“I want a deal.” Sweat poured down Marcell’s face as she stripped him of his badge, his com, his ’link—and the disposable.
“I bet you do.” I’ll see you in hell first, Eve thought. “You’ll roll on Renee for me, Marcell? Roll like a good dog? Get him out of my sight. Both of them, separate cages, no contact. Read them their rights. Get a medical to treat this asshole’s finger.” She rose, made herself take a calming breath, then looked at her men, made eye contact with each and every one.
“Thank you. Good work.” She leaned back against her car as her men hauled Marcell and Palmer away, and Peabody joined her.
“Are you okay?” Peabody asked her. “I hear a stun stream can hurt through a vest.”
“He had it on high. That’ll add a punch—through a vest and right into the charges against him. Feeney, get your team to take Armand. We’re clear here.”
“They’re moving in now.”
“Copy that. Time for Marcell to give his boss an update.”
“We’ll do that here,” Roarke told her.
“We’ll be heading up then. Let’s put the rest in play.”
Step Four, she thought. Freeman.
In the scrubs and ID he’d lifted from a locker, Freeman slipped up the stairs to the eighth floor. He prided himself on his ability to blend in, considered himself a human chameleon.
He eased the door open, scanned right and left, then slid into the corridor and into the room across it.
Machines beeped and hummed, monitoring whatever poor bastard lay in the bed. Staying out of the range of the camera, he slithered against the wall until he could aim the jammer he carried.
Even as the alarm sounded he was out and into the next room before the ICU team came running. He repeated the process, grinning as the medicals ran by. He hit a third for good measure, then made the dash to 8-C.
By the time they determined it was an electronic glitch, rebooted, did whatever they did for the poor bastards in beds, he’d have done what he’d come to do and be gone.
He moved into 8-C. They kept the lights dim, he noted. Rest and quiet was the order of the day. Well, she’d get plenty of both where he was sending her. He moved to the bed, pulled out the vial in his pocket.
“Should’ve kept your nose out of our business, stupid bitch.”
Baxter stepped out of the shadows, put his weapon to Freeman’s head.
“Who’s the bitch now?” Baxter said as Trueheart stepped between Freeman and Strong. “Who’s the bitch now?”
“Freeman’s secured,” Eve reported.
“They’ve got Runch,” Peabody told her. “And the accountant, Tulis, Addams. They’re rounding up her people like ducks in a pond.”
“With Janburry and Delfino spending some quality time with Bix, I’d say it’s time for the finale.”
Renee sat in her father’s study, loving him with every inhale. Hating him with every exhale.
“You don’t know what it’s like working Illegals today,” she insisted, but kept her tone, her face respectful. “I can’t afford to throw a man to the rats because of a slip. And at first, that’s what I thought was happening with Bill Garnet.”
“Renee, when one of your men uses the very thing you’re fighting against, you have to take action. You’re responsible for the code of your squad.”
Go ahead, she thought, give me the lecture on Marcus Oberman’s standards . I’ve heard it all before.
“I know that perfectly well. Loyalty is vital, you know that, too. I spoke with Garnet, kept it out of his file, but I ordered him to get into a program. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I began to suspect him and one of my other detectives . . . Dad, I have reason to believe two of my people were using my CI to obtain product—for use and profit. I have reason to believe they killed my CI before he could contact me.”
“Bix.”
“No, not Bix. Garnet was using Bix for cover. I think he might have tried to set Bix up for the fall. Lilah Strong.” She rose to pace. “She must have realized I was getting close. It must be why she tried to run today. Two of my people, Dad, betraying their squad, the department, me. Their badges.”
She willed tears to sparkle in her eyes. “It’s my fault.”
“Fault and responsibility aren’t always the same. Renee, if you believed this, if you had any evidence, why didn’t you so inform Lieutenant Dallas?”
“I did.” She spun around. “Just today. She brushed me off, just brushed me off. She’s so focused on Bix—and me. She’s so damn self-righteous.”
“She’s a good cop, Renee.”
She’s a dead cop now, Renee thought. “Better than me, I suppose.”
“That’s not what I said, or meant. You need to take this information to your commander. You should already have done so. You need to contact him and request a meeting, with Dallas included, and give them everything you know, everything you have on this.”
“I wanted to be sure before I ... I’ve been working it on my own. My responsibility,” she reminded him, since it was one of his favorite words.
“Dad, I think they got in deeper than Keener. He was just a weasel. I think they moved up, and it got Garnet killed. I have a line on that. I wanted to follow it through. I know it’s Dallas’s case, but for God’s sake, Dad—Garnet, Strong, even Keener, they’re mine, and I wanted to handle it.”
“I understand that. Command can be lonely, Renee, and it can be hard. But you’re part of a whole, part of a system. You can’t step outside that whole, that system, for your own needs. You owe it to your men to show them true leadership. Two of your people went bad. Now show the rest there’s no tolerance, no half measures.”
“You’re right. Of course, you’re right. I’ll contact the commander, request the meeting.”
“Do you want me to be there?”
She shook her head. “I need to do this on my own. I shouldn’t have brought you into it. I need to go, need to put my thoughts together. Thank you for hearing me out. I’ll make this right.”
“I trust you will.”
“I trust you will,” she muttered as she slammed her car door. It was just like him to lecture and pontificate, to give her that disapproving look because she hadn’t followed straight down the Saint Oberman path.
He’d never know just how far she’d strayed, or how wide she’d beaten her own path. But now he was, again, a useful tool.
When they found Dallas’s body, when Strong expired from her injuries, and she told Whitney what she wanted him to believe, dear Dad would confirm she’d told him all of it. That she had pointed Dallas toward Strong and been rebuffed.
It was all falling neatly into place.
She took out her ’link, pleased to see a trans from Freeman. Within seconds, though, she’d jerked her vehicle to the side of the road to read the text again.
Can’t get to her. Can’t get near her. Surrounded by medicals. Bringing her out of coma tonight. Orders?
“Goddamn incompetence. Do I have to do everything myself?” She beat her fists on the wheel until she could think.
Abort, she ordered.
Didn’t matter if Strong lived, she told herself. She would be discredited. Who’d believe a third-grade detective—and with evidence and doubt planted—against her lieutenant? Against Saint Oberman’s daughter?
No one.
They’d have to look at the safe, of course, when the traitorous bitch told them about it. Renee pulled back onto the road. They’d have to verify what the nosy bitch told them. So she’d clear out the safe, put in copies of the reports she’d put together with her suspicions and evidence linking Garnet, Strong, and Keener.
She’d just tidy up the rest of this mess herself, and then, she thought, in a couple of weeks she’d be taking a well-deserved vacation.
Twenty-Three
RENEE WALKED THROUGH CENTRAL TO TAKE care of business. She wanted a long, hot bath—with the oils she’d bought on her last trip to Italy. And one of her bottles of wine from the vineyard she’d invested in.