Divided in Death (In Death #18)(42)

"Stop him? What makes you think I won't give him a hand with it?"

"Because you're a cop," she snapped. "Because you know you can't take it down to the personal that way. You know what can happen when you do. I need you to keep him busy, too busy for him to spend any time moving on this other thing. I need you to find a way to try to talk him down from this. I think he'd listen to you."

"Why?"

"I don't know." She dragged her hands through her hair. "I just do. Please God, Feeney, don't make me go to Summerset with this. It's hard enough asking you. I just need to buy some time so I can think it clear."

"Keeping him busy's not a problem seeing as there's only three of us working on fourteen units. Talking to him..." Feeney's hands retreated to his pockets as he shrugged. "I'll see if I can find an opening for it. Can't promise I will."

"I appreciate it. I appreciate it, Feeney. Thanks."

"Let me ask you something, Dallas. Just between you and me, here and now. We don't have to bring it up again, but I want a straight answer from you. You don't want payback?"

She looked down at the floor, then made herself lift her gaze and meet his eyes. "I want it so bad I can taste it. I want it so bad, so f**king bad, it scares me. I want it, Feeney, so bad that I know I have to put it away. I have to, or I'll do something I'm not sure I can live with."

He nodded, and that was enough for both of them. "Let's go do the job, then."

***

Commander Whitney was a big man who sat behind a big desk. Eve knew his day was filled with paperwork and politics, with diplomacy and directives. But it didn't make him less of a cop.

He had skin the tone of glossy oak, and the eyes that beamed out of his wide face were dark and intelligent. There was more gray in his hair than there'd been the year before, and Eve imagined his wife nagged him to deal with it.

Personally, Eve liked it. It added one more aspect of authority.

He listened, and she found his silence during her report both heavy and comforting.

She remained standing when she was finished, and though she didn't glance over at Peabody, she knew her partner was holding her breath.

"Your source on this information is reliable?"

"Sir, as this information came to me through unknown sources, I am unable to vouch for the reliability of same, but I'm convinced the data itself is reliable."

He raised his eyebrows and nodded. "Carefully said. It may stand if and when you're pushed on it. How do you intend to proceed?"

"I intend to disclose this information to Reva Ewing."

"That should make her lawyers stand up and dance."

"Sir, she didn't kill Bissel and Kade. I can't in good conscience withhold this information from someone who is, essentially, another victim."

"No. I just hate seeing lawyers dance."

There was the faintest snort from Peabody, hastily transformed into a cough.

"The PA's not going to be happy," Whitney added.

"He may be happy enough to dance himself if we tie the HSO into a double murder, and the deliberate framing of a civilian. That eventuality would make this case very hot," Eve added when she saw the speculative look in Whitney's eyes. "Hot enough to generate considerable media. Global media, with the prosecuting attorney in the forefront."

"That's interesting, and political thinking, Dallas. You surprise me."

"I can push my mind in a political direction when pressed, and assume you'd be able to expand on that area when briefing the PA."

"You can be sure of it."

"Ewing may also prove useful in providing contacts to assist me in pursing this HSO aspect of my investigation."

"The HSO, once made aware of this aspect of your investigation, will try, very hard, to end said investigation."

Nonaction, she thought. That would be the term, and what they'd want from her.

She'd be damned if they'd get it.

"They have no authority over the NYPSD on a homicide investigation. An innocent woman was implicated, deliberately, in a double homicide."

An innocent child, she thought, couldn't stop the thought, was deliberately ignored and left to be beaten, to be raped. Left to kill to survive.

"That isn't national or global security, Commander, it's just dirty." Her throat was starting to burn, but she ignored it and ordered herself to stay with the facts. To stay with the now.

"A legitimate corporation, for which Ewing works, has a viable government Code Red contract to develop an extermination program to block the alleged plans of a techno-terrorist organization. If the HSO has attempted to hamper the research and development currently underway at Securecomp, that isn't a matter of national or global security either. It's dangerous and self-aggrandizing corporate espionage."

"I can promise you, they'll have a different spin."

"They can spin it until they create a new plane of gravity, it won't alter the fact that two people were brutally murdered, and an innocent civilian deliberately framed for it. The media's already smearing Reva Ewing's name all over the screen. She doesn't deserve it. She nearly died standing as shield for President Foster, because that was her job. No more, no less. She's done her job, no more, no less, for Securecomp, and in doing so will be partly responsible for developing another shield against a threat that could, potentially, shut down the Pentagon, the NSC, the GSC, Parliament, and the damn HSO."