by J. D. Robb
“She’s strong. She’s young and strong and healthy. It weighs on her side. You know that.”
Broken. Shattered. Fractured. “Go tell him. Feeney’s here, Feeney’s with him. Go tell them.”
“Come, sit down then.” Gently, he kissed her forehead, her cheeks. “Wait with them. We’ll all wait together.”
“Not yet. I’m okay.” She eased back, but took his hands, squeezed them before releasing them. “I just need to settle down. And I . . . I need to contact some people. I need to do . . . things, or I’ll go crazy.”
He drew her to him again, held tight. “We won’t let her go.”
An hour ticked by, minute by endless minute.
“We get any more?”
Eve shook her head at Feeney. She’d taken to leaning up against the wall outside the waiting area when she wasn’t pacing. The waiting room had started to fill with cops. Uniforms, detectives, civilian drones, who settled in to wait or stopped by for news.
“Her family—”
“I talked them into staying put, at least until we know more.” She sipped from another cup of coffee. “As soon as we do, I’ll give them her status. I played it down, a little. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but—”
“Nothing they can do, for now.”
“Right. If they have to get here, Roarke’s already made arrangements for transpo. How’s McNab?”
“Hanging on by a couple of greasy threads right now, but hanging all the same. Helps to have other cops around.” His eyes went to slits. “He’s meat, Dallas. There’s not one badge in the city who won’t put in the time to track him now he came after one of ours.”
“He’s meat,” Eve agreed. “And he’s mine.”
She stayed leaning against the wall, only turning her head when she heard the clip of heels. She’d been expecting them.
Nadine streamed down the corridor, two uniformed officers at her back.
Good, was all Eve thought. She needed the distraction of going a round with someone.
But Nadine stopped in front of them, laid one hand on Feeney’s arm, the other on Eve’s. “How is she?”
Friendship first, Eve realized. When it came to the wire, friendship crossed the line first. “She’s still in surgery. Nearly two hours now.”
“Did they give you any idea when—” She stopped herself. “No, they never do. I need to talk to you, Dallas.”
“Talk.”
“Alone. Sorry, Feeney.”
“No problem.” He slipped back into the waiting area.
“Is there somewhere we can sit down?” Nadine asked.
“Sure.” Eve simply slid down the wall until her butt met the floor. And looking up, sipped her coffee.
After a tap of her foot and a shrug, Nadine sat on the floor beside her. “As far as Peabody’s concerned, I won’t air anything you don’t want aired. That’s for her.”
“Appreciated.”
“She’s my friend, too, Dallas.”
“I know she is.” Because her eyes stung, she closed them. “I know it.”
“You give me what you want out there, and I’ll get it out. Now let’s take a minute to discuss the gorillas you’ve put on my tail.”
Eve looked over at the uniforms, satisfied they were—per her orders—burly guys and seasoned. “What about them?”
“How do you expect me to work with a couple of storm troopers in my shadow?”
“That would be your problem.”
“I don’t—”
“He went after her, he could go after you. We were on screen together. Little push,” she murmured. “A little push. I didn’t expect him to go for Peabody.”
“He was supposed to go for you.”
“Makes more sense, goddamn it. I’m primary. I’m in charge. But he goes for my partner. So he could go after you. Working through the lineup, I get that now. Wants me to see he can take out my people under my nose. Wants me to know it before he comes for me.”
“I can follow the dots, Dallas, but it doesn’t address how I’m suppose to gather data and report same when I come as a trio, and two of that trio are badges. Nobody’s going to talk to me.”
“Deal with it,” Eve snapped. “Just fucking deal, Nadine. He’s not going to put his hands on another friend. He doesn’t get the chance for another.”
Nadine studied the icy rage on Eve’s face, and said nothing. She leaned back, took the coffee out of Eve’s hand, sipped. “Tastes like warm piss,” she commented, then sipped again. “No, maybe a little worse than that.”
“It’s not so bad after the first gallon.”
“I’ll take your word,” she decided, and handed it back. “I don’t want him to get his hands on me. I do want to mention I know how to take precautions. Particularly after my own romp in the park with a homicidal maniac a year or so ago. And I haven’t forgotten who got me out of that. I’m also smart enough, and have a healthy enough sense of self-preservation to accept that there might be times I need someone to take an interest in my welfare. So I’ll deal, Dallas.”
She shifted, looking for comfort on the hard floor. “And actually, the one on the left is kind of hot.”
“Try not to have sex with one of my men when he’s on duty.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself. I’m going to go see McNab for a minute.”
She nodded. Eve considered pacing again, or just closing her eyes and pushing herself into oblivion. Roarke came out before she’d decided, crouched in front of her.
“It might be an idea to go down, get some food—other than the slop available through vending—for the horde in there.”
“Trying to give me something to do with myself?”
“Both of us.”
“Okay.”
He straightened, took her hand to pull her to her feet.
“It just seems like we should know something more by now. It just seems like—”
She looked toward the elevators and saw Louise and Charles rushing in.
“News?” Charles demanded.
“Nothing. Nothing for over an hour now.”
“I’ll go into surgery.” Louise squeezed Charles’s arm. “I’ll scrub up, get a look for myself.”
“That’ll be better,” Eve said when Louise dashed off. “We’ll know more, and that’ll be better.”
“What can I do?” Charles gripped Eve’s hand. “Give me an assignment—something.”
She looked into his eyes. The friendship deal came in a lot of layers, she thought, a lot of measures. “Roarke and I were talking about getting some food for everybody.”
“Let me take care of that. I’ll just go let McNab know we’re here, and I’ll take care of it.”
“It keeps rippling, doesn’t it?” Roarke watched Charles move through the groups of cops to where McNab stood. “All the people, the relationships, the connections. Lieutenant.” He framed her face with his hands, kissed her gently on the forehead. “It wouldn’t hurt you to find a flat surface, close your eyes for a few minutes.”
“Can’t do it.”
“I didn’t think so.”
She waited. And felt she was at the center of a vortex as she contacted or was contacted by Whitney, Mira, Peabody’s family. Cops came. Some went, more stayed. EDD and Homicide, uniforms and rank.
“Get McNab,” she murmured to Roarke when she spotted Louise. “Keep it low. I don’t want the whole department out here when she fills us in.”
Bracing herself, she stepped forward to meet Louise. “Roarke’s getting McNab, so you only have to say it once.”
“Good.” She wore scrubs now, pale green and baggy. “I’ll go back, observe, but I wanted to give you what I could.”
Roarke came out with McNab, with Feeney and Charles. The first circle, Eve supposed, of all those spreading ripples.
“Are they finished?” McNab said quickly. “Is she—”
“They’re still working on her. It’s going well. She’s got a solid surgical team, Ian, and she’s holding her own.” She reached o
ut, took his hands. “It’s going to take a while longer. There was extensive damage, and the fact is she’s undergoing more than one surgery. Her vitals are good, and everything that can be done is being done.”
“How much longer?” Eve demanded.
“Two, three hours more. At least. She’s critical, but she’s holding. Now I’m going to suggest you go down and give blood. It’s something positive you can do. I’ll go back in, observe. The head of the surgical team will give you more details when it’s done, but I’ll keep you updated as much as possible.”
“Could I go in with you? If I scrubbed—”
“No.” Louise leaned in, kissed his cheek. “Go down, give blood. Do the positive, think strong thoughts. Those things matter, I promise.”
“Okay, I’ll go down now.”
“We’ll both go down,” Feeney said, then jerked his chin toward the waiting room. “We’ll go down in shifts. Time we’re finished, you’ll have more cop blood in this place than you know what to do with.”
A little woozy from the loss of a pint of blood—Eve would rather have lost it through injury than by syringe—she sat back in the waiting area. Her hands stayed in Roarke’s while her mind drifted.
She thought of the first time she’d seen Peabody, looking efficient in her uniform. There’d been a body between them. There was always another body.
She remembered when she’d pulled Peabody off patrol and into Homicide as her aide. And how Peabody had nearly “Sir, yes, sir’d” her to death in the first hour.
Those days were over.
Hadn’t taken the smart mouth long to surface—in, over, and around the “sirs.”
Stood up for herself is what she did. Respected the rank, but stood up for herself. Learned fast. Quick brain, good eyes. Good cop.
God, how much longer?
Fell for a detective who turned out to be a wrong cop. Shook her confidence, hurt her feelings. Then McNab had pranced in. Charles had glided. But in spite of the looks of that strange triangle, it has always been McNab.
A couple of hard bumps and they’d bounced away from each other. Bad feelings, bitter words. Spitting at each other if they were in the same space more than ten seconds. Bounced back together eventually. Maybe that’s what people did, bounced back where they were supposed to be, bumps or not.
“Eve.” At Roarke’s voice, she stirred, blinked her eyes open. And followed his look toward the doorway and Louise.
She got up quickly, joined the group already gathering around Louise.
“She’s out of surgery. They’ll be bringing her into Recovery, and the surgeons will come through shortly to talk to you.”
“She came through it.” McNab’s voice was hoarse with fatigue and emotion. “She came through.”
“Yes. She’s critical, and they’ll almost certainly put her in ICU for the time being. She’s in a coma.”
“Oh, God.”
“It’s not unusual, Ian. It’s a way for her body to rest, to recover. The early scans look good, but she’ll need more. They’ll need to keep a close eye on her for the next several hours.”
“She’ll come out of it.”
“There’s every reason to believe so, yes. There are some concerns—the kidney, for instance. But she came through the surgery well. Strong.”
“I can see her, right? They’re going to let me see her.”
“Absolutely. In just a little while.”
“Okay.” That seemed to settle him. The shakes smoothed out of his voice. “And I can just sit with her, until she wakes up. She shouldn’t wake up alone.”
“I’m sure you can. No more than two in the room at once. But it’ll be good for her to know someone’s there. She will know,” Louise promised. “She’ll know.”
Eve took her turn, stepping in with Roarke while McNab hovered just outside the room in ICU. She’d prepared herself, but it wasn’t enough.
Nothing would’ve been enough to brace her for that first look.
Peabody lay on the narrow bed, tethered by more tubes than Eve cared to count. Maybe the steady hum and beep of monitors was supposed to be reassuring, but they made her jittery.
But she could have taken that. She’d visited hundreds of victims, fellow cops, perps in hospital rooms, and knew what to expect.
But none of them had been Peabody lying utterly still with her face so bruised it was barely recognizable.
The sheet covered her to the neck, but Eve imagined there were many other bruises under it. Strapping, bandaging, suturing, and God knew what under that white sheet.
“They’ll treat the bruising,” Roarke said from behind her. “It wouldn’t have been a priority.”
“He broke her face. The son of a bitch.”
“And he’ll pay for it. Look at me. Eve.” He turned her, gripped her arms tight. “She’s mine almost as much as she’s yours. I’m in this until the end of it. I want my chance at him as well.”
“It can’t be personal. That’s the primary rule on any investigation. And that’s bullshit.” She stepped away from him, stepped toward the bed. “That’s just raging bullshit, because it’s as personal as it gets. He doesn’t get by doing this to her. So yeah.” She looked up, met his eyes, then turned her icy gaze to Peabody. “We’re both in it, till the end.”
She leaned over, spoke quiet and clear. “I’m going to kick his ass for you, Peabody. You’ve got my word on it.” She reached out, then hesitated, unsure where to touch. In the end, she laid her hand on Peabody’s hair. “We’ll be back.”
She waited as Roarke bent to touch his lips to Peabody’s bruised cheek, then her lips. “Soon. We’ll be back soon.”
They went out to where McNab and Feeney waited.
“He messed her up bad.” McNab’s eyes looked hollow, like caves of anger and anguish.
“Yeah, yeah, he did.”
“I want to be there when you take him down. I want to be there, Lieutenant, but . . . I can’t leave her. I can’t leave until . . . until she wakes up.”
“As far as I’m concerned, that’s your primary assignment.”
“I could do some work from here, while I was sitting with her. If I had the equipment, I could do runs or data searches, anything. We’re still trying on the Transit discs. I could keep punching that.”
“I’ll get your work,” Eve promised.
“And I’ll get you what you need to do it.” Feeney laid a hand on his shoulder. “You go on, son, sit with her. I’ll bring you what you need.”
“Thanks. I don’t think I’d’ve made it through tonight if . . . thanks.”
Feeney drew a long breath when they were alone, and his eyes were bright and fierce. “We’re going to burn this bastard.”
“Damn right,” Eve promised.
She’d start at home, shower off the night, marshall her thoughts and resources. The moment they walked in, Summerset was there.
“Detective Peabody?”
He might be an asshole, Eve thought, but right now he looked like an asshole who hadn’t slept, and who was carrying a load of worry.
“She came through it. She looks like somebody tossed her in front of a train, but she came through.”
“She’s in ICU,” Roarke continued. “She hasn’t regained consciousness yet, but they’re hopeful. McNab’s with her.”
“If I can be of any help.”
Eve had started up the stairs, but now she stopped, looked down on him, and considered. “You know how to run the unregistered?”
“Of course.”
“I’m taking Roarke with me, so you’re on e-duty. I’m going to get a shower, then I’ll tell you what you’re looking for.”
“Tell me what you’re looking for,” Roarke prompted when they reached the bedroom.
“I have to think it through.”
“Think out loud, while we both grab a shower.”
She worked up the energy to narrow her eyes at him. “Shower’s strictly for body maintenance.”
“I consider sex bod
y maintenance, but we’ll catch up with that another time.”
She talked it out while the hot water helped rinse some of the fog out of her head. And, though she hated them and the jumpy way they made her feel, she popped a Stay-Up, shoved a couple more in her pocket for later.
“Maybe I’m off, but I want to turn all the stones.”
“Whether you’re on or off,” Roarke replied, “we’ll turn the stones and see what’s under them. You’re going to eat.”
“We can chomp a couple nutribars on the way.”
“No. Foot firmly down on this one. Fuel. You’ll shovel in some fuel. It’s barely six in the sodding morning,” he reminded her as he programmed the AutoChef. “You want to interview the witnesses, you’ll do better when they’re awake.”
He had a point, and arguing would only slow things down. So she sat, shoveled in what he put in front of her.
“You said something to McNab, about how it feels when somebody—when somebody you love gets hurt. I’ve put you through that a few times. Maybe not as bad as this, but—”
“Close enough,” Roarke replied.
“Yeah. I . . . How do you stand it?” Hints of the fear and the worry of the night eked through. “How do you get through it?”
He said nothing, only took her hand and, watching her over it, brought it to his lips. It made her eyes sting again, and her throat constrict and burn. So she looked away.
“I can’t let go, even a little. It feels like if I let go at all, I’ll just break to pieces. And I can’t stop. I’ve got to keep moving, keep going forward, and I have to keep telling myself there’s going to be payment. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, there’s going to be payment.”
She shoved her plate away and stood. “I’m supposed to say justice. There’ll be justice, and I’m supposed to mean it. But I don’t know if it’s going to be enough. I should step back from it. If I don’t know if that’s enough, I should step back, but I won’t. I can’t.”
“And will you continue to ask more of yourself than is human?”
She reached down, picked up her badge. She studied it for a long moment before she slid it into her pocket. “Yeah. Let’s get started.”
She briefed Summerset, kept it short, to the point, then headed out to her car. “I can’t believe I’m asking him to commit an illegal act.”
