Treachery in Death (In Death #32)(69)

“Really, no. I don’t get why,” she began again, “but if you tell me you can’t do it this way in good time, it can’t be done this way in good time. My way,” she corrected. “So do it yours. I mean, not all the way yours. Not the unregistered on this, Roarke.”

“I understand that. I’ll work it as close to your line as I possibly can. All right?”

“Yeah.”

He rocked on his heels as he studied her. “That was a quick spat.”

“Probably because there’s still a little sexual haze.”

“You wouldn’t be wrong. Start your digging. I’ll get the pizza.”

She walked to her board first, circled it, studied it. She rearranged a couple of the photos fanning out from Renee, cocked her head and considered.

“I have to go out,” she told him when he came back in with the platter. She walked over, snagged a slice of the pie. “Ow. Hot.”

He shook his head as she shifted the slice from hand to hand. “Try this,” he suggested, handed her a plate. “Where are we going?”

“Not we. I need to talk to a cop—a female cop in Renee’s squad. Probability is minimal she’s involved in this. Renee doesn’t work with women. She intimidates or eliminates.”

“She hasn’t had any luck intimidating you.”

“Yeah, and that’s a pisser for her. She’s going to face a bigger one when she doesn’t have any luck eliminating me. Strong, Detective Lilah,” Eve told him. “I had a feeling about her the first time I walked into that squad room, and I need to follow my gut on her. And it needs to be a one-on-one.”

“You could tag Peabody rather than go this alone.”

“Then it’s ganging up. I don’t want to intimidate her—mostly because it wouldn’t work unless I put a lot behind it. What I need to do is give her an opening. It’ll give you time to play your geek games without me bugging you.”

“There is that. You’ll engage your wire.”

“Yeah. Everything on record. She’s the new guy,” Eve mused, “but in six months, if she’s any kind of cop, she knows, or senses something’s off. I’m going to give her a chance, and a reason, to talk about it.”

“And if she doesn’t take that chance?”

“I’ve wasted some time. But I’ve got a feeling.”

“Best to follow it then.”

And come back, he thought. To me.

“Couple hours, tops,” she said. She gave him a quick kiss, and he could see her mind was already on her approach as she left.

He stood for a moment, studying the best part of a pizza, and toyed with the button he kept, always, in his pocket. Trust, he reminded himself, was a two-way street. So he’d trust her to do her job, her way. And he’d go do the one he’d agreed to take on, in his.

Eve made the tail in under five blocks.

They were a little sloppy, sure, but she had the advantage of the superlative camera system built into the vehicle Roarke had designed for her.

The tail employed a standard two-vehicle leapfrog, which told her two things. First, she’d worried—or had just pissed off—Renee enough for the woman to order two men to sit on her. And second, Renee wasn’t worried or pissed off enough to delegate a more effective shadow.

Eve engaged her recorder. “I’ve got a tail, a two-point switch-off. Both departmental issues—for Christ’s sake, do they think I’m a moron?”

Really, it was a little insulting.

She read off the makes, models, licenses, then ordered her cams to zoom in on each to document before requesting a standard operator run.

The vehicle currently two blocks behind her was assigned to Detective Freeman. The one breezing by her to circle around the block and take the rear again was assigned to a Detective Ivan Manford.

“We’ll add you to the list, Ivan. Now, let’s play.”

She cut over to Fifth, continued downtown, deliberately falling into a nice little knot of traffic. She faked a couple of attempts to thread through, watched Freeman’s vehicle swing by. Timing it, she pried her way between a Rapid Cab and a gleaming limo, bulled by, and nipped through a light as it went red.

Manford would pass her to Freeman, she knew, until he could move back into position. But that would be a problem as Freeman had cut west. Eve hit vertical, skimmed over a lane, and to the music of angrily blaring horns, flashed east to play her own brand of leapfrog, nipping in front of a lumbering delivery truck whose driver stabbed up his middle finger.

She couldn’t really blame him.

She swung downtown on Lex, punched it, enjoying the speed and the occasional vertical lift, until she headed west again, shoving her way crosstown.

“Chasing your own tails now,” she murmured, and though she preferred street parking, decided on an overpriced lot two blocks from Strong’s building.

She tucked her vehicle between a couple of bulky all-terrains, engaged her security.

Renee, she thought as she strolled through the warm summer night, would be very displeased.

Working-class neighborhood, she noted, with plenty of people also out for a stroll, or hanging out at one of the tiny tables squeezed in front of tiny cafés or sandwich bars. Traffic rumbled by on its way somewhere else. Some of the shops remained open, hoping to entice some trade from the residents who were too busy earning a living to spend their pay during the day.