When he traveled there now, he didn’t travel home, not emotionally. Memories would come, of course, and some would bite with keen teeth.
But he’d overcome, hadn’t he? He’d done what he’d set out to do, and more.
But dreams had the canny skill of blending the bright and dark together into shifting shadows, and hiding those keen teeth until they tore into the throat.
So he traveled back in dreams, a man who watched the boy he’d been. Skinny and quick, grubby, Christ knew, running the streets on a damp, gray day with his hair falling into his eyes and a hole worn into the knee of his trousers.
He ran with his mates—all but one gone now. Pretty Jenny with her tumbling hair, and Mick with his sly grin and big plans. Shawn up for anything on a dare.
Gone, all three, taken in vengeance and gone to dust.
And there Brian, the one he had left, crafty as he was steady, with his cap cocked—jaunty-like—over his left eye.
Gloomy day or not, remnants of the Urbans lingering still, the tourists continued to flock to Grafton Street. They frequented the pubs and the shops and stalls, took their vids of buskers playing tunes.
The man he was couldn’t help but admire the boy’s nimble fingers lifting a wallet here, slipping it to a mate—or using the quick bump and begging your pardon, sir! to snag a wrist unit, and pass that to another mate.
He might cop a ’link, smooth as you please. Even a handbag or two.
He’d share the spoils—a testament to teamwork—and if he judged it enough, might squirrel away a bit for his personal nest egg.
He heard the boy with the angel’s voice and the little dog. A crowd would gather there, so he wandered that way, judged his marks.
The boy—had he ever known his name—sang an old one. One designed to bring a tear to the eye and put money in the cap.
He found his mark in a man with a gold wrist unit and a camera—a real one, a beauty. As the man focused the camera on the boy and dog, the boy he’d been edged closer.
He pined for the camera. Oh, that would bring a good price! And the wrist unit as well. But from the angles—and he’d known the angles—settling for the wallet was his best bet.
As he moved into position, as the boy sang of young, dead Willie McBride, he spotted Cobbe—boy and man—across Grafton Street.
For a moment, in the odd way of dreams, they stared at each other—the vague past, the possible tomorrow.
The boy he’d been looked up at the man he was. “Well now, he’s after killing me dead, isn’t he then? But he won’t be having what he wants today. You’ll have to make for certain he doesn’t get it tomorrow. We could’ve used that bloody camera,” he added with pure regret.
And ran.
The boy Cobbe had been pulled out a knife and ran after him.
And Cobbe, the man, grinned across Grafton Street before sprinting in the opposite direction.
He pursued, through the crowds, the music, the yeasty smell of beer from the pubs.
He was faster, had always been faster. But he kept losing him. He’d catch a glimpse, then lose him, catch another.
Away from the crowds and music now, through alleyways he’d known too well as a boy where the air smelled of wet garbage and babies wailed in cries pinched with hunger.
All at once he stood in the alley over the broken, bloodied boy he’d been. The girl Eve had been sat on the filthy ground beside him. Hollow-eyed, cradling her broken arm, she looked up.
“They like to hurt us, the fathers.”
He crouched down, heartsick, as he could do nothing for either of them. “I know it. We’ll be all right. We’ll get through.”
“He broke my arm. I think yours, too.”
Even in dreams he couldn’t help himself, and reached out to stroke her tangled hair. “But they didn’t break us, did they, darling?”
“I won’t break you.” Cobbe, both boy and man, stood just two feet away. “I’ll just cut you to pieces. Her first.”
With knife in hand, the man grabbed Eve by the hair. When the boy charged, Roarke lunged.
Into a void, and out of sleep.
That was a bad one.” Warm, strong, Eve’s arms wrapped around him. “I should know. I’m the expert. Lights on, ten percent. Bad dream, okay? Just a bad dream.”
She held on to him while the cat rubbed his head against Roarke’s side.
“I’m all right.”
“A bad one,” she repeated. “Bad enough for a soother.”
“I don’t need—”
“We’ll split one.” She stroked his cheek, shifted to get out of bed. “I’m not used to being on the other side of a nightmare, so I could use half.”
He figured that was likely bullshit, but he let it go.
“Do you want to tell me?”
“Dublin,” he began, and told her while she got the soother for both of them.
“So a mix of then and what’s going on now.” She drank her half, making sure—he knew—he did the same. “You’re worried about me on top of it. You should’ve dreamed me as a cop. We’d’ve kicked his asses together.”
“I’ll try to work that in next time.”
She set the empty glasses aside, then took his face in her hands. “We’re going to get him. We’re going to put him away. I swear it to you.”
“I trust you will.”
“Then trust this.” Now her whiskey-colored eyes held him as her hands did his face. “I know who he is. I know he’d love to kill me—just to hurt you, to break you. I won’t let it happen. I won’t let him hurt you that way. I swear that, too.”
He rested his brow on hers. “All right then. I know it, Eve, I can swear that back to you. And still, I fear it.”
“Don’t. I can’t—and don’t—promise you to come home safe every day I go out to work. But I’m promising you this. I’m giving you my word on it.”
She drew him back, curled against him, laid a hand over his heart. “In the dream, you said you told me they didn’t break us, and you were right. I’m telling you, Cobbe won’t, either.”
So he was soothed, a little at least, and willed himself to sleep in the quiet, in the now, while the love of his life held his heart.
13
Routinely, when Roarke woke at some ungodly hour to take a meeting in some weird place where the time insisted on being different, Eve didn’t stir.
But routine fell off the charts the minute Cobbe showed himself in the park.
So when Roarke started to slide out of bed in the dark, she shifted, grunted, blinked. “What the hell continent are you buying in the middle of the damn night?”
“Europe, but only a small portion. Go back to sleep.”
She rolled over with every intention of doing just that.
But lay awake.
She called for the time. Four-fifty-five.
How was that even possible?
She lay quiet while he showered, while he dressed, and considered he did this virtually every morning, quiet as a cat while she slept on.
She rolled back again when she heard—actually sensed more than heard—him leave the room. Called for lights, then studied the dark sky through the sky window over the bed.
She might not have a continent, or any portion thereof, to buy, but she had plenty of work.