“At Powders’s.”
“At Powders’s. Tells us she was there solo, and hey, why not, so she put a little hit on him. He wasn’t into it. Believe me, a man would be crazy not to be. Right, Trueheart?”
“She’s very pretty.”
“Hot. Steaming, finger-burning hot.” He sighed the sigh of a patient tutor. “My work is never done with this boy.”
“Write it up.”
“That’s where the boy’s work is never done. So we hied ourselves—”
“What yourselves?”
“Hied ourselves over to Powders’s, and got confirmation. He, his roommate, and his unfortunately underage twist all recognized him. Just somebody they’d see around now and then. But the girl noticed him party night. She said she always notices frosty guys—and gave our own Trueheart a little flutter.”
“Sir, she did not—”
“You need to be more observant, my young apprentice. So we’ve got wits put him in Powders’s on the night the ID was lifted. It’s good.”
“It’s good.”
“Dallas, it’s too damn late to go knocking on doors at MacMasters’s.”
“It’s only . . . shit.” An hour gained, an hour lost. She just hated it. “You’ll hit it after the briefing tomorrow.”
“We’ve got a couple more maybes here and there. Shilly’s the solid.”
“Shilly.”
“I know, she even has a steaming, finger-burning name. About that barbecue.”
She cut him off.
“The PA’s going to be pleased with that when we take him down,” she said to Roarke. “It’s nice case-building. If you manage to clean up that hard drive, get me that picture of him going in the door—”
“And we will.”
“We’ll put him away. But we have to find him first. Got his face,” she mumbled. “Got a name. Not the one he’s using now, no, not the one he used with Deena. That was David. But a name. Got his connection, got his kinship.”
She noted they were about to enter the transpo station. “I can start the search for Inga—whatever name she was using—on the way home.”
“I could find her faster, I’d wager. If you’d like to pilot.”
“Ha-ha.”
“You’d enjoy flying more if you’d learn the controls.”
“I’d rather pretend I’m on the ground.”
Roarke sent her a quick smile. “And how many vehicles have you wrecked, had blown up, or destroyed in the last, oh, two years?”
“Think about that, then imagine it happening when I’m at the wheel at thirty thousand feet.”
“Good point. I’ll do the flying.”
“Do that, ace.”
He parked. “They had something, the Pauleys. A solid base, a strong connection to each other. Each of them solid in their own right, from my perception, and more yet together.”