"Obviously," Eve said so dryly Roarke laughed. "The son, also Liam, is in college, following his uncle's footsteps it appears. Young Liam Calhoun. Good-looking…nineteen, single, top ten percent of his class."
"I remember a boy, vaguely. Scruffy, quiet." Roarke studied the image of a cheerful face and sober eyes. "Looks like he's making something of himself from the academic data."
"The sins of the father don't always transfer. Still, medical knowledge would h
ave come in handy in these particular murders. We'll hold these two, but put them at the bottom of the list. Bring up the next group."
"Rileys. Father, four brothers—"
"Four? God Almighty."
"And all of them a terror to decent citizens everywhere. Take a good look at Brian Riley. He once kicked my head in. Of course two of his brothers and a close personal friend were holding me down at the time. Black Riley, he liked to be called."
Roarke reached for a cigarette as the old, well-buried bitterness punched its way free. "We're of an age, you see, and you could say Riley had a keen dislike for me."
"And why was that?"
"Because I was faster, my fingers lighter." He smiled a little. "And the girls preferred me."
"Well, your Black Riley's been in and out of cages most of his young life." Eve angled her head. Another good-looking man, she mused, with fair hair and sulky green eyes. Ireland appeared to be filled with handsome men who looked for trouble. "But he hasn't served any time in the last few years. Employment record's spotty, mostly as head knocker at bars and skin clubs. But this is interesting. He worked security for an electronics firm for nearly two years. He could have picked up quite a bit in that amount of time if he has a brain."
"There was nothing wrong with his brain, it was his attitude."
"Right. Can you get into his passport?"
"The official one, easily enough. Give me a minute."
Eve studied the image while Roarke worked. Green eyes, she mused. The kid—Kevin—had said the man he'd seen had green eyes. Or he'd thought so. Of course eye color could be changed as easily as a spoiled child's mind.
"Immigration records, screen four," Roarke told her.
"Yeah, he's visited our fair city a time or two," Eve noted. "Let's log these dates, and we'll see if we can find out what he was up to while he was here. Were the brothers close?"
"The Rileys were like wild dogs. They'd have torn out each other's throat for the same bone, but they'd form a pack against an outsider."
"Well, let's take a good, close look at all four of them."
• • •
By three a.m. she was losing her edge. The data and images on screen began to blur and run together. Names and faces, motives and murder. When she felt herself drifting to sleep where she stood, Eve pressed her fingers hard against her burning eyes.
"Coffee," she muttered, but found herself staring at the AutoChef without a clue how to operate it.
"Sleep." Roarke pressed a mechanism that had a bed sliding out of the wall.
"No, I just have to catch my second wind. We've got it down to ten possibles. And I want to look harder at that Francis Rowan who became a priest. We can—"
"Take a break." He came up behind her, guided her toward the bed. "We're tired."
"Okay, we'll take a nap. An hour." Head and body seemed to float apart as she slid onto the bed. "You lie down too."
"I will." He lay beside her, gathered her close. He could feel her fall into sleep, a lazy tumble that had the arm she'd tossed around his waist going limp.
He stared at the screens a moment longer, into the void of his past. He'd separated himself from that, from them. The boy from Dublin's sad alleys had made himself rich, successful, respected, but he'd never forgotten what it was to be poor, a failure and disdained.
And he knew, as he lay in the soft bed on smooth linen sheets in a magnificent house in a city he'd made his home, that he would have to go back.
What he might find there, and in himself, troubled him.