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“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 this Clinton ever married?”
“Shush,” was Roarke’s response, so she looked for herself.
“Lot of 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. On-screen. 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 semper fi.”
“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.”
