Treachery in Death (In Death #32)(74)

“You’re letting him go?”

“For tonight.” Eve rolled her shoulder where Garnet’s fist had hit. “I want to see what he does. He’s sure as hell off his leash. I’ll report this—and it’s on record, my wire, your surveillance. Things go right, they can pick him up tomorrow, charge him with assault, assault with a deadly. It’d be enough, I think, for him to bargain, for him to flip on Renee for a deal.”

“You could take him in now, same results.” Roarke handed her the weapon. “You don’t want a deal.”

“You’re damn right I don’t. I want all of them, all the way—and maybe I’ll have enough for that by tomorrow.” She flexed her fingers, shrugged at the scraped knuckles. “But punching him in the face a couple times didn’t suck.”

Roarke tipped her face up, dabbed gently at her lip with a fingertip. “Your lip’s bleeding.”

She disengaged her recorder. “I let him get one in. The f**ker can have the rep of all reps, but that recording, showing him hitting me, drawing first blood, moving in to draw more? Rat in a trap, and no way out of it.”

“I wish you wouldn’t so often use your face as an investigative tool. I’m very fond of it.”

She grinned, then winced as it smarted. “You ought to be used to it. Anyway, thanks for riding to the rescue. You need a white hat. Good guys wear white, right?”

“I look better in black.”

“Let’s go on in. I have to report a rogue cop—and what I’m going to bet is his unregistered weapon.”

“It’s turning into quite a day,” Roarke commented.

It wasn’t over for anyone.

The last thing Renee Oberman needed after suffering through an endless meal that included a lecture from her father was to find Bill Garnet pacing outside her apartment.

One look at his face told her he’d looked for trouble and found it, and he’d brought it to her door.

“Go home, Bill, and put an ice pack on your face.”

He grabbed her arm as she shot her key card in the slot. She’d expected it, but it didn’t make her yank away any less testy.

“I’m not in the mood for this.”

“I don’t give a shit what you’re in the mood for.” He shoved the door open, pushed her inside.

She whirled around, outraged, shocked. “Don’t you ever put your hands on me again.”

“I’ll put more than my hands on you. I’m done, Renee, done doing this your way. Your way got me suspended.”

“You got yourself suspended. You’re out of control, and the way you’re behaving right now only proves it. I told you I’d deal with the rip.”

“Then f**king deal with it.” Under the bruising his face burned, red and livid.

Not just off the leash, Renee realized. He’d snapped it. She tried for a combination of understanding and weariness. “I’m doing everything I can. For Christ’s sake, I went to the bitch personally to plead your case. And I had to humble myself tonight and ask my father to intervene.”

“And will he?”

“He’ll talk to Whitney tomorrow.” But wouldn’t, she knew, interfere with command’s decision. Saint Oberman had made that crystal.

She turned away, crossing over to her kitchen. She pulled a bottle of whiskey from a cupboard, two short glasses from another—and poured two fingers in each.

Her father wouldn’t back her up, and she wondered why she continued to let herself think he would. Not perfect Commander Oberman, oh no. Not by-the-f*cking-book Oberman.

But she put a cool look on her face as she turned with the glasses. No point in letting Garnet know the score while he was on a rampage.

“Have a drink and calm the hell down.”

“I’m not swallowing a suspension, and I’m not getting cut out of the Giraldi deal. I’ll f**k you up, Renee.”

“Understood. So ... who punched you?”

He tossed back whiskey. “Fucking bitch.”

She lowered her glass, had to set it down because the hand holding it shook with rage. “Are you telling me you got into it with Dallas? Are you telling me, goddamn it, Garnet, that you hunted her up and got physical? Again?”

“She earned it. IAB sniffing around me—I got word on it. That whore set them on me, and she’ll get more than what I gave her tonight before I’m done with her.”

IAB—it was a slap in her face, and a singular threat to her business.

Goddamn Garnet. Goddamn Dallas.

“In the f**king name of God! I’m surrounded by idiots. I put Freeman and Manford on a standard tail, and she goes out, and they lose her in five damn minutes. Then you go after her? How the hell did you ...” Fury wanted to choke her. “Freeman told you. You got Freeman to tell you she went out. What the hell did you do, Bill? Don’t tell me, f**king Christ, you went to her house?”

“The house everybody knows she whored herself into.” His knuckles went white on the glass as he gulped down the rest of the whiskey. “So what? Her word against mine, and Freeman will back me. He’ll swear I was with him tonight, and nowhere near that cunt.”

It was falling apart around her, she thought. Men. Goddamn men. She’d be damned if she’d let any of them screw her out of what was hers, what she’d worked for. What she’d built.