“Sure,” he said.
“Thanks.” She could practically feel him watching her butt as she walked on through the front and around the other side, through the emergency call room where two other cops and the chief were dealing with the frantic spate of calls. They barely looked up when she waved at them and sashayed on through. Ass man. That would explain it.
The evidence room was as jumbled as the broom closet had been. It didn’t really qualify as a room, more a large closet. The lock was laughable, and she picked it in three seconds. It took her almost half a minute to find the bagged articles she was looking for. The fingers would be in the pathologist’s lab at the hospital, of course. Greenville being too small for a hospital of its own, that was at the county seat six or seven miles away. Those weren’t her problem. The Bane Sidhe had made other arrangements. All she needed from here was a plastic zipper bag with a used tissue in it. It took her almost five minutes to find it, but with the air squeezed out of the bag, it was easily concealable on her person. She repressed a laugh as she realized that technically this counted as stuffing her bra, and the visual image of herself carrying twice the ample amount of cleavage was just too much.
“Hey, what are you doing?” a suspicious female voice asked behind her.
Without missing a beat, she palmed a Hiberzine injection from a pocket and turned to face the cop. “Checking something the scumbag told us. This is interesting; have a look,” she said. It was out of character for a federal agent to offer free information to anyone, but curiosity kept the woman from noticing, and she leaned over to peer into the closet, turning her back on Cally O’Neal
Who then had to prop the unconscious body rather awkwardly because of the pack-rattishness of the evidence room.
Hiberzine was so cool.
She tapped her buckley, unnecessarily as it was listening. “Buckley, call Sands. Transmit ‘coffee.’ ” She offered the code word without waiting for the call to pick up. “And leave the connection open.”
She and Sands were both wearing ear dots. They hadn’t dared put any on George, as there was the slimmest possibility those might be noticed.
“I don’t think we’re getting anywhere,” she heard Sands say as if talking to the room. “I’d really hoped we could be done before my partner came back, Mr. Cane.”
That meant there was a hitch. Uh-oh.
“I want my lawyer,” Cally heard George say in the background. Then he started making a credible fuss.
“I’ll take you where you can call one,” Sands said. “Just a little walk.”
The latter was code among law enforcement for a little corporal persuasion of a reluctant suspect. It was a prearranged ruse designed to separate the other two operatives from any local cops who got clingy. Okay, now that she had some idea what the problem was, Cally proceeded to the exit and around the side of the building, adrenaline starting to sing as she heard a blurred mumble in the background.
“Oh, you really don’t have to come along, Chief,” Sands said. “Mr. Cane might be more comfortable the fewer people are present when he calls his attorney.” The words were couched to communicate to the police chief that he need not be involved or culpable in the beating of the suspect.
Another mumble.
“Okay, if you’re really sure you want to come along,” Amy’s voice had developed a slightly sweet note, and Cally filed the information away as a “tell” for when Sands was getting annoyed.
On the other side, the door appeared unlocked. The reason was immediately apparent from the collection of cigarette butts all over the ground. Made sense. The chief was using the suspect’s walk as an excuse to grab a smoke.
“After you, of course, Chief,” Sands offered politely, letting Cally know the man would be first out the door. She palmed her second Hiberzine. Unless it was absolutely impossible, she never went in on an op without half a dozen of the things tucked away somewhere or other.
They featured prominently in her standard go-to-hell strategies, and did not fail her now. Looking down to tap a cigarette out of his pack, he never even saw her before Cally had him injected. George’s hand was wrapped around from behind, covering the man’s mouth in case he got out a yell before going down. Cally suppressed a twinge of pique that he didn’t think her competent enough to take care of one man herself. Didn’t George ever lighten up?
They were in the back of the building, about ten yards from the tree line. “Leave him,” she ordered as he and Sands emerged through the doorway.
George laid the man down against the wall and the three sprinted to the corner of the building and stopped. Cally peeked around the corner and ducked back, turning to plant a fist squarely in George’s left eye, followed by a solid gut punch.
“Ow!” he yelped.
“For effect,” she hissed. “Limp a little.”
They turned the corner and walked briskly back to the car, Sands and Cally again flanking George, only this time Cally reached out and shoved him forward a couple of times before they got to the vehicle and climbed in. There was nobody in sight to witness this playlet, and no windows on this side of the building.
“What the hell was that for? Nobody was looking,” George protested as they drove off.
“Well, they might have been,” Cally said defensively. It had absolutely nothing to do with the implication that she couldn’t handle one damn guy by herself. It didn’t.
Chapter Fourteen
Michael Sunday Privett, also known as “Cargo,” walked into Nathan O’Reilly’s office, took one look at the skinny brunette girl and shook his head. “Oh, no. Fuck no. Father O’Reilly, with all due respect, sir—”
“Hush, son. Just come in and sit down,” the priest ordered him.
As he walked in awkwardly, he looked curiously around the office while trying to get as solid a grip on his professional dignity as he could. At the age of twenty-three, he’d been operational for three years, and he was dead certain he was going to need all his professionalism to deal with this situation. The brunette was wearing contacts and was made up and everything to look about seventeen, but he knew better. Cargo had spent most of his teenage years with little Denise Reardon following him around adoringly and hanging on his every word.
She was a smart kid, and she was damned cute, but the last couple of times he’d been home he’d been all too aware of how precocious little Denise was. She might be skinny, but the kid had a full load-out of hormones and he felt goddamned ridiculous dodging a seventh-grade girl all over the island.
“Sir, I don’t know wha—”
“I said hush, Privett. Sit.”
“Yes, sir.” Cargo sat unhappily on the front half of a chair, back straight, unconsciously drawing on “proper” bearing to get through what he anticipated was about to become a very uncomfortable — more uncomfortable — situation.
“I know you know Miss Reardon, Sergeant Privett. What you may not know is that Miss Reardon is a candidate for professional school.” The head of the Bane Sidhe focused a grave stare on him, as if waiting to see if he needed to be shut up again.
“There is no way, at all, Miss Reardon will be assigned onto a team at her age and without full training. However, just now she has a skill that is very useful. She’s a damned good driver, has a peerless sense of direction—”
Boy, did she ever, Cargo acknowledged. The kid had some kind of weird intuition or something, because she always seemed to guess where he was going next and get there before him.
“—importantly, her, um, tracking skills are exceptionally useful in this case, because she can get you back without a tail more reliably than anyone I’ve got on base. I believe you have the personal experience to appreciate it when I tell you that she is one of the individuals able to effortlessly transfer simulator experience in this type of task to real life.” O’Reilly held a poker face, but Cargo had the uncomfortable certainty he was being laughed at.