Loyalty in Death (In Death #9)(46)

“Yeah, but we’re bigger and better, too.”

It made him smile a little. “Goddamn right.”

Eve rubbed her eyes when she was alone with Peabody. The scant three hours’ sleep she’d managed was threatening to fog her brain. “Man the computer in here. As Malloy’s teams report in, adjust the list. I’ll report in to Whitney, then I’ll be in the field. Keep me updated.”

“You could use me in the field, Dallas.”

Eve thought of how close she’d come to getting her aide blown to pieces once already and shook her head. “I need you here,” was all she said, and headed out.

An hour later, Peabody swung between being miserably bored and outrageously edgy. Four buildings had been tagged clean, but there were another dozen to go with just under two hours until noon.

She wandered the room, drank too much coffee. She tried to think like a political terrorist. Eve could do that, she knew. Her lieutenant could slide into the mind of a criminal, walk around in it, visualize a scene from the eyes of a killer.

Peabody envied that skill, though it had occurred to her more than once it couldn’t be a comfortable one.

“If I were a political terrorist, what building in New York would I want to take out to make a statement?”

Tourist traps and lures, she thought. The problem was she’d always avoided that kind of thing. She’d come to New York to be a cop and had deliberately — as a matter of pride, she supposed — avoided all the usual tourist havens.

The fact was, she’d never been inside the Empire State or the Met until Zeke…

Her head came up, her eyes brightened. She’d call Zeke. She knew he’d studied his guide disc front and back and sideways. So where would he, as an eager tourist from Arizona, most like to attend a weekday matinee?

She turned from the window to start toward the ‘link, then scowled when McNab strolled in.

“Hey, She-Body, they dump you on desk duty, too?”

“I’m busy, McNab.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” He wandered to the Auto-Chef, poked. “This thing’s out of coffee.”

“Then go drink somewhere else. This isn’t a damn cafe.” She wanted him out and gone on general principles, and because she didn’t want him smirking when she called her little brother.

“I like it here.” Partially because he wanted to know, and partially to annoy her, he leaned over her monitor. “How many have been eliminated?”

“Get away from there. I’m manning this unit. I’m working here, McNab.”

“What are you so touchy about? You and Charlie have a spat?”

“My personal life is none of your business.” She tried for dignity, but something about him always put her back up. She marched over, elbowed him aside. “Why don’t you go play with your motherboard?”

“I happen to be part of this team.” To irritate her, he plopped his butt on the table. “And I outrank you, sweetheart.”

“Only through some obvious glitch in the system.” She jabbed her finger in his chest. “And don’t call me sweetheart. The name is Peabody, Officer Peabody, and I don’t need some half-wit, skinny-assed e-man breathing down my neck when I’m on assignment.”

He glanced down at the finger that had jabbed twice more into his chest. When he lifted his gaze, she was mildly surprised to see his usually cheerful green eyes had gone to pricks of ice. “You want to be careful.”

The chilly steel of his voice surprised her, too, but she was too far in to back off. “About what?” she said and gleefully jabbed him again.

“About physically assaulting a superior officer. I’ll only tolerate so much of your abuse before I start dishing it back out.”

“My abuse. You come sniffing around every time I blink with your lame comments and innuendoes. You try to horn in on my cases — “

“Your cases. Now she’s got delusions of grandeur.”

“Dallas’s cases are my cases. And we don’t need you poking into them. We don’t need you strolling in for comic relief with your stupid jokes. And I don’t need you asking questions about my relationship with Charles, which is completely private and none of your damn business.”

“You know what you do need, Peabody?”

Since she’d raised her voice to a shout, he did the same. And he was up, toe to toe, nearly nose to nose.

“No, McNab, just what do you think I need?”

He hadn’t intended to do it. He didn’t think. Well, maybe he had. Either way, it was done. He’d grabbed her arms, he’d yanked her hard, and his mouth was currently doing a damn fine job of devouring hers.

She made a sound, something that was reminiscent of a swimmer inhaling water by mistake. Somewhere under his bubbling temper was the knowledge that she was likely to kick his ass the minute she recovered from the shock. So, what the hell, he gave the moment all he had.

He trapped her between the table and his body, and took as much of her in as a man could in one, long, greedy gulp.

She was paralyzed. It was the only rational explanation as to why the man still had his mouth on her instead of lying broken and bleeding on the floor.

She’d had some sort of a stroke or… Oh my God, who’d known an annoying little twit could kiss like this?