In Death 22 - Memory in Death

problem, I like knowing that partof myanatomy is protected.” He glanced over as the door opened. “Now thisonemay bringoutthe rubber hoses. But I could learn to like it.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me you’d contacted Feeney?” Eve demanded.
    “I believe I just did.”
    “You could’venever mind. Peabody, let’s start those runs, and do a quick check of the other guests
    at the hotel. I’ll be a minute.”
    “See you later,” Peabody said to Roarke.
    “I’m going to”
    “Be a while.” Roarke finished Eve’s sentence. “I can find my way home.”
    “It’s good you did this. Good it’s done and out of the way. She could’ve pushed a little harder, but she
    got the details, and that’s what counts.”
    “All right, then. About what you owe me? I’ve got my price.”
    She pursed her lips in thought. “We’ve probably got some rubber hoses in the basement somewhere.”
    And he laughed. “There’s my girl. Go by Mira’s when you’re done.”
    “I don’t know how long”
    “It won’t matter. Go talk to Mira, then come home to me.”
    “Where else would I go?”
    “The gifts? They’re in the boot of your car.”
    “That’s trunk in the U. S. of A., mick-boy.”
    “Right.” He grabbed her arms, yanked her forward, kissed her good and hard. “I’ll be waiting.”
    He would, she thought. She had someone waiting for her, and that was her miracle.
    * * *
    At her desk with an oversized mug of blackcoffee, Eve studied the official data on Lombard, Bobby.
    Not Robert, she noted. He was two years her senior, the product of a legal cohab that had dissolved
    when he’d been two. His father, when she did a cross-run, was listed as Gruber, John, married since 2046, and residing in Toronto.
    Bobby himself had graduated from business college and been employed at Plain Deal Real Estate from that time until eighteen months earlier, when he’d gone into partnership with a Densil K. Easton to form
    L and E Realtors, in Copper Cove, Texas. He’d married Kline, Zana, a year later.
    No criminal.
    Zana was twenty-eight, originally from Houston. No paternity listed on her record. She’d been, apparently, raised by her mother, who had died in a vehicular accident when Zana was twenty-four.
    She, too, had gone to a business college, and was listed as a C.P.A. One, Eve noted, who’d been employed by L and E Realtors almost from the onset.
    So she moved to Copper Cove, and married the boss, Eve thought.
    No criminal, no previous marriage or cohab.
    Officially, they came off as what they seemed, she decided. A couple of simple, ordinary people who’d had some extreme bad luck.
    Finally, she pulled up Trudy Lombard.
    She skimmed over what she already knew, and lifted her eyebrows at the employment record.
    She’d been a health care assistant, a receptionist in a manufacturing firm. She’d applied for professional mother status after the birth of her son, and had worked part-timereporting an income just under the legal limit to retain that status.
    Retail clerk, Eve scanned. Three different employers. Data cruncher, two employers. Domestic coordinator? What the hell was that? Whatever it was, it hadn’t lasted either.
    She’d also lived in four different places, all in Texas, over a six-year period.
    On the grift, Eve thought. That’s what the pattern told her. Run the game, wring it dry, move on.
    She’d applied for, tested for, and been approved for foster parenting. Had applied and been granted the retention of full pro-mom status under the fostering waivermake every penny count, Eve thought. Austin area, Eve noted, for a full year, before she’d moved again, applied again, been approved again.
    Fourteen months in Beaumont, then another move, another application. Another approval.
    “Itchy feet? You know what, Trudy, you bitch? I don’t think so. Then I came along, and look here,
    you pulled up stakes again three months after I went back inside. More applications, more approvals,
    and you just grifted your way around the big-ass state of Texas, taking the fostering fees, right up until Bobby graduated from college and your pro-mom status was up.”
    She leaned back, considered.
    Yeah, it could work. It was a good game. You’ve got your license and approval, in state. So you just move from location to location, pick up more kids, more fees. Child Services, busy agency. Always under-staffed, underfunded. Bet they were pleased to have an experienced woman, a pro-mom, willing
    to take on some