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“It’s all right.”
“I went back to the club a couple nights later and got in.”
“They let you inside?”
“I got fake ID. Places like that, they don’t care if you look twelve if you got
ID that says different. Security’s tighter there. They’ve got scanners, electronic and human, every damn where. I spotted Alice with that Lobar creep. They went upstairs, all the way up to the fancy level. I couldn’t get in, but I got close enough to see they’d disappeared again. So I figure there must be a room up there, too. Like the one in the apartment. I was working out a way to get in after hours, then Alice ditched them. She moved in with that Isis character for awhile, got her own place and that job. And she didn’t go to the club anymore, or back to the apartment.”
He let out a sigh. “I thought she’d straightened herself out, that it had gotten through what creeps they were. She talked to me a little.”
“Did she tell you about the people she’d been involved with?”
“Not really. She just said she’d made a mistake, a terrible one. That she was like, atoning, cleansing, that zip brain stuff of hers. I knew she was scared, but she talked to my grandfather, so I figured things would be mellow again. Did they kill him, too?”
“There’s no evidence of that. I’m not going to discuss it with you,” she added when he lifted his haunted eyes to hers. “And you’re not to discuss this with anyone. You’re not to go near that club or that apartment again. If you do and I find out—and I will find out—I’ll slap a security bracelet on you and you won’t be able to burp without a scanner picking it up.”
“It’s my family.”
“Yes, it is. And if you want to be a cop, you’d better learn that if you can’t be objective, you can’t do the job.”
“My grandfather wouldn’t have been objective,” Jamie said quietly. “And now he’s dead.”
She had no answer for that, so she rose. “Now the problem is getting you out of here and keeping your involvement out of the media. They’ll be watching the gate.”
“There’s always an alternative,” Roarke commented. “I’ll arrange it.”
She had no doubt he could, and nodded. “I’ve got to change, get down to Central. Peabody.” She flicked a meaningful look in Jamie’s direction. “Stand by.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She means guard dog me,” Jamie muttered as Eve and Roarke left the kitchen.
“Yeah.” But Peabody flashed a companionable smile. “Want another Pepsi?”
“I guess.”
She got up to play with the delivery slot on the fridge, helped herself to a cup of Roarke’s magnificent coffee. “So how long have you wanted to be a cop?”
“For as long as I remember.”
“Me, too.” She settled down to talk shop.
“I’ll take him out by air,” Roarke told her as he and Eve cleaned up and changed in the bedroom.
“By air?”
“I’ve been meaning to take the minichopper out for a spin, anyway.”
“This area isn’t zoned for personal choppers.”
Wisely, he disguised a laugh with a cough. “Say that again when you’re wearing your badge.”
She muttered to herself and pulled on a clean shirt. “Take him home, will you? I appreciate it. The kid’s lucky to be alive.”
“He’s resourceful, bright, focused.” Roarke smiled as he picked up the jammer, admired it. “Now, if I’d had one of these at his age…ah, the possibilities.”
“You do well enough with your magic fingers.”
