Page 95 of Bonded in Death

“Figures. I’m going to check in with EDD.”

“I did that.” He spoke from the kitchen. “We were just finishing up when you came in.”

“What’ve you got?”

“I’ll tell you, won’t I?”

He came in carrying two domed plates to set them at the table by the open balcony doors.

“Sit,” he said, and lifted the domes.

“What is this?”

“Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and mushy peas. Very British. No, they’re not all Brits, but they worked together in London, so very suitable as a reunion dinner.”

“I don’t see any pudding.”

Roarke pointed, then sat. “And no, I don’t know why it’s called pudding.”

She decided on a bite of the beef first. “Okay, I was going to say that’s pretty good, but it’s way beyond ‘pretty.’ What did you finish up?”

“Feeney’s man was nearly there. He’s more than pretty good himself. He’d determined it wasn’t flesh.”

“What wasn’t?”

“The driver—and I’m convinced along with you it was Potter. The face, the back of the hands. Hands will show age.”

“A mask? But—”

“More than a mask. A process. Time-consuming, expensive, meticulous process. The material—a silicone base—has to be blended and formed, thinned and shaped. Measurements must be exact. The machine required to do this, as well as the tinting, is easily ten thousand. The mask is then carefully applied, smoothed, adjusted. If all this is done correctly, painstakingly, it can look quite real for a limited amount of time.

“It doesn’t breathe,” he explained. “They’ve yet to formulate a material that does. And it won’t feel like skin. While it has the appearance, once you magnify and begin to analyze, it doesn’t.”

“It could change his face, take the years off?”

“It could, yes, for three or four hours. Five at the very most. After two, discomfort would be an issue.”

“He wouldn’t take it off in the limo. Too risky.”

“And your sweepers would’ve found traces of it, flaking off during removal.”

“Okay, he has to drive to the shuttle station, wait. Sometimes flights are delayed, he has to factor that possibility into his time. Rossi didn’t have luggage checked, but he could have. The wit wasn’t affected by the gas. He opened the door, saw the body. If there’d still been gas, he should’ve felt it.”

She ate some pudding that wasn’t pudding. Also way beyond “pretty.”

“Garage. Drive around while Rossi’s dying, then take the limo into the garage. You can ditch the mask there, air out the limo. Stick the card in Rossi’s fist. Drive to the dump spot. Now you walk away. You’ve either got a vehicle stashed nearby, or you walk a few blocks, hail a cab.”

She picked up her wine. “And the first leg of your mission is complete and successful.”

“It will be a mission to him.”

“It will. It’s more than revenge, though that’s part of it. They beat him, Roarke. They won, and that can’t be tolerated.”

She took a chance on the peas, and rated them sort of all right.

“He said you fight a war to win it. That’s it. Not for a cause, not for a country, not for the innocent or the persecuted. Just to win.” She went back to the beef. “He lost.”

“What can I do? You have to give me a task, an assignment.” He reached across the table for her hand. “This is mine as well as yours.”

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