“It’s not a question. It’s an order,” Eve corrected and repeated it. “Got that now?”
“Yeah. Um, yes, sir.”
“And leave your trained monkey at home.”
“Sir?”
“McNab,” Eve snapped, and cut transmission.
“Party pooper,” Roarke murmured.
“Don’t give me any lip.” She rose, pulled her shoulder harness out of the desk drawer, strapped it on. “Go do some financial adjustments and point by point analyses.”
“Darling, you were listening.”
“I’m not laughing,” she told him, and was annoyed because she wanted to. “Stay out of trouble.”
He only smiled, waiting until he heard her jog down the stairs.
She was going to ease her way around the seal instead of breaking through it, he thought. There was no reason he should have the same limitations.
He strolled down the corridor to a private room. His voice and palm prints were checked and verified. The locks disengaged.
“Lights on,” he ordered. “Full.”
The room streamed with light, blocked from the outside by the secured privacy screens on the bank of windows. He crossed the wide squares of tile while the door behind him closed, re-secured.
Only three people had entry to this room. Three people he trusted without reservation. Eve, Summerset, and himself.
The slick black control panel formed a wide U. The equipment, unregistered and illegal, hummed softly in sleep mode. The wide eye of CompuGuard couldn’t restrict what it couldn’t see.
He’d restructured most of his questionable holdings over the years. After Eve, he’d disposed of or legitimized the rest. But, he thought as he helped himself to a brandy, a man had to have some small reminders of the past that made him.
And in his rebel’s heart, the idea of a system like CompuGuard that monitored all computer business was an annoying pebble in his shoe. He was honor bound to shake it out.
He stepped to the control, swirled his brandy. “System up,” he ordered, and a rainbow of lights bloomed over black. “Now, let’s have a look.”
• • •
Eve left her vehicle in a second-level parking slot a half a block from Stiles’s apartment. She’d walked half that distance when she spotted the figure trying to blend with the trees at the edge of the facing park. “Trueheart.”
“Sir!” She heard the squeak of surprise in his voice, but he’d schooled his face into calm lines by the time he stepped out of the shadows. “Lieutenant.”
“Report.”
“Sir, I’ve had the subject’s building under surveillance since his return at eighteen-twenty-three. My counterpart is surveilling the rear exit. We have maintained regular communications at intervals of thirty minutes.”
When she made no comment, he cleared his throat. “Subject lowered privacy screens on all windows at eighteen-thirty-eight. They have remained engaged since that time.”
“That’s good, Trueheart, gives me a really clear picture. Now, tell me if he’s in there.”
“Lieutenant, subject has not left the surveilled premises.”
“Fine.” She watched a Rapid Cab swing toward the opposing curb. Peabody, looking considerably more official in full uniform with her hair straight under her cap, climbed out. “Stand by, Officer Trueheart.”
“Yes, sir. Sir? I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for this assignment.”
Eve looked up into his very young, very earnest face. “You want to thank me for duty that has you standing out in the dark, in the cold, for…” She glanced at her wrist unit. “For approximately five and a half hours?”