Divided in Death (In Death #18)(62)

"It isn't the same. It-" She pulled back, like a woman who felt herself sliding over a cliff. "Let's just table that. Concentrate on what is."

"Happy to. What is?"

"The investigation. We should take this upstairs, fill each other in."

"All right." He touched her face, then leaned in, brushed his lips over hers. "We'll do what's most normal for us, for now. Go up and talk about murder, then have a meal with friends. That suit you?"

"Yeah, it does." She made the effort, kissed him back. Then got to her feet. She rolled her shoulders. "This is better. Briefing and a burger. Keeps my mind off Trina and her scary bag of tricks."

Because he wanted her to smile, needed her to, he walked his fingers up her arm as they started upstairs. "What flavor skin cream do you suppose Trina will put on you?"

"Shut up. Just shut up."

***

"This," McNab said as he took in a gulp of tropical air, "is living."

"We're not living. We're investigating. There'll be no living until we've completed the investigative purpose of this trip."

He cocked his head, studied her from behind his fuchsia-tinted sunshades. "You sounded just like Dallas. I find that strangely arousing."

She elbow-jabbed him, but didn't put much behind it. "We're going straight to Waves and interview Diesel Moore regarding Carter Bissel. We'll go by Bissel's residence, speak to any neighbors or associates."

"Now you sound bossy." He gave her butt, currently covered in thin summer pants, a friendly pat. "I like that, too."

"You've got a grade on me, but I'm Homicide." And boy, did she love saying that. "So I'm in charge of this hunting party. And I say first we do the job, then we... live."

"I hear that. Still, we gotta rent transpo."

He slid his gaze to a line of scooters chained outside a hut beside their hotel. They were as colorful and bright as a circus parade, and screamed tourist.

Peabody grinned. "And I hear that."

***

Waves was a hole-in-the-wall joint screwed into a clapboard building on one of Kingston's less welcoming streets. They'd gotten lost twice-or had pretended to get lost as they'd scooted along narrow streets with the island breeze fluttering over their urban cheeks. After some heated debate, they'd agreed that he'd drive to, and she'd drive from. Peabody found it just as much fun to ride pinion with her arms clutched around his waist as it would've been to man the controls.

But as they made their way into the poorer and less hospitable section of the city, she was glad she had her weapon strapped under her summer-weight jacket.

She saw three illegals transactions in a two-block radius, and spotted a pair of funky-junkies jittering together on a stoop. When a flash all-terrain sportster cruised by, and the driver aimed his dark, dangerous eyes at her, she almost wished she was wearing her uniform.

Instead, she aimed hers right back, and deliberately, visibly, laid her hand on her weapon.

"Nasty vibes," she said into McNab's ear as the car gunned and slid off down a side street.

"Oh yeah. Penalties for illegals are stiff as a teenager's dick down here, but nobody seems to care in this sector."

There were sex shops and clubs, and the street LCs who sold the same commodity. But none of them looked particularly alluring. She could hear music pumping out of a few doorways, but the exotic charm of it was lost in the bored and repetitive come-ons of the hookers and the front men.

Tourists might wander in here, she thought, but unless they were looking for sex, illegals, or a blade in the back, they'd hurry out again quick.

They parked the scooter in front of the mean little bar, and while McNab used the chain the rental agent had provided to lock it to a lamppost, Peabody looked around.

"I'm going to try something," she said. "You might have to back me up."

She selected the two young men, one black, one white, sitting on a stoop and smoking Christ knew what out of a black pipe they passed between them. Gearing herself up, she put on her coldest cop face and swaggered up to them. And ignored McNab's hiss of warning from behind her.

"See that scooter?"

The black man smirked, took a long slow drag on the pipe. "Got eyes, bitch."

"Yeah, looks like you've got a pair each." She shifted her weight, used her elbow to ease the jacket back so her badge and weapon peeked out. "If you want to keep them in your skulls, you'll keep them on that scooter. Because if I come back out and it isn't where I left it, in the same condition I left it, my associate and I are going to hunt you down like sick dogs. While he's shoving that pipe up your ass," she said, showing her teeth to the white guy, "I'm going to pop your fellow ass**le's eyes out. With my thumbs."

The white guy bared his own teeth. "Hey, f**k you."

Her stomach jittered, a little, but she kept the fierce and toothy expression in place. "Now, if you talk like that you're not going to earn the nice prize I have for you at the end of our contest. The scooter's there, untouched, when I come back out, I don't haul your ugly asses into a cage for possession and use, and I give you a nice shiny ten credits."

"Five now, five later."

She shifted her gaze to the black. "None now, and none later unless I'm happy with you. Hey, McNab, what happens when I'm not happy?"