by J. D. Robb
“We’ll do that here,” Roarke told her.
“We’ll be heading up then. Let’s put the rest in play.”
Step Four, she thought. Freeman.
In the scrubs and ID he’d lifted from a locker, Freeman slipped up the stairs to the eighth floor. He prided himself on his ability to blend in, considered himself a human chameleon.
He eased the door open, scanned right and left, then slid into the corridor and into the room across it.
Machines beeped and hummed, monitoring whatever poor bastard lay in the bed. Staying out of the range of the camera, he slithered against the wall until he could aim the jammer he carried.
Even as the alarm sounded he was out and into the next room before the ICU team came running. He repeated the process, grinning as the medicals ran by. He hit a third for good measure, then made the dash to 8-C.
By the time they determined it was an electronic glitch, rebooted, did whatever they did for the poor bastards in beds, he’d have done what he’d come to do and be gone.
He moved into 8-C. They kept the lights dim, he noted. Rest and quiet was the order of the day. Well, she’d get plenty of both where he was sending her. He moved to the bed, pulled out the vial in his pocket.
“Should’ve kept your nose out of our business, stupid bitch.”
Baxter stepped out of the shadows, put his weapon to Freeman’s head.
“Who’s the bitch now?” Baxter said as Trueheart stepped between Freeman and Strong. “Who’s the bitch now?”
Freeman’s secured,” Eve reported.
“They’ve got Runch,” Peabody told her. “And the accountant, Tulis, Addams. They’re rounding up her people like ducks in a pond.”
“With Janburry and Delfino spending some quality time with Bix, I’d say it’s time for the finale.”
Renee sat in her father’s study, loving him with every inhale. Hating him with every exhale.
“You don’t know what it’s like working Illegals today,” she insisted, but kept her tone, her face respectful. “I can’t afford to throw a man to the rats because of a slip. And at first, that’s what I thought was happening with Bill Garnet.”
“Renee, when one of your men uses the very thing you’re fighting against, you have to take action. You’re responsible for the code of your squad.”
Go ahead, she thought, give me the lecture on Marcus Oberman’s standards . I’ve heard it all before.
“I know that perfectly well. Loyalty is vital, you know that, too. I spoke with Garnet, kept it out of his file, but I ordered him to get into a program. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I began to suspect him and one of my other detectives . . . Dad, I have reason to believe two of my people were using my CI to obtain product—for use and profit. I have reason to believe they killed my CI before he could contact me.”
“Bix.”
“No, not Bix. Garnet was using Bix for cover. I think he might have tried to set Bix up for the fall. Lilah Strong.” She rose to pace. “She must have realized I was getting close. It must be why she tried to run today. Two of my people, Dad, betraying their squad, the department, me. Their badges.”
She willed tears to sparkle in her eyes. “It’s my fault.”
“Fault and responsibility aren’t always the same. Renee, if you believed this, if you had any evidence, why didn’t you so inform Lieutenant Dallas?”
“I did.” She spun around. “Just today. She brushed me off, just brushed me off. She’s so focused on Bix—and me. She’s so damn self-righteous.”
“She’s a good cop, Renee.”
She’s a dead cop now, Renee thought. “Better than me, I suppose.”
“That’s not what I said, or meant. You need to take this information to your commander. You should already have done so. You need to contact him and request a meeting, with Dallas included, and give them everything you know, everything you have on this.”
“I wanted to be sure before I ... I’ve been working it on my own. My responsibility,” she reminded him, since it was one of his favorite words.
“Dad, I think they got in deeper than Keener. He was just a weasel. I think they moved up, and it got Garnet killed. I have a line on that. I wanted to follow it through. I know it’s Dallas’s case, but for God’s sake, Dad—Garnet, Strong, even Keener, they’re mine, and I wanted to handle it.”
“I understand that. Command can be lonely, Renee, and it can be hard. But you’re part of a whole, part of a system. You can’t step outside that whole, that system, for your own needs. You owe it to your men to show them true leadership. Two of your people went bad. Now show the rest there’s no tolerance, no half measures.”
“You’re right. Of course, you’re right. I’ll contact the commander, request the meeting.”
“Do you want me to be there?”
She shook her head. “I need to do this on my own. I shouldn’t have brought you into it. I need to go, need to put my thoughts together. Thank you for hearing me out. I’ll make this right.”
“I trust you will.”
“I trust you will,” she muttered as she slammed her car door. It was just like him to lecture and pontificate, to give her that disapproving look because she hadn’t followed straight down the Saint Oberman path.
He’d never know just how far she’d strayed, or how wide she’d beaten her own path. But now he was, again, a useful tool.
When they found Dallas’s body, when Strong expired from her injuries, and she told Whitney what she wanted him to believe, dear Dad would confirm she’d told him all of it. That she had pointed Dallas toward Strong and been rebuffed.
It was all falling neatly into place.
She took out her ’link, pleased to see a trans from Freeman. Within seconds, though, she’d jerked her vehicle to the side of the road to read the text again.
Can’t get to her. Can’t get near her. Surrounded by medicals. Bringing her out of coma tonight. Orders?
“Goddamn incompetence. Do I have to do everything myself?” She beat her fists on the wheel until she could think.
Abort, she ordered.
Didn’t matter if Strong lived, she told herself. She would be discredited. Who’d believe a third-grade detective—and with evidence and doubt planted—against her lieutenant? Against Saint Oberman’s daughter?
No one.
They’d have to look at the safe, of course, when the traitorous bitch told them about it. Renee pulled back onto the road. They’d have to verify what the nosy bitch told them. So she’d clear out the safe, put in copies of the reports she’d put together with her suspicions and evidence linking Garnet, Strong, and Keener.
She’d just tidy up the rest of this mess herself, and then, she thought, in a couple of weeks she’d be taking a well-deserved vacation.
23
RENEE WALKED THROUGH CENTRAL TO TAKE care of business. She wanted a long, hot bath—with the oils she’d bought on her last trip to Italy. And one of her bottles of wine from the vineyard she’d invested in.
She could soak while she toasted Strong’s disgrace and probable imprisonment—and most important, most gratifyingly, the demise of Lieutenant Eve Dallas.
Sentimental bitch wore a wedding ring, she recalled. Interesting piece, unique design. That would be a perfect item to pass to the scapegoat she had in mind—a particularly violent chemi-head who would pawn it at the first opportunity.
It would be easy to pin Dallas’s murder on him, and Garnet’s.
Loose ends snipped, she thought as she got off the elevator on her floor. Better, she’d find a way to be the arrow that pointed the investigators to the goat. That would erase any lingering tinge from the Garnet/ Strong problem, and very likely give her a little boost toward those captain bars.
Really, things were working out even better than she planned.
She breezed through the night-security glow of the squad room, unlocked her office. She called for lights and went straight to the portrait.
“Screw you and every
thing you stand for.”
She lifted the frame, then spun around at the sound behind her.
Eve swiveled the chair around, smiled. “That’s not a nice way to talk to your father, Renee. Gosh, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“What are you doing in my office? My locked office? You have no right—”
“You’re fast on your feet. I’ll give you that. Faster than the dogs you sicced on me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Please, Renee, they rolled all over you. Marcell was crying for a deal before we had the cuffs on him, and Palmer wasn’t far behind. And even without that?” Eve reached out, tapped her recorder.
Renee’s voice filled the room, arranging for Eve’s death, for Lilah’s.
“Detective Strong’s fine, by the way. Freeman? Not really. He’s pondering his options from a cage right now, like the pitiful pair you ordered to kill me. So’re Armand, Bix, Manford, and at last count five more of your motley crew. You are so completely fucked.”
“You’re bluffing, or you wouldn’t be here alone. So I believe I’ll just contact—”
Eve drew her weapon, aimed it at the middle button of Renee’s power suit jacket. “You’re going to want to pull that piece out very slowly, then set it on the desk and step away. I know you’ve never terminated anyone. Never so much as fired that weapon in your bag or any other—at least not on record. I have, and trust me when I say I wouldn’t hesitate to put you on the ground.”
Renee threw the purse on the desk. “You think you’ve won this? You think I can’t fix this?”
“That’s right. I think I’ve won this. I think you can’t fix this.”
“You haven’t; and I will. It’s your head that’ll roll.”
Not panicked, Eve noted. Pissed. Hoping to give the temper another boost, Eve put a laugh on her face.
“Really? You tried for Strong twice, once with Bix, then with Freeman. Didn’t do so well, did you? Now you think you can take me?”
“She got lucky with Bix. He never misses.”
“He killed Keener—but Keener was a weak junkie. And Garnet. But Garnet was his partner and trusted him. I’d say that makes Bix lucky. They all trusted you, didn’t they, Renee? As far as any of their type can trust. Are you so sure Bix will do what you tell him when he’s looking at life in a concrete cage?”
“He’ll do exactly what I tell him, and say exactly what I tell him. That’s how you command men.”
“Yeah, it takes a lot of balls to tell a man like Bix to slit his own partner’s throat, to stick poison in a junkie’s arm.”
“It takes foresight, vision, brains to develop someone like Bix so he’ll do just that on command. None of your people would do for you what Bix has done, and will do, for me.”
“You’re right about that.”
“That makes you weak. Holding that weapon on me, that makes you weak, too.”
“Does it?”
“Have you got the balls, Dallas?” Renee slipped out of her heels. “Let’s really see who’s in charge here.”
“Are you serious?” Of all the responses, this was the last Eve expected. A shiny bubble of sheer joy rose up in her. “You want to dance with me?”
“Weak. And a coward.”
“Ow, insults. Sting. What the hell. I really want this, too.” Eve set her weapon down, shrugged off her jacket.
As she circled the desk, Renee lowered into a fighting stance.
“Hey.” Eve cocked her head, pointed. “Did you take lessons?”
“Since I was five. You’re going to bleed.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
She took her stance, and they circled each other. She let Renee come at her, blocked the kick, the follow-up, the backhand.
There was power there, she judged, and style, and skill. Renee wouldn’t go down easy; she wouldn’t go down quickly.
So much the better.
She kicked Renee’s fist aside, came in with a hard jab, had it repelled. And took a mid-body blow that burned her belly. The next kick caught her shoulder, zipped pain down her arm. She went with it, used the momentum in her spin, slammed her boot into Renee’s chest with a force that knocked her opponent back into a chair and down.
Fists ready, Eve leaped forward, but Renee jumped up, slammed a kick into Eve’s knee that shot her feet out from under her. She tasted blood now, told herself it woke her up, and when Renee poised to stomp her injured knee, Eve swept out her leg.
This time when her opponent fell there was a satisfying crunch as the table under her collapsed.
They both sprang to their feet, and at each other.
Now it was something like jubilation that shot up Eve’s arm as her fist rammed Renee’s face, and her blood drummed to the cry of pain and rage. She took a blow to her own face, one that had stars exploding in front of her eyes. Flying on them, she twisted, came in low to ram her elbow into Renee’s belly, jerked up her forearm to plant a backfist on Renee’s chin.
“You’re bleeding, bitch,” Eve told her, and caught Renee’s foot on the kick, shoved back.
Renee dropped, rolled, scissored her legs up, beat a double kick to Eve’s hip before gaining her feet.
Bloodlust. Eve felt it pulsing and pumping through her, all primal fury that was somehow a kind of twisted pleasure. Circling, spinning, a blow landed, another taken. Sweat stung her eyes, dripped down her back—and she saw it mixing with the blood smeared on Renee’s face.
Eve knew they were in the same place now, a place where winning was all and the taste of blood lay sweet on the tongue. A place, she knew, where that taste stirred a craving for more.
She told herself to end it, to step back over the line.
“You’re done,” she said. “This is done.”
“I say when it’s done!” Renee launched at her; Eve pivoted to meet the attack. They hit the door like a cannonball and spilled into the squad room in an intimate tangle of violence. They rolled, jabbing fists, hit the side of a desk with a crack like thunder.
Eve stopped the thumb aiming for her eye by gripping Renee’s wrist, twisting it. On a cry of pain, Renee grabbed Eve’s hair, nails gouging scalp, and yanked viciously.
More stars exploded in a field red as blood.
“Fuck me! Hair pulling? That’s it!” She wrenched Renee’s wrist back, reveled in the screech—and with her scalp screaming flipped Renee onto her back. “Pussy.” She balled her fist, drove it once, twice into Renee’s face, reared back for a third, but pulled up short when the grip on her hair dissolved, when the eyes staring into hers went glassy.
“I say when it’s done.” Eve swiped blood from her mouth. “And it’s done. Jesus Christ, it’s done.” She rolled off, sat on the floor, tried to slow the air wheezing into her burning lungs. “Peabody!”
“Sir!” Peabody stepped forward from the crowd of cops—and a particular civilian—who’d already moved into the squad room.
This time Eve swiped under her nose, then pressed it gingerly. Not broken, she determined, just bloody. “She’s yours.”
“Huh?”
“I’m the one whose ears are ringing, for God’s sake. I said she’s yours. Your collar. Take her.”
“But, Dallas, you—”
Though it hurt pretty much everywhere, she discovered, Eve pushed to her feet. She wondered if her injured knee had puffed to the size of a basketball, or just felt that way.
“Detective, I just gave you a directive. I expect you to follow it without any backtalk and arrest this individual who is a disgrace to her badge, her lineage, and her goddamn gender. Hair-puller,” Eve said in disgust, and nursed a hand over her tender scalp.
“Yes, sir.”
“One minute.” Eve crouched down, painfully, bent close to Renee’s face, and spoke for only the two of them. “You see that cop, Renee? The one who’s about to take you? She’s the reason. She’s the reason you’re down and you’re out. She’s more of a cop, more of a woman, more of
a human being than you ever were. And she’s my partner.”
Eve straightened, with effort and with considerable discomfort. “Get her gone,” she told Peabody.
“With pleasure, Lieutenant. Renee Oberman,” she began as she bent to cuff the prisoner, “you’re under arrest.”
Peabody listed the charges as she dragged Renee to her feet. At Eve’s head jerk, McNab moved in, took Renee’s other arm. Peabody recited the Revised Miranda as they perp-walked her out.
“Lieutenant.”
Eve struggled not to wince as she came to attention. “Yes, sir, Commander.”
“It was unnecessary to engage in physical contact with the suspect, to break procedure and set aside your weapon, and do so when you clearly had the suspect under control.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Unnecessary,” he repeated, “but just. And I believe it was as satisfying to experience as it was to observe. I suggest you visit the infirmary and get cleaned up and treated. It will be my unfortunate duty to inform Commander Oberman of his daughter’s arrest.”
“Sir, as head of the investigative team, and partner to the arresting officer, I feel that should be my duty.”
“You know command better than that, Dallas. It’s mine to lift. You did well.” He turned, scanned the cops in the room. “You all did well.”
And shouldering his command, he walked out.
Roarke walked over, handed her her weapon and a towel. She didn’t know where the hell he’d come up with the towel, but it looked clean. She wiped some of the blood off her face.
“I’d kick your ass for putting your weapon down,” he murmured, “except as I said before, I’m fond of it. And because at the core, I agree with Whitney. Besides”—he took the towel, dabbed at her face himself—“I took fifty off the new guy.”
“What? Santiago?”
“I wagered him you’d bait her into a fight so you could pummel her a bit. He was the only taker.” He leaned down, softly, softly kissed her swollen mouth. “But he doesn’t know you as well as the rest. Yet.”
She might’ve smiled, but knew it would hurt. “Well, he’s the new guy. I’ve got to ...” She trailed off, noting the room was still full of cops. Thinking of the kiss she would’ve scowled, but that would hurt, too.