by J. D. Robb
Eve gestured with her mug, then took a long sip. “You were still in the office. Dedicated civil servant that you are. His assistant saw you go in a couple minutes after he left. You were the only one who could have contacted Dukes from that unit at that time.”
Franco hitched down the jacket of her slate gray suit. “That’s nonsense.”
“No, that’s just niggling details. The kind that usually trip up the bad guy. You probably didn’t think we could trace the source, But why chance it? You’d been using the mayor all along, using him as a front. Politics is a weird area for me, but here’s how I see it.”
Eve walked over, sat on the edge of her desk. “You want his job. Probably more than that, but Mayor of New York’s a good place to start. He’s fairly popular. Maybe he’ll get another term, and it’s a pisser to wait, to play deputy when you can be chief.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I think you saw an opportunity to remove an obstacle, even to use that obstacle to further your own ambitions—especially when he makes it easy for you by getting tangled with Nick Greene.”
“Mayor Peachtree’s sexual leanings should be a private matter.”
“Should be. Let’s go back awhile before that. You keep up with current events. You keep up with community news, polls, opinions. Kids are being exploited out there—future voters, those kids. Their parents, other parents, other citizens, voters are upset, disillusioned and just plain pissed off. Something should be done, and you’re just the gal to do it. A lot of control. A lot of power. You’ve got a law degree. You know some of that scum is never going to pay. You found a way to make them pay. That’s a hell of an accomplishment.”
A smile ghosted around Franco’s mouth. Her eyes were alive with it—and, Eve noted, with arrogance. “Do you really believe you can make any of this play?”
“I’ve got Dukes.” Eve shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve got Purity in pieces. You slipping by me isn’t so hard to take with more than forty other arrests and a closed case on my record.”
“So, this little scenario you’re writing here is between us.”
“Just you and me. Girl talk. Post-game chatter.”
“Then by all means.” Franco gestured a go-ahead. “Continue.”
“It fell apart on you, Franco, but you still had a button to push. Leak the story. Shove the mayor into the muck. Defend him, but carefully. If he’s convicted, you mourn the loss of a man who was corrupted by his own power, his own skewed sense of duty. If he’s acquitted, you praise the system for exonerating an innocent man. But either way, you step into his shoes and run the city. Maybe, maybe some of it was about your twisted sense of justice. But under it all, it was just politics.”
“You’re wrong.” Franco wandered over, picked up the second cup of coffee Eve had programmed. “Since it’s just the two of us here, since I respect you, I won’t say you’re wrong about all of it. Purity was a solution. An extermination of a plague. It could be again.”
She angled her head. “We could have used someone like you. Pushing to have you as a media symbol wasn’t an accident. You have impact, Dallas. With your passion, your skills, your presence, you’d keep the story hot as long as I needed. I think I knew when we met in Tibble’s office you’d find a way to break it apart. I had to accept that, deal with that. I always pick my battles.”
“Why this one?”
“Every politician needs a platform. This is mine. Dukes wanted to infect you,” she added. “But that wasn’t the agenda. That wasn’t the program. How many innocent children did we save, Dallas?”
“Is that your spin?”
“If I needed one it would be. And it’s the truth. Peachtree has good intentions, but he’s soft, and he’s cautious, politically. And sooner or later he was going to be exposed for his sexuality. Why should I go down with him?”
“So you nominated and pushed on Greene as a twofer. You eliminate another predator, and you see that Peachtree’s sexual conduct is exposed, and that he’s under suspicion at the same time for multiple murder. It bothered me that no attempt was made to get to the blackmail vids. Didn’t make sense, unless you turned it around that the idea was for them to be recovered and used.”
“The people on those vids deserve to be exposed. For their weaknesses. For their foolishness, and for their dealings with a man like Greene.”
“And you’re the judge of all of that, of all of them.”
“I am. Or part of a group of people who believe it’s time for judgment. You and I, Dallas, we’re neither soft nor cautious. We act. We make things happen. I’ll be Mayor of New York,” she said simply. “And in a few years, governor. From there, East Washington. I will be the third female President of the United States before I’m fifty. I could take you up with me. Wouldn’t you like to be New York’s top cop, Dallas? Chief of Police Eve Dallas. I can make that happen in five, maybe six years.”
“No, thanks. Too much politics for me. How do you plan to do all this, Franco, from a cage?”
“How are you going to put me in a cage?” she countered. “I’ve been very careful. As far as that transmission from Peachtree’s office, my legal team will get around it. It may have been set and saved for sending. The assistant may have been mistaken about seeing me go into his office at that particular time. It’s a very busy place.”
“But it wasn’t set and saved, and the assistant wasn’t mistaken.”
“No, but you’ll never prove it. Nothing I’ve said in this room will do you any good. It’ll be your word against mine. And at the moment, Dallas, with the very efficient Chang convinced you leaked this story to Furst, with public opinion still deadlocked over Purity, and your part in destroying it, my word’s got a lot more juice than yours.”
“Maybe. Maybe it does. But your words are going to work just fine.” Eve picked up her communicator. “I think that wraps it,” she said.
Franco set her cup down with a snap. “You were wired.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Nothing said here is admissible. You didn’t read me my rights and you entrapped me. Everything I said was said in temper, simply to get back at you for leaking the story.”
“Good thinking. We’ll see what your lawyers can do with it. Jenna Franco, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to murder.” As she listed the names, Eve pulled out her restraints. Even as Franco stepped back, the door opened.
The mayor came in first, followed by Whitney and Tibble. “You’re a disgrace, Jenna,” Peachtree said quietly. “I hope the system you so callously misused gives you full justice.”
“I have nothing to say.” Franco’s face turned to stone as Eve cuffed her. “I want my attorneys. I will not make any statements.”
“A little late for that.” Eve glanced over as Nadine came to the doorway, her camera behind her. “You get it all?”
“Every word,” Nadine assured her. “Live feed. We’re through the roof.”
“You broadcast . . .” Franco’s stony face went sheet white. “You had cameras in here?”
“Just my little spin. Oh, and if you’re thinking about getting that tossed, or using it to bite at the NYPSD, I’ll remind you that this is my office, and you entered it without invitation. I was under no legal obligation to inform you of security or media presence. Excuse me, gentlemen.” Eve maneuvered Franco through the men who crowded into her tiny office. “Peabody.”
“Sir.” Peabody stepped up from her spot in the hall.
“Read her her rights. Book her.”
As Franco was led away, Nadine on her heels shooting questions like laser blasts, Eve could hear Franco’s terse and furious: “No comment.”
“Lieutenant.” Peachtree stepped out. “Well-done. I’d like to thank you for what you did for this department, this city, and for me personally.”
“I did my job. If you’d been part of it, I’d’ve taken you down just as hard.”
“Wasn’t I?” he said, looking after Franco. “For not seeing what was under my nose?”
“What’s under it is usually harder to see than what’s in the distance.”
“Perhaps.” He held out a hand, shook hers. “Chief, Commander. We need to clean this up.”
As Tibble passed, he nodded at Eve. “Media conference in one hour. Good work, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You and your team are commended,” Whitney told her. “I want your report before the media conference.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get right on it.”
She’d just sat at her desk when Roarke walked in. “That was quite a show.”
“Yeah. Feeding her to the media was just a bonus. I had to put it together pretty fast. Didn’t have time to tell you.”
“You did,” he corrected, “when you looked horrified at the idea of me kissing you in here.”
“Yeah, well, the guys in EDD will be snickering over that for days.”
“Cameras still on?”
“No.”
He leaned down, kissed her, long, slow, and deep.
“There now,” he said. “I feel better.”
“Enough fooling around, Ace. I’ve got work. Scram.”
“Let me ask you a question first. Do you know you’re right?”
She closed her eyes. He always knew. And when she opened them again, met his, they were clear. “I know I’m right. I feel it in my gut. I feel it in my bones.”
“So do I.” He walked to the door, glanced back. “Lieutenant?”
“Yeah, what?”
“You’re a hell of a cop.”
She grinned. “Bet your ass.”
She pushed aside her cold coffee, turned to her desk unit. While others played politics, she got back on the job.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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