“Well, it would.” Since she didn’t wear one half the time, she pulled out one of her favored support tanks instead.
He watched her drag on the unadorned, practical white. “Question?”
“What? Oh, yeah. Question.” She stepped into equally unadorned, equally practical white panties.
And he wondered why the look of her in the simple, the basic, stirred him as much as red lace or black satin.
“If you had to go under awhile, potentially a number of years, would you tell a trusted friend?”
“How much do I trust this friend?”
“That’s a factor, but let’s say enough.”
“For me, it would depend on the risks, and the consequences if someone drove me to the surface before I was ready.”
She considered that as she strode to the closet. “Five years is a long time—a hell of a long time to be someone you’re not—and the highlighted stuff in the Bible makes me think it was something he intended to shed when the time was right. In five years, it would take a lot of willpower not to contact a friend, a relative, someone to dump some of the frustration on, or share the joke with. If New York was home for Fake Father Flores, odds are he had a friend or relation handy.”
Absently, Roarke scratched Galahad between the ears and set the cat to purring like a jet engine. “On the other hand, he might have chosen New York because it was a good distance from anyone who knew him, and/or closer to what he was waiting for.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She scowled as she dragged on pants. “Yeah.” Then she shook her head. “No. He could have requested a position in the East, in New York or Jersey, say. But he specified that church. If all you want to do is get distance, you wouldn’t narrow options. But, on the yeah side again, it could be the place is connected to the what he was waiting for.”
She thought of the youth center.
“Maybe, maybe. I’ll check it out.”
As she finished dressing, Roarke walked over to the AutoChef. Galahad unsprawled himself in ever-hopeful anticipation of another meal. Eve strapped on her weapon holster and eyed the plates Roarke carried back to the sitting area.
“Pancakes?”
“I want to have breakfast with my wife, and they’re a particular weakness of hers.” Roarke set the plates down, then pointed a finger at the cat as Galahad gathered himself to spring. The cat flopped down again, sneered, and turned his head away.
“I think he just cursed you,” Eve commented.
“That may be, but he’s not getting my pancakes.”
To save time, Eve had Peabody meet her at the youth center. The five-story concrete building boasted a fenced, asphalt playground with the far end set up for half-court basketball. A handful of youths had a pickup game going, complete with trash rock, trash talk, and regular fouling. As she crossed the asphalt, several eyes slanted toward her, and in them she saw both nerves and sneers. Typical reaction, she thought, toward a cop.
She homed in on the tallest of the bunch, a skinny, mixed-race kid of about thirteen wearing black baggies, ancient high-tops, and a red watch cap.
“School holiday?”
He snagged the ball, dribbled it in place. “Got twenty before bell. What? You a truant badge?”
“Do I look like a truant badge?”
“Nope.” He turned, executed a decent hook shot that kissed the rim. “Look like badge. Big, bad badge.” His singsong opinion elicited snorts and guffaws from his audience.
“You’d be right. Did you know Father Flores?”
“Everybody knows Father Miguel. He’s chill. Was.”
“He show you that hook shot?”
“He show me some moves. I show him some. So?”
“You got a name?”
“Everybody does.” He dismissed her by signaling for the ball. Eve pivoted, intercepted. After a couple of testing dribbles, she pivoted again. And her hook shot caught nothing but net.