In Death 16 - Portrait in Death

name?"
     
     
"Livvy." A thin woman, no more than twenty-five, by Roarke's gauge, and with faded bruises covering most of her face rushed over. She scooped up the little girl who'd spoken. "I'm sorry. She didn't mean anything."
     
     
"It's a good question. It's always smart to ask a good question. Livvy, is it," he continued, addressing the child now.
     
     
"Uh-huh. It's really 'livia."
     
     
"Olivia. That's a lovely name. It's important, don't you think, what something's called? People, places. Your mum picked a special name for you, and see how well it fits you."
     
     
Livvy watched Roarke and leaned closer to whisper in her mother's ear, loud enough for half the room to hear. "He talks pretty."
     
     
"She's only three." The woman managed a nervous laugh. "I never know what she's going to say next."
     
     
"What an adventure that must be." As the tension lines around the woman's eyes relaxed, Roarke lifted a hand, smoothed a finger over Livvy's brown curls. "But you had a question about the name of this place. It's a Gaelic word, Dachas. That's an old, old language people spoke-and still do here and there-in the place I was born. In English it means hope"
     
     
"Like I hope we can have ice cream again tonight?"
     
     
He flashed a grin. They hadn't broken this child yet, he thought. And God willing, they never would. "Why not?" He looked back at the mother. "Are you finding what you need here?"
     
     
She nodded.
     
     
"That's good then. It was nice to meet you, Livvy."
     
     
He stepped out, and made certain they were out of earshot before he spoke again. "How long have they been here?" he asked Louise.
     
     
"I'd have to ask one of the staff. I don't remember seeing them when I was here earlier in the week.
     
     
"We're helping them, Roarke. Not every one, not every time, but enough. I know how hard it is, from my clinic, to have some slip away, and how hard it is not to get involved with every one, on a personal level." Though she'd been brought up in wealth and privilege Louise knew the needs, the fears, the despair of the disadvantaged. "I can't give more than a few hours a week here myself. I wish it could be more, but the clinic-"
     
     
"We're lucky to have you," Roarke interrupted. "For whatever time you can manage."
     
     
"The staff-the counselors and crisis workers-are wonderful. I can promise you that. You've met most of them."
     
     
"And I'm grateful to you for finding the right people. I don't know my way around this sort of thing, Louise. We'd never have pulled this off without you."
     
     
"Oh, I think you would have, but not half as well," she added with a grin. "Speaking of the right people," she said, pausing by the steps leading up to the second floor. "How is PA Spence working out for you?"
     
     
He let out a long breath, knowing there would be more hell to pay when he got home again. "When I left, she hadn't yet smothered Summerset in his sleep."
     
     
"That's a plus. I'll try to stop by and take a look at him myself." She glanced up the steps, broke into a huge smile. "Moira, just who I wanted to see. Have you got a free minute? I'd like you to meet our benefactor."
     
     
"That makes me sound like an old man with a beard and a belly."
     
     
"And that you're surely not."
     
     
Roarke lifted a brow when he heard the Irish in her voice. He could see it in her face, as well. The soft white skin, the pug nose and rounded cheeks. She wore her dark blonde hair in a short wedge to frame them. Her eyes, he noted, were misty blue and clever. The sort that warned him she would see what she intended to see and keep her thoughts to herself.
     
     
"Roarke, this is Moira O'Bannion, our head crisis counselor. You two have something in common. Moira's originally from Dublin, too."
     
     
"Yes," Roarke said easily. "So I can hear."
     
     
"It does stick with you, doesn't it?" Moira offered a hand. "I've lived in America for thirty years, and never have shaken it. Dia dhuit. Conas ta tu?"
     
     
"Maith, go raibh maith agat."
     
     
"So, you do speak the old tongue," she noted.
     
     
"A bit."
     
     
"I said hello, and asked how he was," Moira told Louise. "Tell me, Roarke, have you family yet in Ireland?"
     
     
"No."
     
     
If she noticed the flat, and very cool tone of the single syllable, she gave no sign. "Ah well. New York's your home now, isn't it? I moved here with my husband, he's a Yank himself, when I was twenty-six, so I suppose it's mine as