She could soak while she toasted Strong’s disgrace and probable imprisonment—and most important, most gratifyingly, the demise of Lieutenant Eve Dallas.
Sentimental bitch wore a wedding ring, she recalled. Interesting piece, unique design. That would be a perfect item to pass to the scapegoat she had in mind—a particularly violent chemi-head who would pawn it at the first opportunity.
It would be easy to pin Dallas’s murder on him, and Garnet’s.
Loose ends snipped, she thought as she got off the elevator on her floor. Better, she’d find a way to be the arrow that pointed the investigators to the goat. That would erase any lingering tinge from the Garnet/ Strong problem, and very likely give her a little boost toward those captain bars.
Really, things were working out even better than she planned.
She breezed through the night-security glow of the squad room, unlocked her office. She called for lights and went straight to the portrait.
“Screw you and everything you stand for.”
She lifted the frame, then spun around at the sound behind her.
Eve swiveled the chair around, smiled. “That’s not a nice way to talk to your father, Renee. Gosh, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“What are you doing in my office? My locked office? You have no right—”
“You’re fast on your feet. I’ll give you that. Faster than the dogs you sicced on me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Please, Renee, they rolled all over you. Marcell was crying for a deal before we had the cuffs on him, and Palmer wasn’t far behind. And even without that?” Eve reached out, tapped her recorder.
Renee’s voice filled the room, arranging for Eve’s death, for Lilah’s.
“Detective Strong’s fine, by the way. Freeman? Not really. He’s pondering his options from a cage right now, like the pitiful pair you ordered to kill me. So’re Armand, Bix, Manford, and at last count five more of your motley crew. You are so completely fucked.”
“You’re bluffing, or you wouldn’t be here alone. So I believe I’ll just contact—”
Eve drew her weapon, aimed it at the middle button of Renee’s power suit jacket. “You’re going to want to pull that piece out very slowly, then set it on the desk and step away. I know you’ve never terminated anyone. Never so much as fired that weapon in your bag or any other—at least not on record. I have, and trust me when I say I wouldn’t hesitate to put you on the ground.”
Renee threw the purse on the desk. “You think you’ve won this? You think I can’t fix this?”
“That’s right. I think I’ve won this. I think you can’t fix this.”
“You haven’t; and I will. It’s your head that’ll roll.”
Not panicked, Eve noted. Pissed. Hoping to give the temper another boost, Eve put a laugh on her face.
“Really? You tried for Strong twice, once with Bix, then with Freeman. Didn’t do so well, did you? Now you think you can take me?”
“She got lucky with Bix. He never misses.”
“He killed Keener—but Keener was a weak junkie. And Garnet. But Garnet was his partner and trusted him. I’d say that makes Bix lucky. They all trusted you, didn’t they, Renee? As far as any of their type can trust. Are you so sure Bix will do what you tell him when he’s looking at life in a concrete cage?”
“He’ll do exactly what I tell him, and say exactly what I tell him. That’s how you command men.”
“Yeah, it takes a lot of balls to tell a man like Bix to slit his own partner’s throat, to stick poison in a junkie’s arm.”
“It takes foresight, vision, brains to develop someone like Bix so he’ll do just that on command. None of your people would do for you what Bix has done, and will do, for me.”
“You’re right about that.”
“That makes you weak. Holding that weapon on me, that makes you weak, too.”
“Does it?”
“Have you got the balls, Dallas?” Renee slipped out of her heels. “Let’s really see who’s in charge here.”
“Are you serious?” Of all the responses, this was the last Eve expected. A shiny bubble of sheer joy rose up in her. “You want to dance with me?”
“Weak. And a coward.”
“Ow, insults. Sting. What the hell. I really want this, too.” Eve set her weapon down, shrugged off her jacket.
As she circled the desk, Renee lowered into a fighting stance.
“Hey.” Eve cocked her head, pointed. “Did you take lessons?”
“Since I was five. You’re going to bleed.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
She took her stance, and they circled each other. She let Renee come at her, blocked the kick, the follow-up, the backhand.
There was power there, she judged, and style, and skill. Renee wouldn’t go down easy; she wouldn’t go down quickly.
So much the better.
She kicked Renee’s fist aside, came in with a hard jab, had it repelled. And took a mid-body blow that burned her belly. The next kick caught her shoulder, zipped pain down her arm. She went with it, used the momentum in her spin, slammed her boot into Renee’s chest with a force that knocked her opponent back into a chair and down.
Fists ready, Eve leaped forward, but Renee jumped up, slammed a kick into Eve’s knee that shot her feet out from under her. She tasted blood now, told herself it woke her up, and when Renee poised to stomp her injured knee, Eve swept out her leg.
This time when her opponent fell there was a satisfying crunch as the table under her collapsed.
They both sprang to their feet, and at each other.
Now it was something like jubilation that shot up Eve’s arm as her fist rammed Renee’s face, and her blood drummed to the cry of pain and rage. She took a blow to her own face, one that had stars exploding in front of her eyes. Flying on them, she twisted, came in low to ram her elbow into Renee’s belly, jerked up her forearm to plant a backfist on Renee’s chin.
“You’re bleeding, bitch,” Eve told her, and caught Renee’s foot on the kick, shoved back.
Renee dropped, rolled, scissored her legs up, beat a double kick to Eve’s hip before gaining her feet.
Bloodlust. Eve felt it pulsing and pumping through her, all primal fury that was somehow a kind of twisted pleasure. Circling, spinning, a blow landed, another taken. Sweat stung her eyes, dripped down her back—and she saw it mixing with the blood smeared on Renee’s face.
Eve knew they were in the same place now, a place where winning was all and the taste of blood lay sweet on the tongue. A place, she knew, where that taste stirred a craving for more.
She told herself to end it, to step back over the line.
“You’re done,” she said. “This is done.”
“I say when it’s done!” Renee launched at her; Eve pivoted to meet the attack. They hit the door like a cannonball and spilled into the squad room in an intimate tangle of violence. They rolled, jabbing fists, hit the side of a desk with a crack like thunder.
Eve stopped the thumb aiming for her eye by gripping Renee’s wrist, twisting it. On a cry of pain, Renee grabbed Eve’s hair, nails gouging scalp, and yanked viciously.
More stars exploded in a field red as blood.
“Fuck me! Hair pulling? That’s it!” She wrenched Renee’s wrist back, reveled in the screech—and with her scalp screaming flipped Renee onto her back. “Pussy.” She balled her fist, drove it once, twice into Renee’s face, reared back for a third, but pulled up short when the grip on her hair dissolved, when the eyes staring into hers went glassy.
“I say when it’s done.” Eve swiped blood from her mouth. “And it’s done. Jesus Christ, it’s done.” She rolled off, sat on the floor, tried to slow the air wheezing into her burning lungs. “Peabody!”
“Sir!” Peabody stepped forward from the crowd of cops—and a particular civilian—who’d already moved into the squad room.