Divided in Death (In Death #18)(90)

***

It took her another two hours to get home, and then she had to catch a ride with Baxter as she'd been ordered not to drive. Since she didn't have anything to drive, it wasn't hard to follow orders.

"I guess I'm supposed to ask you in for a drink now or some happy shit."

"That's right, but I'll take a raincheck. I got a date. Scorching date, and I'm running behind."

"Appreciate the ride."

"That's your best comeback? You're in bad shape. Take a pill, Dallas," he suggested as she eased her aching body out. "Flake out awhile."

"I'm okay. Go bang the bimbo of the week."

"Now that's more like it." He gave a cheery chuckle and drove away.

She limped into the house, but couldn't quite limp past Summerset.

He looked down his nose, sniffed. "I see you've managed to destroy several more articles of clothing."

"Yeah, I thought I'd rip and burn them while wearing them, just to see what happened."

"I assume your vehicle suffered similarly as it's not in evidence."

"It's trash. But then, it always was." She headed for the stairs, but he blocked her path, then scooped up the cat who was trying to climb up her legs.

"For God's sake, Lieutenant, take the elevator. And you may as well take something voluntarily for the pain before you have to be humiliated into it."

"I'm walking it off so I don't stiffen up and start to look like you." She knew it was stubborn, she knew it was stupid, but she took the stairs. The worst was, if he hadn't been there at the door, lurking, she'd have taken the damn elevator in the first place.

She was dripping with sweat by the time she made it to the bedroom, so she simply stripped off her ruined clothes, tossed her weapon and her communicator on the bed, and whimpered her way into the shower.

"Jets on half power," she ordered. "One hundred degrees."

The soft spray of hot water stung, then soothed. She braced her hands against the tile wall, dipped her head, and let it flow over her.

Who had they been after? she wondered. Her or Sparrow? She was betting on herself. Sparrow, and the civilians in the line of fire, were just what they'd call collateral damage. So why try to take her out, and why hadn't they done a better job of it?

Sloppy, sloppy, she thought. It's all been sloppy.

"Jets off," she grunted, and feeling a bit steadier, stepped out of the shower.

She knew her heart shouldn't have jolted when she saw Roarke. Summerset-the big, fat tattletale-would have told him.

"The MTs cleared me," she said quickly. "I'm just banged up, that's all."

"I can see that. You don't want the drying tube. The hot air won't do you any good. Here." He picked up a bathsheet, walked to her, and wrapped it gently around her. "Do I have to force a blocker on you?"

"No."

"Well, that's something." He feathered his fingers over the abrasions on her face. "We may be angry with each other, Eve, but you should have contacted me. I shouldn't have heard you'd been in an accident from a damn media bulletin."

"They didn't release names," she began, then trailed off.

"They didn't have to."

"I didn't think. I'm sorry, I really didn't think about it. It's not because I'm-whatever I am with you right now. I didn't think about the media, or that you'd hear anything about it until I got back and could tell you myself."

"All right. You need to lie down."

"I'll take the blocker, but I'm not going down. AD Sparrow's bad. He was with me. His spine's messed up, and there's severe head trauma. The passenger side was-shit. Shit. I don't know how he lived through it. It was a short-range missile."

She scooped her hair back and went into the bedroom to sit.

"You said missile."

"Yeah. Probably one of those nifty one-man jobs. Handheld launcher. He must've fired from the roof across from Central. Had me staked out. Maybe Sparrow, but I'm thinking me. To mess up the investigation? To mess you up? Both?" She shook her head. "Maybe to put the HSO on the hot seat, taking out a cop when they couldn't get her to pass the investigation over to them. Maybe to throw the suspicion onto the terrorists."

He handed her a small blue pill and a glass of water. "Your word you'll swallow it or I'll check under your tongue."

"I'm not quite feeling up to sex games. Leave my tongue alone. I'm swallowing it."

Some of the warmth came back in his eyes as he sat beside her. "Why isn't it the HSO or Doomsday?"

"Not very covert to launch a missile at a cop car in New York traffic in the middle of the day. If they wanted me out, they'd find a more subtle way and without losing one of the assistant directors in the process."

"Agreed."

"So, this is like a quiz?"

"The MTs may have cleared you, but you look as if you've been run over by a truck. I'd like to see if you're thinking clearly at least. Why not Doomsday, then? Subtle isn't their style."

"First, technos don't send a man out to shoot missiles. That's why they're technos. And if they did break pattern, they wouldn't have missed. And it was a miss. Couple of feet down, hit the car broadside, and we're gone. They send somebody to take out a cop and/or an operative, they're not going to be so half-assed about it. Plus, I think they'd have gone bigger. If they could get a man into position, why not use a bigger toy, and take out a chunk of Central? Hit Cop Central and you've got the kind of media foray they love. Take out a car, and it's a little bulletin. Not big. This has the earmark of desperation or temper, not organization. How'm I doing?"