Vengeance in Death (In Death #6)(27)

She sat now, pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Who else helped you?”

“It’s difficult to say. I talked to dozens of people, gathered data and rumor, and went on. There was Robbie Browning, but I’ve checked on him already. He’s still in Ireland, a guest of the government for another three to five. Jennie O’Leary, she’s in Wexford running a bed and breakfast of all things. I contacted her yesterday so she would be on the alert. Jack — “

“Goddamn it.” Eve thumped both fists on the table. “You should have given me a list the minute I told you about Brennen. You should have trusted me.”

“It wasn’t a matter of trust.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No.” He grabbed her hand before she could shove away. “No, it wasn’t. It was a matter of hoping I was wrong. And a matter of trying not to put you in the very position I’ve just put you in.”

“You thought you could handle it without me.”

“I’d hoped I could. But as Summerset’s being set up, that’s no longer an option. We need your help.”

“You need my help.” She said it slowly as she tugged her hand free of his. “You need my help. That’s great, that’s fine.” She rose. “Do you think anything you’ve just told me takes the heat off of him? If I use it, you’ll both go into a cage. Murder, first degree, multiple charges.”

“Summerset didn’t murder anyone,” Roarke said with characteristic cool. “I did.”

“That hardly takes the pressure off.”

“You believe him then?”

He’s what I have left. She let Summerset’s words, the passion behind them, play back in her head. “I believe him. He’d never involve you. He loves you.”

Roarke started to speak, closed his mouth, and stared thoughtfully at his own hands. The simple statement, the simple truth behind it rocked him.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She said it more to herself, just to hear the words out loud. “I have to pursue the evidence, and I have to go carefully by the book. Officially. If that comes down to me charging you,” she aimed a level look at Summerset, “then that’s what I’m going to do. The only way you’re going to help yourself is to give me everything. You hold back, it works against you. I’m going into this with both hands tied behind my back. I’m going to need yours,” she said to Roarke.

“You have them. Always.”

“Do I?” She smiled humorlessly. “The evidence points to the contrary. And I’m hell on evidence, Roarke.” She walked to the door but didn’t yet disengage the locks. “I’ll clear your bony ass, Summerset. Because that’s my job. Because not all cops turn their backs. And because this cop keeps her eyes and ears open.” She shot one last fulminating look at Roarke. “Always.”

She opened the locks and stalked out.

CHAPTER SIX

Peabody knew when to keep her mouth shut and her thoughts to herself. Whatever had been said in the interview room off record hadn’t put her lieutenant in a cheerful state of mind. The lieutenant’s eyes were hot and broody, her mouth grim, and her shoulders stiff as a board of black market oak.

Since Eve was currently driving uptown behind the wheel of a not entirely reliable vehicle — and Peabody was in the passenger seat — the lieutenant’s aide chose the better part of valor.

“Idiots,” Eve muttered, and Peabody was dead certain she wasn’t referring to the stream of jaywalking tourists who barely missed being mowed down by a maxi-bus.

“Trust, my ass.”

At this, Peabody merely cleared her throat and frowned sternly at the smoke-obscured corner of Tenth and Forty-first where a pair of glide-carts were dueling over territorial rights. Peabody winced as the operators rammed their carts together. Metal sang against metal once, twice. At the third butt, a funnel of flame shot skyward. Pedestrians scattered like ants.

“Oops” was Peabody’s comment, and she resigned herself when Eve swung her vehicle to the curb.

Eve stepped out into the smoke, caught the scent of scorched meat. The operators were too busy screaming at each other to notice her until she elbowed one of them aside to reach the regulation extinguisher hanging on the corner of the nearest cart.

There was a fifty-fifty shot that it would contain anything but air, but luck fell on her side. She coated both carts with foam, snuffing out the fire and eliciting a stream of furious Italian from one operator and what might have been Mandarin Chinese from the other.

They might have joined forces and jumped her, but Peabody stepped through the stink and smoke. The sight of a uniformed cop had both operators satisfying themselves with threatening curses and vicious glares.

Peabody scanned the crowd that had gathered to watch the show, and furrowed her brow. “Move along,” she ordered. “There’s nothing more to see here. I always wanted to say that,” she murmured to Eve, but got no quick, answering grin in response.

“Make their day perfect and write them up for creating a public hazard.”

“Yes, sir.” Peabody sighed when Eve walked back to the car.

Ten minutes later, and in silence, they pulled up in front of the Luxury Towers. The droid was on duty at the door and only nodded respectfully when Eve flashed her badge and walked by him. She headed straight to the elevator and stood dead center of the glass tube as it shot them up to the twelfth floor.