In Death 30 - Fantasy in Death

very young, on several levels, and as many in their twenties do, he considered someone in their thirties as another generation.”
    “Jamie’s younger,” she pointed out, speaking of Feeney’s godson and another e-wiz. “He’s been around a lot. You’ve worked with him. So have I.”
    “Bart was nothing like Jamie. He hadn’t that edge, the street savvy, and certainly not any aspirations to turn his considerable e-skills toward a career in EDD. Jamie’s the next thing to family.”
    Roarke paused, sipped some wine. “And does this conversation help you justify bringing me, a competitor of your victim, into the investigation as a consultant?”
    “I don’t have to justify your participation, but it doesn’t hurt given the business interests, and the fact you told me you have a similar project under development, to keep it all open.”
    “It’s always pleasant not to be a suspect.” He watched irritation cross her face, and honestly couldn’t say why he’d pushed that particular button.
    “Look, from a strictly objective view, you could have smashed U-Play before it ever got off the ground, and at any point since then. They don’t threaten you. Hell, you’ve got the hammer and the sword, plus a couple of blasters and a pocketful of boomers. If you want to take down a company, and effectively, its brain, you use money, strategy, and guile, not a magic sword.”
    She stabbed a piece of fish. “You have another perspective on the victim—not a partner, not exactly a friend, not an enemy, and a competitor only in the most technical sense. So you add to my picture of him while laying out the basics and the extent of your association.”
    “That’s a lot of explanation,” he said mildly.
    “Maybe.”
    “Then I suppose I should add my own, in the interest of full disclosure and openness. I’ve implemented level-three runs on any of my people involved in the development of the holo-game project, and those on the fringes of it. Their associations, financials, communications.”
    “That’s not your job.”
    “I disagree. They’re my people, and I will be bloody well sure no one in my employ is involved in this, on any level, in any way.”
    “The Privacy Act—”
    “Be damned.” And a hot thread of anger, he admitted, felt more comfortable than this inexplicable sorrow. “Anyone employed by me or seeking to be is routinely screened, and signs a waiver.”
    “Not for a level three, not without cause. That’s cop or government level.”
    “Murder would be cause on my gauge.” His tone was as crisp and chilly as the wine.
    “It’s a gray area.”
    “Your gray is broader and darker than mine. There are incentives attached to a project like this, bonuses that could be very lucrative.” He stopped again, angled his head. “Which you know very well already as you’ve done or are doing your own level three, on my people.”
    “It’s my job.”
    “You might have told me. You might have trusted me enough to get the information for you.”
    “You might have told me ,” she countered. “Trusted me enough to do my job. Dammit. I didn’t tell you because you had a personal attachment to the victim, and I didn’t see the point in adding to the upset by telling you or asking you to get the data. What’s your excuse?”
    “I don’t need an excuse. They’re my people. But the fact is once I have the data, and—whatever the results—pass it to you, you’d be able to contract or expand your suspect list.”
    “All you had to do was tell me.”
    “And the reverse holds just as true, so there’s no point in you getting pissed off.”
    “I’m not pissed off. I’m . . . aggravated.”
    “You’re aggravated? Consider, Eve, how aggravated I might be if it turns out that someone I trust, someone I pay had anything whatsoever to do with that.”
    He gestured to the board.
    “You can’t be or feel responsible for every person who pulls a check from Roarke Industries.” She threw up her hands. “It’s half the fucking world.”
    More than one hot thread of anger wound through him now. “Oh yes, I bloody well can, and it’s nothing to do with numbers and everything to do with being in charge. You are and feel exactly the same about every cop in your division, in the whole shagging department come to that.”
    She started to argue, then stopped because he was right about that much. “Any data from your run has to coincide with mine, and officially come from mine whether it clears