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“Too many never made it,” she said out loud.
“Let me tell you about one who did.”
When he pulled to a stop, she looked over at him. “What? Who?”
“Leah Craine. Leah Lorenzo now. She married nineteen months ago—a firefighter with a large Italian family. They’re expecting their first child in the spring. She’s a teacher—elementary school level. They live in Queens.”
“You found her while I was dealing with the moron.”
“I did. She made it, and from all appearances, has built a solid and happy life. Will you interview her?”
She sat for a moment, just sat. “If I have to. Otherwise I’d like to leave her alone. But . . . you might send her information to Seraphim Brigham.”
“I already did.”
“Okay.” He’d waited, she realized, waited to tell her the good until after she’d finished her frustrated rant. Points for him. Big ones.
“Are you going to show me your plans for that dump you bought? How you’re going to turn it around?”
“I can, of course.”
When they got out of the car, he took her hand. “I asked myself today what might have happened if I hadn’t bought that place. Those girls might have been there years yet. Then I thought, no, not at all. It was meant to be now, and me, and you.”
“You’re awfully damn Irish sometimes.”
“Meant to be,” he said with a shrug. “We know those children, and aren’t so far from being them once. So we’ll neither of us stop until we find who they are, what happened to them, and who took the rest of their lives from them.”
“Whoever did it walked away from it for fifteen years.”
“And now?”
“We’re going to take the rest of his life away from him by putting him in a cage.”
She stepped inside where Summerset, the scarecrow in a black suit, and their fat cat, Galahad, waited.
She’d walked out of the big, airy foyer that morning. Now she walked into Christmas. The scent of pine and cinnamon, the pretty dazzle of little lights roping up the banister, the clever arrangement of those big plants—what were they?—poinsettias into a pretty white tree.
And the twinkle, now that she paid attention, from the front parlor where a quick peek showed her the massive tree stood fully dressed in lights and sparkle.
“Where are the elves?”
“Gone for the day, I expect,” Roarke told her. “They’ll be back tomorrow to do the exterior.”
“You might have seen some of them if you’d arrived home in anywhere near a timely fashion.”
Eve gave Summerset a stony stare. “We’ve been out sledding and drinking brandy and discussing what not to get you for Christmas. Nothing but fun for us.”
“Yet all that fun has done little to improve your mood or manner.”
“Ah, the warmth of homecomings.” Roarke shook his head, started to shrug out of his coat as the cat pranced over to rub against his legs and Eve’s. “Always such a pleasure.”
“I didn’t start—” Eve broke off, yanked out her signaling ’link. “They have another face,” she said, dashing up the stairs as she called for the image.
“Twelve, the media said.”
Roarke nodded at Summerset. “Yes. No more than children.”
“There are ugly pieces to the puzzle of the world.”
