by J. D. Robb
He looked at the pathetic chair. “Do you actually call this an area?”
“No.”
“I’ll find a space.”
Lilah continued to keep her head down and her ass in the chair when Renee and Bix came back in—and when Renee, her face thunderous, closed herself in her office with him.
Nearly end of shift, she thought. Not much longer now. She considered requesting some personal time and ducking out early. But her lieutenant frowned on such requests, and in her current mood might make an issue of it.
Better just to ride the road.
She said nothing when Manford and Tulis came back from the field, and Tulis dropped files on her desk.
It was, she knew, expected she write up the fives, clean up the report, file it. The lieutenant considered her field men too valuable to sweat over paperwork.
She started in on it, telling herself it would keep her busy, distract her from watching the time. She’d eaten up that time when Renee came out and walked straight to Lilah’s desk.
Though her heart took a tumble, Lilah looked up placidly. “Yes, ma’am?”
“You’re with Bix,” Renee said briskly.
“With Bix, Lieutenant?”
“As I said. We’re short a man, if you’ve forgotten one of your squad went down. Do you have a problem with field work, Detective? I was under the impression you were eager to break away from your desk.”
“Yes, ma’am!” She infused her voice with enthusiasm. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Bix will give you the details en route. You’re cleared for OT, should it be necessary.”
Bix stood, looking at Lilah with his flat-eyed stare. “Let’s get it done.”
This is bullshit, bullshit, Lilah thought as she forced herself up to fall into step with him. She’d left some sort of tell, or one of the others had seen her go in, come out, had given the alert. Or . . .
Didn’t matter how, she thought. She was made.
“Where are we going?”
“One-man cook shop on Avenue D. We’re going to pick up the chef, put some pressure on him, see where it goes.”
Bullshit, bullshit, Lilah thought again.
“Something you and Garnet were working on? Look, I’m sorry about Garnet. I know the two of you worked pretty close.”
“He knew the score.” Bix stepped into the elevator, and since it was crowded with cops, Lilah got on with him.
She’d be damned if she’d be led like a lamb to the slaughter, and every instinct told her she’d been slated to be put down.
Quickly she replayed every minute she’d spent in Renee’s office, every move made. She’d left everything exactly as it had been. Besides, if there had been something out of order, Renee couldn’t know who ...
Unless she did monitor the squad room, and not just when she was in her office. And if she monitored the squad room, she could have her office on monitor. She could’ve seen everything.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“Have you dealt with the chef before?” As she asked Lilah tugged at the neck of her top as if plagued by the heat. It wasn’t much of a stretch.
“Yeah. I’ll handle him. You’re along for ballast.” He cut his gaze down to her when she began to hyperventilate. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Sorry. Claustrophobic. I . . .” She popped off the elevator, shoving cops aside when the doors opened. She’d have run then, but Bix was right beside her. Instead she lowered her head between her knees. “Couldn’t breathe.”
“How the hell did you get on the force?”
She let his disgust roll off her back. All the better if he thought her weak and useless. “Look, I’m a good cop. I just have some trouble with tight spaces. I’ll take the glide down, meet you in the garage.”
“We’ll take the glides.” He curled a hand around her arm, steered her toward a down glide.
Duck into a bathroom, she thought, call for backup. And if he followed her in, he’d have her trapped. She jerked her arm, but his grip only tightened. “Hands off, Bix. I can stand on my own.”
“Probably faint at the sight of blood.”
“Up yours.” Lilah elbowed her way down the glide, trying to put space between them. Bix stuck with her like Velcro.
They’d have to switch to one of the garage elevators soon, she calculated. Or the stairs. Where did he plan to do it? Not in Central. But once he got her out ...
So she wouldn’t let him get her out.
“Hey.” She whirled on him. “Keep your hands off my ass.”
“I never—”
She slapped him, hard enough the crack of flesh on flesh drew as much attention as her shouted protest. “Goddamn asshole!” There were plenty of smirks as she shoved down the glide.
He made a grab for her, might have yanked her back, but a couple of cops—one a female uniform who looked like she could bench-press a maxibus—blocked his way.
She heard the shouts, the curses behind her, glanced back. His eyes were absolutely calm as he bulled his way through and closed the distance she’d gained.
She went with instinct and ran.
She leaped on the next glide, slithering and coiling through other passengers like a snake. Lose him, lose him, find a hole, call for help. Sprint straight out on the next level, she told herself. She’d always been fast.
When another check behind told her so was he, she shifted to push through. She broke clear, took one quick heartbeat to gauge the best direction. The roar behind her came an instant before someone plowed into her, propelled by Bix’s violent forward progress. Lilah threw a hand out to catch herself, but her legs shot from under her.
For one breathless second she watched the dull silver steel of the glide rushing toward her. Her arms came up, an instinctive attempt to shield her face, but her shoulder took the first vicious hit. For an instant the world revolved—ceiling to floor—then it exploded when her head struck the ridged steel.
She went tumbling, tumbling, bonelessly to the unforgiving floor below.
Nearly ready to close it down at Central, Eve snatched at her signaling’link. She’d hoped Peabody, struggled against annoyance when she saw Webster on the display.
“Dallas.”
“Detective Strong just took a header off a down glide between three and four.”
Eve shoved to her feet. “How?”
“Not yet determined, but Bix is being held.”
“He fucking pushed her—in Central?”
“Not yet determined. Conflicting accounts.”
“Is she alive?”
“Unconscious, beat up from the fall. On her way to Angel’s. IAB gets a shot at Bix. Renee’s already running interference. We’ll review the security discs, keep him under wraps for now.”
“Is Strong covered?”
“She was in the bus and away before I got word.”
“I’ll cover her.” Eve slammed out of the office, zeroed in on Baxter. “I want you and Trueheart at Angel’s ten minutes ago. You cover a Detective Lilah Strong who’s being transported there with injuries from a fall. You cover her like skin on bone. No medicals alone with her, no other cops near her. This is a direct order, and I don’t care if God Himself countermands it, you will follow it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go now. I’ll be right behind you.”
As she moved—back into her office to grab the jacket she’d shed while she worked—she tagged Roarke. “Garage. Hurry.” She clicked off, then called in a friend.
“Dallas.” Dr. Louise Dimatto beamed at her. “How—”
Struggling into the jacket, Eve switched her ’link from hand to hand. “I need you at Angel’s Hospital asap. Incoming patient, transported from Central, Detective Lilah Strong. Injuries from a fall.”
“How—”
“I don’t know her condition. I need you to get there, Louise, and to take her. Her life’s on the line. I need you to report as her doctor, and I need you to fix her. I don’t want anyone near her you don’
t know and trust with your life. Not another doctor, nurse, orderly, not a bedpan near her you don’t trust. Baxter and Trueheart are on their way there now. No other cops get near her without my clearance. None.”
“I’m on my way. I’ll call ahead, set it up.”
“Thanks.”
She sprinted from floor to glide, from glide to elevator, and across the garage where Roarke waited.
“How fast can you get us to Angel’s Hospital?”
“Very. Strap in.”
21
SIRENS BLASTING, ROARKE WENT AIRBORNE the instant they shot out of the garage. He touched down, punched it to plow through a field of traffic, two-wheeled it at the corner. He skimmed by a couple coats of paint between a cab and a sedate town car, then tore into a hard-line vertical to rocket over the heads of pedestrians clipping across the crosswalk in spite of the screaming sirens and flashing lights.
“Strong’s down,” Eve told him. “I don’t know how bad.”
He simply nodded and ripped a line through the city canyons. When he swerved onto the ER ramp, he said, “Go.”
She was already slapping the release on her safety harness, shoving open the door. She slammed through the ER doors, caught sight of the medicals whisking a gurney around the corner of Admitting with Baxter and Trueheart flanking them like guard dogs.
“Status! What’s her status?”
Blood from the head wounds, the face lacerations soaked Lilah’s clothes. Eve saw the splint support on her right arm, another caging her leg, the brace collaring her neck.
The MTs were spewing out a string of medical terms to a man in scrubs who barely looked old enough to order a brew. He in turn reeled out orders as they shoved the gurney through another set of doors.
He shot another order at Eve. “You have to stay back.”
“Her doctor’s on the way. Louise Dimatto. She’s in charge.”
“Right now I’m in charge.” He counted off to three, and they lifted Lilah’s bloody, broken body, strapped to a stabilizer, from gurney to table.
At the movement, Lilah moaned. Her eyelids flickered. The doctor peeled an eyelid up to examine her pupil while another medical cut away her pants to reveal a nasty break beneath the splint cage.
Eve managed to slip through, grab and grip Lilah’s hand as the team worked around her. “Report, Detective. Give me a report.”
Lilah’s eyes, blind with shock and pain, rolled open. “What?”
“Detective Strong!” Eve watched the eyes widen, very slightly. “I need your report.”
“Killed me.”
“No, they didn’t. Why did they try?”
“Oberman. Behind Oberman.” The words garbled as Lilah’s fingers moved weakly in Eve’s. “My mother. Tic.”
“I’ll get your mother. I’ll get Tic.”
“Scared.”
Fresh pain jerked her body, shuddered in her eyes. Eve made herself stare straight into them. “I’ve got you covered. I’ve got you, Detective.”
“Oberman.” Eve could feel Lilah fight for the words. “Safe. Bix. Blew it.”
“No, you didn’t. I’ve got it.”
“Mom. Tic.”
“I’ll get them.”
Eve leaned in as Lilah’s eyes rolled closed again, as machines beeped, as the young doctor snapped at her to back off, threatened to call Security.
“You don’t die on me, Detective. That’s a goddamn order.”
Behind her Eve heard Louise’s voice—calm, brisk, full of authority. She stepped back, watched her friend shove her arms into a protective cloak.
“Trueheart, stay with her. Baxter, with me.”
Eve shoved through the doors. “Did she say anything else before I got here?” Eve demanded.
“You were about thirty seconds behind us. She came around for a few seconds when they were off-loading her, but she didn’t say anything I could make out.”
“One or both of you sticks with her, all the way. Nobody gets to her. Nobody touches her unless Louise clears them.”
“Did somebody help her fall down that glide, Dallas?”
“Undetermined, but probable. If there was reason for that, there’s reason to go at her again.”
“They won’t get through us.” His gaze ticked to the door, back to Eve. “She’s one of Oberman’s?”
“Not anymore. She’s one of mine.”
Louise pushed out while Eve paced the hallway.
“We’re taking her up, prepping her for surgery. She needs an orthopedic surgeon, a plastic man, a neuro. They have good ones here,” Louise said before Eve could respond. “I know them. She’s got internal injuries, and I’ll take those. If she makes it through, and her chances are decent with this team, she’ll need more work. And she’ll have a hell of a road back.”
“She’ll make it. One of my men has to be with her, every second. I need you to handpick every doctor, nurse, orderly who comes near her, give their data to Baxter.”
“OR Five,” Louise said. “I’ve got to go scrub in. You can fill me in on this later.”
“Louise . . .” Eve strode to the elevator with her. “How decent?”
“How tough is she?”
“Pretty tough, I think.”
“That helps. Trust us to do the rest.”
With no choice, Eve stood back, watched them roll Lilah toward an elevator, watched Baxter and Trueheart fall, once again, into flank position.
“We’ll watch out for her, Lieutenant.” Trueheart put a hand on the side guard of the gurney, and Eve nodded as the doors closed.
“How is she?” Roarke asked.
She closed her eyes a moment as her mind replayed all the chaos of the exam room.
“Broken arm, including a shattered elbow. Compound fracture of the leg, cracked skull, damaged spleen and kidney, severe facial lacerations. Those are the highlights.”
She looked down at the hand that had held Lilah’s, and the blood smeared on it. “I have to wash up. I’m going to wash up, then I’m going to take Renee apart.”
She needed to bank her anger. Anger could wait.
On the more sedate ride back to Central, Eve contacted Feeney. “Can you run your new toy from a conference room in my division?”
“We can set that up.”
“I need you to do it now, and on the extreme QT. Since her boy’s back in the basket, she’ll have to start wrangling. And I have something else.”
“How impossible this time?”
“You tell me. She’s got to have eyes, maybe ears, too, on her squad room, on her own office. She’s got to be monitoring or spot checking. Possibly she’s got some sort of alert set up in her office to let her know if anyone goes in when she’s not around. Can you tap into that, give us the feed?”
“Well, for Christ’s sake. Without knowing the system, the placement, the keys, or the alert specs?” He gave her a long, sad look. “Hell, why not? What’s another freaking miracle today?”
“Can you do it really fast?”
“Not as fast as I’d boot your ass if you get within range.”
“I’m bringing my geek in to give you a hand.”
“Send him. You stay away.”
Eve scowled when he cut her off, then turned to Roarke. “Can you do it really fast?”
“Tap in and redirect an unknown and at this point theoretical system with potential and unidentified keys and fail-safes? I wouldn’t mind booting your ass myself. Yes,” he said before she could speak. “Because you’re going to get her out of her office and clear her squad room long enough for me to get in, run and scan, locate and identify, and get out again.”
“How am I supposed to clear her squad room?”
“That, Lieutenant, would come under the heading of your problem. I’ll need five minutes.”
“If I can get you fifteen, there’s something else I want you to do while you’re in there.”
“And what would that be?”
“It involves stealing.”
His face brighte
ned. “I like it already.”
“Just let me pull Peabody in, then I’ll lay it out for you.” Before she could order the code, the ’link signaled in her hand.
“Dallas, I got it!” Peabody all but sang it. “I got it! Over three months of notes, times, locations, overheard snips of conversation. Names—she’d been digging in hard and she listed names she believed to be involved in Renee’s network—and she backed it up with a lot of documentation.”
“Bring it in.”
“You’re not coming here?”
“Change of plans there. Copy it, bring it in.”
“I’m on my way. Jeez, Dallas, I almost missed it. She had it shielded with a layer of jock-shock music. The disc analysis barely gave me a blip—and then it looks like a standard override—before I—”
“Explain later. We’re taking this down tonight. I want you in.”
“Tonight? I’m even more on my way.”
“That’s good work,” Roarke commented to Eve. “If the disc was layered and disguised as an override, it was good work on Devin’s part, and on Peabody’s.”
“I’ll pat her on the back later.” She glanced at the time, calculated. “Here’s what I need you to do once I clear it—and clear the squad room.”
“I take it you’ve figured out how to do that.”
“One cop on the slab, another in surgery, and a third being grilled by IAB? That’s a quarter of her squad right there. I’d say Renee and her men have earned a good talking-to.”
She started setting it up while Roarke finished the drive to Central.
“The commander and Mira,” Roarke commented. “What you’d call a command performance. Concern, a bit of stern disapproval, with a touch of group therapy thrown in.”
“She can’t say no. I’ll signal you as soon as I get the word they’re in the conference room. If you need more time or just can’t pull it off, let me know asap.”
“You’ve just earned another boot in the ass for insulting me.”
They rode the elevator out of the garage, then got off to take the glides, as was her habit. Deliberately she crossed over between three and four to the sector where Lilah had fallen.
They’d blocked off the down glide, and would keep it blocked until IAB made its determination. She imagined Webster would draw that out even if the discs showed no culpability by Bix.