it’s shiny?”
Roarke brought her hand to his lips to kiss. “The world’s full of puzzles.”
Yeah, it was, she thought. But only one interested her now. Where was Lorcan Cobbe?
He rarely dreamed of Dublin. The city represented the canvas for the worst of his childhood memories, and the best of them as well. He had begun to build his fortune there—by both thievery and by fair means. And though he still had business interests there, he’d left Dublin, the bright and the dark of it, behind.
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