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“A vigilante group with superior tech knowledge.” He nodded. “Halloway was simply a casualty of war. Both of your victims preyed on children.”
“Yeah, they were scum, of a particularly disgusting sort.”
“But they’re your scum now.”
“You got it. I’m going to need to go through the known victims of my victims. Kids who might have strong tech skills. More likely, family members who do. Could be we’ll find somebody who had a kid messed with by both Cogburn and Fitzhugh.”
“Chadwick Fitzhugh?” Roarke picked up his coffee mug, scowled into it, then strode to the AutoChef. “Slimy puddle of piss.”
“Hey, just because I drank your coffee, that’s no reason for calling me names.”
“Fitzhugh. Bloody smug bastard, buggering young boys. Someone ought to’ve taken a knife to his throat long before this.”
“I take it you knew him.”
“Well enough to find him revolting in every possible way.”
There was a different tone, a different look then when Baxter had described Fitzhugh. A far more dangerous one in that icy control, that musical lilt.
“His family’s old money,” Roarke continued. “Very uppercrust and pedigreed. Too fine to do business with the likes of me. Though they have done,” he added as he turned back. His face was cold now. Warrior cold. “Until this sneaking badger’s favored form of enter
tainment got out and about. Then it was me who wouldn’t do business with them. Even a Dublin alley rat’s got to have standards.”
“Not doing business with him is one thing. And three cheers for you there. Killing him’s another.”
“Cut his own throat, didn’t he?” He took a swig of coffee. “More fitting to my mind if he’d cut off his own balls first. But life isn’t always willing to be poetical.”
She went cold now, too. As cold as the ice that settled in the pit of her stomach. “No one has the right to stand in judgment, to pull on an executioner’s hood without due process.”
“There are times, Lieutenant, I’m not so fond of that line of the law as you are. In fact, have the coffee. I think I’ll have a drink to toast buggering Fitzhugh’s demise.”
She rose when he went to a cabinet, opened it, and perused wine bottles in the rack. “If that’s your stand, you can’t help me on this.”
“That’s my stand.” He selected a good cabernet. An exceptionally good one. “But it doesn’t mean I can’t and won’t help you. Don’t ask me to be sorry he’s dead, and I won’t ask you to be glad of it.”
They’d been on opposite sides before, she thought. But this was opposite sides on very, very shaky ground. “Whatever he did, whatever he was, someone murdered him. It’s no different from lynching a man or standing him against the wall and blasting him to pieces. The law determines guilt and punishment.”
“We’re not going to march in file on this one, Eve. And consider this: With all those fine words you’ve just spoken, aren’t you standing there right now, judging me?”
“I don’t know.” But her belly was beginning to churn. “But I do know I don’t want to get this messed up with a personal thing between us.”
“We can agree on that.” He spoke briskly, as if they were debating differing views on what color to paint the parlor. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you find who or what is doing this. Let that be enough.”
Watching him drink, she worried it wouldn’t be enough. “Do you think murdering him was right?”
“I think it’s right he’s dead. Is that enough differentiation for you, Lieutenant?”
She didn’t know, and felt the ground tremble under her feet. “I’ve got to put reports together for the morning briefing.”
So, he thought, they’d leave it there. For now. “You might call Peabody up to help you. She could use a distraction.”
“How’s McNab?”
“Settled in. A bit sulky as Summerset put him on light food rather than the steak dinner of his dreams. His attitude’s cheerful, but straining around the edges. There’s no feeling yet.”
“It can take up to twenty-four hours. Usually it’s back within one to three, but it . . . Hell.”
“We’ll look into specialists if need be. There’s a clinic in Switzerland that’s had great success in this area.”
