Page 58 of Bonded in Death

“I’m very sorry.”

“Yes, of course.” He cleared his throat. “It turned the tide, turned back the tide of blood, that night in May 2026. Alice turned the tide. Within a few months, it was over but for a few stubborn pockets, and many of those pockets contained cops and politicians. But people began to rebuild, and to walk on the streets without fear again, children played in parks again.”

“And the nine left took an oath.”

“We’d been betrayed, not for ideology, you understand? Not for convictions, however wrong. But for money, for the desire to live a life of ease built on corpses. So we swore an oath of loyalty on the sacrifice of those who’d fallen. No matter when, no matter where, if one needed help, the rest would come and give it.”

“You went to Dublin.”

He arched his eyebrows, looked at the recorder. Eve shut it off.

“I went to Dublin with my daughter, as Kolchek. Alice’s grandmother had come from Dublin, and it was Alice’s wish to take Marlena to Ireland when there was no war. There was no place for me in London any longer. We lived quietly, a decent enough flat I could afford. After so long, quiet was enough.

“Then, years later, I found a young boy, half beaten to death in an alley. And things changed again. Having this boy—a very angry boy—disturbed the quiet I’d lived in and with for too long. He didn’t know it, but I needed the boy as much as he needed me.

“When I killed the man who beat the boy near to death, I did it to savehim and my daughter. But it also reminded me I’d had a purpose. I found it again. I found myself again.”

“What’s on the recorder I have to share with my partner, my commander, with Mira, with whoever assists in this investigation. What’s not on it stays here.”

“I’m grateful. You can toss gratitude aside,” he said before she could speak. “But I’ll still give it.”

“You have a file on Conrad Potter.”

His eyes flickered, then he moved his shoulder again. “Yes.”

“I need a copy. It’s going to be more detailed and informative than official channels. Did he have a family?”

“No. An only child, and his parents dead by the time he joined the team.”

“Lovers?”

“Of course. But none that, after his disgrace, his conviction, communicated with him.”

“Possibility of a child?”

“None that I know of. He had no fondness for children.”

“Friends outside The Twelve? Potential partners, those he conspired with?”

“He gave no names. He had no loyalty, so I believe he would have. It was for money, Lieutenant. The war was slowing, you could see the ending. Another year—and so much less with what was done that night in May. He saw his chance to take what he’d stolen, scavenged, hidden away, and become someone else. Someone wealthy, perhaps important. Most if not all of us would be dead. I’ve no doubt he had a knife in the back planned for Magpie, and an assassination for Rabbit and Cobra.”

“There would only be one, like on the card.”

“It would be the most logical, wouldn’t it?”

“How much money, what kind of weapons?”

“He never said, he never broke there. We found some things in hisflat that made it clear he’d been amassing funds and weapons, and for a number of years, but not where.”

“He would be, what, seventy-eight?”

“I believe. He was about the same age as Kolchek.”

“You’re actually three years younger.” Roarke finally spoke. “And never said.”

“Four, precisely. Summerset added a year more. They’re only numbers. You’re a year younger than we thought, and I’m four younger than it says on my ID. But we are who we are.”

As it didn’t apply, Eve let that go by as she thought it all through.

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