Remember When

away somewhere?
    Diamonds that belonged, by right, to him.
    Dear old Dad had left that little detail out of the telling.
    He wanted them. He would have them. It really was that simple.
    With them he could, he would, break away from his father and his tedious work ethic. Away from the boredom, the sameness of his circle of friends.
    He would be, as his grandfather had been, unique.
    Stretching out, he called up another program and watched the series of interviews he'd recorded.
    In each, Samantha was articulate, bright, attractive. For that precise reason he hadn't attempted to contact her directly.
    No, the dim-witted, stars-in-her-eyes Tina had been a much safer, much smarter move.
    Still, he was really looking forward to getting to know Samantha better. Much more intimately.

23
    Eve woke, as usual, to find Roarke up before her, already dressed and settled into the sitting area of the bedroom with coffee, the cat and the morning stock reports on screen.
    He was, she saw through one bleary eye, eating what looked like fresh melon and manually keying in codes, figures or state secrets for all she knew on a 'link pad.
    She gave a grunt as way of good morning and stumbled off to the bathroom.
    As she closed the door, she heard Roarke address the cat. "Not at her best before coffee, is she?"
    By the time she came out, he'd switched the screen to news, added the audio and was doctoring up a bagel. She nipped it out of his hand, stole his coffee and carried them both to her closet.
    "You're as bad as the cat," he complained.
    "But faster. I've got a morning briefing. Did you catch a weather report?"
    "Hot."
    "Bitching hot or just regular hot?"
    "It's September in New York, Eve. Guess."
    Resigned, she pulled out whatever looked less likely to plaster itself against her skin after five minutes outside.
    "Oh, I've a bit of information on the diamonds for you. I did some poking around yesterday."
    "You did?" She glanced around, half expecting him to tell her the shirt didn't go with the pants, or the jacket didn't suit the shirt. But it seemed she'd lucked out and grabbed pieces that met his standards. "I didn't think you'd have time with all that ass-kicking."
    "That did eat up considerable time and effort. But I carved out a little time between bloodbaths.
    I've just put it together for you this morning, while you were getting a little more beauty sleep."
    "Is that a dig?"
    "Darling, how is telling you you're beautiful a dig?"
    Her answer was a snort as she strapped on her weapon.
    "That jacket looks well on you."
    She eyed him warily as she adjusted her weapon harness under the shoulder. "But?"
    "No buts."
    It was tan, though she imagined he'd call it something else. Like pumpernickel. She never understood why people had to assign strange names to colors.
    "My lovely urban warrior."
    "Cut it out. What did you get?"
    "Precious little, really." He tapped the disk he'd set on the table. "The insurance company paid out for the quarter of them and the investigator's fee of five percent on the rest. So it was a heavy loss. Could've been considerably worse, but insurance companies tend to take a dim view on multimillion-dollar payouts."
    "It's their gamble," she said with a shrug. "Don't play if you don't wanna pay."
    "Indeed. They did a hard press on O'Hara's daughter, but couldn't squeeze anything out. Added to that, she was the one to find or help the investigator find what there was to recover, and she was instrumental in nailing Crew for the police."
    "Yeah, I got that far. Tell me what I don't know."
    "They pushed at the inside man's family, associates, at his coworkers. Came up empty there, but watched them for years. Any one of them had upped their lifestyle without having, say, won the lottery, they'd have been hauled in. But they could never find Crew's ex-wife or his son."
    "He had a kid?" And she kicked herself for not going back in and checking the runs after they'd returned home the night before.
    "He did, apparently. Though it's not in Gannon's book. He was married, divorced and had a son who'd have been just shy of seven when the heist went down. I couldn't find anything on her with a standard starting six months after the divorce."
    Interest piqued, she walked back to the sitting area. "She went under?"
    "She went under, the way it looks, and stayed there."
    He'd gotten another bagel while he spoke, and more coffee. Now he sat again. "I could track her, if you like. It'd take a bit more than a standard, and some