Judgment in Death (In Death #11)(109)

"You'll die painfully for this. Painfully. Do you think you'll walk out of this place breathing?"

"Certainly. Ah, there's my wife now. Lovely, isn't she? And by the sound of things through the scanner your inferior sweepers missed, it appears your team of fools is even now being rounded up and moved along."

He waited while Ricker focused beyond him, through the dome, and saw for himself.

"One of us has lost his touch, Ricker, and it appears to be you. I set you up, and it was child's play."

"For a cop." Eyes wild, Ricker leaped to his feet. "You rolled on me for a cop."

"I'd have done it for a mongrel dog, given half the chance. Ah, please, try for it," Roarke murmured. "And make my life worth living."

"Enough. Roarke, back off." Eve opened the door to the booth, slid her police issue into Ricker's ribs.

"You're dead. You're both dead." He whirled, backhanded Eve as he leaped. She took the blow and dropped him.

"Tell me you had it on full."

"He's stunned, that's all." She wiped the blood from her mouth with her sleeve and ignored the scramble of people who rushed away from the trouble. Onstage, the strippers continued to dance.

Roarke handed her a handkerchief, then reached down, lifting Ricker's head off the floor by his throat.

"Don't -- "

"Keep back," he snapped as Eve crouched to hold him off. "You'll bloody well keep back till I've finished this."

"If you kill him, it's been for nothing."

He stared at her face, and all the strength, the purpose, all the danger he hadn't shown to Ricker leaped out of them. "It would be for everything, but I don't mean to kill him." To prove it, he handed her the Glock.

But he kept the scalpel and, holding its keen point to the pulse in Ricker's throat, imagined. "You can hear me, can't you, Ricker? You can hear me well enough. I'm the one who took you down, and you'll remember it while you're pacing the box they'll put you in. You'll think of it every day with what's left of your mind."

"Kill you," Ricker choked out, but he couldn't so much as lift his hand.

"Well, you haven't managed that as yet, have you? But you're welcome to try again. Listen to me now, and carefully. Touch her, put your hand on what's mine again, and I'll follow you to hell and peel the skin from your bones. I'll feed you your own eyes. I take an oath on it. Remember what I was, and you'll know I'll do it. And worse."

He straightened again, his body rigid. "Get someone to drag him out of here. This is my place."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

She didn't sleep long, but she slept deeply, knowing Ricker was in a cage. He'd screamed for his lawyer, quite literally, once the effects of the stun had worn off.

Since she'd whipped right around and dumped Canarde in a cage as well, Ricker's lawyer was going to be a very busy boy for awhile.

She'd made two copies of every record disc of the operation in Purgatory. She sealed all of them, and secured one copy in her home office.

There would be no lost evidence, no missing data, no damaged files this time around.

And they had him cold.

She told herself it was enough, would have to be enough, then had tumbled into bed. She switched off like a frayed circuit, then came awake with a jolt when Roarke put a hand on her shoulder and said her name.

"What." Instinctively, she reached down where her weapon would have been had she not been naked.

"Easy, Lieutenant. I'm unarmed. And so are you."

"I was... whoa." She shook her head to clear it. "Out."

"I noticed. I'm sorry to wake you."

"Why are you up? Why are you dressed? What time is it?"

"A bit past seven. I had some early calls to take. And while I was at it, one came in. From the hospital."

"Webster," she whispered. She hadn't checked on him the night before after the operation was complete. And now... too late, she thought.

"He's awake," Roarke continued, "and it seems he'd like to see you."

"Awake? Alive and awake?"

"Apparently both. He improved last night. He's still in serious condition, but stable. They're cautiously hopeful. I'll take you."

"You don't need to do that."

"I'd like to. Besides, if he thinks I'm guarding my territory..." He lifted her hand, nipped the knuckle. "It might cheer him up."

"Territory, my ass."

"Your ass is, I'll point out, my exclusive territory."

She tossed the cover aside, and gave him a good view of that territory as she dashed toward the shower. "I'll be ready in ten minutes."

"Take your time. I don't believe he's going anywhere."

She took twenty, because he bribed her with coffee. And she indulged in a second cup as he got behind the wheel. "Do we take him flowers or something?"

"I think not. If you did that, the shock would likely put him back in a coma."

"You're such a funny guy, and so early in the morning, too." She sipped her coffee, bided her time. "That, urn, phrase -- feed you your own eyes? Is that some kind of Irish curse?"