Big Jack Part 12

After that, it was all so simple. She'd fallen in love with him. He'd hardly had to expend any effort there. A few cheap dates, a few kisses and soulful looks, and he'd had his entree into Gannon's house.

He'd had only to moon around her, to go with her one morning-claiming as he met her at the bus stop near the town house that he hadn't been able to sleep thinking of her.

Oh, how she'd blushed and fluttered and strolled with him right to Gannon's front door.

He'd watched her code in-memorized the sequence, then, ignoring her halfhearted and whispered protests, had nipped in behind her, stealing another kiss.

Oh Bobby, you can't. can't. If Miz Gannon comes down, I could get in trouble. I could get fi red. You have to go. If Miz Gannon comes down, I could get in trouble. I could get fi red. You have to go.

But she'd giggled, as if they were children pulling a prank, as she shooed at him.

So simple then to watch her quickly code into the alarm. So simple.

Not as simple, he admitted now, not nearly as simple for him to walk out again and leave her waving after him. For a moment, just one hot moment, he'd considered killing her then. Just bas.h.i.+ng in that smiling, ordinary ordinary face and being done with it. Imagined going upstairs, rooting Gannon out and beating the location of the diamonds out of her. face and being done with it. Imagined going upstairs, rooting Gannon out and beating the location of the diamonds out of her.

Beating her until she told him everything, everything everything she hadn't put in her ridiculous book. she hadn't put in her ridiculous book.

But that hadn't been the plan. The very careful plan.

Then again, he thought with a shrug, plans changed. And so he'd gotten away with murder. Twice.

After toasting himself, he sipped brandy.

The police could speculate all they liked, they'd never connect him, a man like him, with someone as common as Tina Cobb. And Bobby Smith? A figment, a ghost, a puff of smoke.

He wasn't any closer to the diamonds, but he would be. Oh, he would be. And at least he wasn't, by G.o.d, bored. bored.

Samantha Gannon was the key. He'd read her book countless times after the first shocked reading, when he'd found so many of his own family secrets spread out on the page. It amazed him, astounded him, infuriated him.

Why hadn't he been told there were millions of dollars-millions-tucked away somewhere? Diamonds that belonged, by right, to him.

Dear old Dad had left that little detail out of the telling.

He wanted them. He would have them. It really was that simple.

With them he could, he would, break away from his father and his tedious work ethic. Away from the boredom, the sameness of his circle of friends.

He would be, as his grandfather had been, unique.

Stretching out, he called up another program and watched the series of interviews he'd recorded. In each, Samantha was articulate, bright, attractive. For that precise reason he hadn't attempted to contact her directly.

No, the dim-witted, stars-in-her-eyes Tina had been a much safer, much smarter move.

Still, he was really looking forward to getting to know Samantha better. Much more intimately.

Chapter 7.

Eve woke, as usual, to find Roarke up before her, already dressed and settled into the sitting area of the bedroom with coffee, the cat and the morning stock reports on screen.

He was, she saw through one bleary eye, eating what looked like fresh melon and manually keying in codes, figures or state secrets, for all she knew, on a 'link pad.

She gave a grunt as way of good morning and stumbled off to the bathroom.

As she closed the door, she heard Roarke address the cat. "Not at her best before coffee, is she?"

By the time she came out, he'd switched the screen to news, added the audio and was doctoring up a bagel. She nipped it out of his hand, stole his coffee and carried them both to her closet.

"You're as bad as the cat," he complained.

"But faster. I've got a morning briefing. Did you catch a weather report?"

"Hot."

"b.i.t.c.hing hot or just regular hot?"

"It's September in New York, Eve. Guess."

Resigned, she pulled out whatever looked less likely to plaster itself against her skin after five minutes outside.

"Oh, I've a bit of information on the diamonds for you. I did some poking around yesterday."

"You did?" She glanced around, half expecting him to tell her the s.h.i.+rt didn't go with the pants, or the jacket didn't suit the s.h.i.+rt. But it seemed she'd lucked out and grabbed pieces that met his standards. "I didn't think you'd have time with all that a.s.s-kicking."

"That did eat up considerable time and effort. But I carved out a little time between bloodbaths. I've just put it together for you this morning, while you were getting a little more beauty sleep."

"Is that a dig?"

"Darling, how is telling you you're beautiful a dig?"

Her answer was a snort as she strapped on her weapon.

"That jacket looks well on you."

She eyed him warily as she adjusted her weapon harness under the shoulder. "But?"

"No buts."

It was tan, though she imagined he'd call it something else. Like pumpernickel. She never understood why people had to a.s.sign strange names to colors.

"My lovely urban warrior."

"Cut it out. What did you get?"

"Precious little, really." He tapped the disk he'd set on the table. "The insurance company paid out for the quarter of them and the investigator's fee of five percent on the rest. So it was a heavy loss. Could've been considerably worse, but insurance companies tend to take a dim view on multimillion-dollar payouts."

"It's their gamble," she said with a shrug. "Don't play if you don't wanna pay."

"Indeed. They did a hard press on O'Hara's daughter, but couldn't squeeze anything out. Added to that, she was the one to find or help the investigator find what there was to recover, and she was instrumental in nailing Crew for the police."

"Yeah, I got that far. Tell me what I don't know."

"They pushed at the inside man's family, a.s.sociates, at his coworkers. Came up empty there, but watched them for years. Any one of them had upped their lifestyle without having, say, won the lottery, they'd have been hauled in. But they could never find Crew's ex-wife or his son."

"He had a kid?" And she kicked herself for not going back in and checking the runs after they'd returned home the night before.

"He did, apparently. Though it's not in Gannon's book. He was married, divorced and had a son who'd have been just shy of seven when the heist went down. I couldn't find anything on her with a standard starting six months after the divorce."

Interest piqued, she walked back to the sitting area. "She went under?"

"She went under, the way it looks, and stayed there."

He'd gotten another bagel while he spoke, and more coffee. Now he sat again. "I could track her, if you like. It'd take a bit more than a standard, and some time as we're going back half a century. I wouldn't mind it. It's the sort of thing I find entertaining."

"Why isn't it in the book?"

"I imagine you'll ask Samantha just that."

"d.a.m.n right. It's a thread." She considered it as she disbursed her equipment in various pockets: communicator, memo book, 'link, restraints. "If you've got time, great. I'll pa.s.s it to Feeney. EDD ought to be able to sniff out a woman and a kid. We've got better toys for that than they did fifty years ago."

She thought of the Electronic Detective Division's captain, her former partner. "I bet it's the sort of thing that gets him off, too. Peabody's picking me up." She checked her wrist unit. "Pretty much now. I'll tag Feeney, see if he's got some time."

She scooped up the disk. "The ex-Mrs. Crew's data on here?"

"Naturally." He heard the signal from the gate and, after a quick check, cleared Peabody through. "I'll walk you down."

"You going to be in the city today?"

"That's my plan." He skimmed a hand over her hair as they started down the steps, then stopped when she turned her head and smiled at him. "What's that about?"

"Maybe I just think you're pretty. Or it could be I'm remembering other uses for stairs. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because I know there's no bony-a.s.sed, droid-brained puss face waiting down there to curl his lip at me on my way out."

"You miss him."

The sound she made was the vocal equivalent of a sneer. "Please. You must need a pill."

"You do. You miss the little routine, the dance of it."

"Oh ick. Now you've got this picture in my head of Summerset dancing. It's horrible. He's wearing one of those . . . " She made brus.h.i.+ng motions at her hips.

"Tutus?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Thanks very much for putting that in my my head." head."

"Love to share. Know what? You really are pretty." She stopped at the bottom of the steps, grabbed two handfuls of his hair and jerked his head toward hers for a long, smoldering kiss.

"Well, that put other images entirely in my head," he managed when she released him.

"Me too. Good for us." Satisfied, she strode to the door, pulled it open.

Her brow knit when she saw Peabody along with the young EDD ace McNab climbing out of opposite sides of her pea-green police unit. They looked like . . . She didn't know what the h.e.l.l they looked like.

She was used to seeing McNab, Central's top fas.h.i.+on plate, in something eye-searing and strange, so the s.h.i.+ny chili-pepper pants with their dozen pockets and the electric-blue tank s.h.i.+rt covered with-ha-ha-pictures of chili peppers didn't give her more than a moment's pause. Neither did the hip-length vest in hot red, or the blue air boots that climbed up to his k.n.o.bby knees.

That was just McNab, with his s.h.i.+ny gold hair slicked back in a long, sleek tail, his narrow and oddly attractive face half covered by red sunshades with mirrored blue lenses and a dozen or so silver spikes glinting at his ears.

But her aide-no, partner now, she had to remember that-was a different story. She wore skinpants that stopped abruptly mid-calf and were the color of . . . mold, Eve decided. The mold that grew on cheese you'd forgotten you stuck in the back of the fridge. She wore some sort of drapey, blousy number of the same color that looked like it had been slept in for a couple of weeks, and a s.h.i.+t-colored jacket that hung to her knees. Rather than the fancy shoes she'd suffered through the day before, she'd opted for some sort of sandal deal that seemed to be made of rope tied into knots by a crazed Youth Scout. There were a lot of chains and pendants and strange-colored stones hanging around her neck and from her ears.

"What are you supposed to be, some upscale street peddler from a Third World country and her pet monkey?"

"This is a nod to my Free-Ager upbringing. And it's comfortable. All natural fabrics." Peabody adjusted her sunshades with their tiny round lenses. "Mostly."

"I think she looks hot," McNab said, giving Peabody a quick squeeze. "Sort of medieval."

"You think tree bark looks hot," Eve tossed back.

"Yeah. Makes me think of the forest. She-body running naked through the forest."

Peabody elbowed him, but she chuckled. "I'm searching for my detective look," she told Roarke. "It's a work in progress."

"I think you look charming."

"Oh shut up up" was Eve's response as Peabody's cheeks pinked in pleasure. "You fix that heap?" she asked McNab.

"There's good news and bad news. Bad news is that's a piece of c.r.a.p with a faulty comp system, which makes it about the same as every other police-issue on the streets. Good news is I'm a fricking genius and got her up and running with some spare parts I keep around. She'll hold until you get lucky and wreck it or some a.s.shole who doesn't know better boosts it."

"Thanks. Backseat," she ordered. "Behind the driver. I'm afraid if I keep catching sight of you in the rearview I'll go blind." She turned to Roarke. "Later."

"I'll look forward to it. Hey." He caught her chin in his hand before she could walk away, then, ignoring her wince, brushed his lips lightly over hers. "Be careful with my cop."

Peabody sighed as she slid into the car. "I just love the way he says that. 'My cop.' " She scooted around to face McNab. "You never call me that."

"It doesn't work when you're a cop, too."

"Yeah, and you don't have the accent anyway. But you're cute." She pursed her lips at him.

"And you're my absolutely female She-body."

"Stop it, stop it, stop it! The neurons in my head are popping." Eve slapped her safety harness in place. "There will be no gooey talk in this vehicle. There will be no gooey talk within ten yards of my person. This is my official ban on gooey talk, and violators will be beaten unconscious with a lead pipe."