. Desire shimmered through her like the wine. She could hear birdsong, some exotic, erotic music with the quiet underscore of water lapping against the shore. She could hear his voice, the music of it, as he drew the white gown away.

The sun, his hands, his lips, all on her skin-as hers were on his. The bed rocked on the water, soothing as a lullaby.

Then he swept the flower between her legs.

The sensation had her fingers digging into him. “God.”

He watched her, watched that baffled pleasure run over her face. His cop, his warrior, and still oddly innocent about her own pleasures.

“It's called the Venus Bloom, and is grown on a colony on Green One. Hybridized,” he said, brushing it over her, watching her eyes blur, “with certain properties that enhance and heighten sensation.”

Her breasts were tingling from it as if the nerves were raw-edged and exposed. And when his mouth closed over her, his teeth a light nip on her nipple, the shock of it had her crying out. He pressed the flower against her as he suckled.

Her body erupted.

She lost her mind. It was impossible to think through the barrage of sensations, the unspeakable pleasure. The shock of it had her body pulsing, plunging as the orgasm gushed through her.

“When I'm inside you…” His voice was thick with Ireland now, his eyes wild and blue. “When I'm in you, Eve, it will do the same to me. Taste it.” His mouth crushed to hers, his tongue sweeping in. “Feel it.” He crushed the flower against her. “Come again, I want you to come again, while I'm watching you.”

She bucked, riding out the storm, brilliantly aware of every cell in her body and the pleasure that flooded them. “I want you inside me.” She gripped his hair, dragged his mouth back to hers. “Feel what I feel.”

He eased into her, slowly, so slowly she knew from the tremors in his body how rigidly he controlled himself. Then his breath caught, and his eyes, his beautiful eyes, went blind. “Christ.”

“I don't know if we'll live through it,” she managed, and wrapped her legs around him. “Let's find out. Don't hold back.”

He wasn't sure he could have, not now, not with the sensations that pounded him, not with her reckless words ringing in his ears. He let the chain snap and rode it with her, wave by hot, towering wave.

When the last swamped him, it swamped them both.

She wasn't sure she would ever get her breath back, or the full use of her limbs. Her arms had slid away from him, limply, until her fingers trailed in the water.

“Is that thing legal?”

He was flat out on top of her, breathing like a man who'd climbed up, or fallen off, a mountain. And his laugh rumbled against her skin. “God, only you.”

“Seriously.”

“We really ought to have Trina tattoo that damn badge on your breast permanently. Yes. It's been tested, and approved, and licensed. A bit tricky to acquire yet. And as you can see, its effects are transitory.”

“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.”