“Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to come.” He turned to Reo. “I hope you can temper the law with compassion.”

Eve waited until López left. “What’s the charge?” she asked Reo.

“Second degree.” She glanced at Mira. “With special circumstances. I’ll ask for ten to fifteen, on-planet, minimum security. And she’ll have a full psych eval.”

Eve nodded. “She won’t do the full dime. This isn’t about rehabilitation. It’s about salvation.”

“She needs to pay, Eve.” Mira studied the weeping woman through the glass. “Not only for the law, but for herself. She can’t live with what she’s done unless she does penance. She can’t find that salvation unless she finds forgiveness.”

“I get that. We’ll book her.”

“I’m pretty bummed to be giving up that all-expense paid vacation.” Reo sighed. “I know a decent defense lawyer who’ll take her pro bono. Let me tug that line. Meanwhile, get me that bitch Soto, and sew it up tight.”

“Got that cooking.”

“Keep in touch. Dr. Mira, I’ll see you at Louise’s party.”

“Thanks for coming down,” Eve said to Mira, “for giving Reo your take.”

“I think she’d have come to it on her own. You ran that very well, devastating her at the end, with the knowledge Penny had orchestrated it all. She»tedize’ll reach out to her priest now. She’ll reach out for that salvation.”

“That’s up to her. I ran it so she’d give me what I needed on Penny.”

“That, and the other.”

Eve lifted a shoulder. Maybe.

22

McNAB SASHAYED INTO THE HOMICIDE BULLPEN, and gave Peabody a big, eyebrow-wiggling leer. She stared holes through him. Undeterred, he continued his sashay over to her desk, where he plopped his butt down.

“Move that sorry excuse for an ass. I’m working.”

“You love my sorry excuse for an ass. It’s still got your finger dents in it from last night.”

She sniffed, angled away. “This has nothing to do with sex.”

“Let’s take five.”

“I said I had work.” She swiveled back to him. “Maybe you’ve got all the time in the world to screw around, but I don’t. You’ll be happy to know I’m typing up the report on our interview with Juanita Turner, and the streets of New York are now safe from a grieving mother some greedy, heartless bitch used as a murder weapon.”

His fingers danced over his knee as he studied her furious face. “Okay. Let’s take that five and hash this through.”

“Your head’s as bony as your ass. I just said I’m busy.”

“Right.” McNab glanced over at the next desk. “Hey, Carmichael, you want to watch while Peabody and I fight, then play kiss and make up?”

“Sure.” Carmichael gestured with one hand while peering at data on the comp screen. “Take off your clothes first.”

“Perv,” Peabody muttered, but she pushed up from her desk and strode out.

McNab shot Carmichael a grin, and followed.

“Hey! Does this mean you’re not stripping off?” Carmichael called after them.

“You probably thought that was funny,” Peabody began-and found her back against the wall next to Vending, and her mouth very busy. Heat flashed straight up from her belly and out the top of her head. She managed to catch her breath just as two uniforms passing by stopped to applaud.

“Jeez! Cut it out. What’s wrong with you?”

“I can’t help it. Your lips were right there, and I missed them.”

“God, you’re such an idiot.” She grabbed his hand, pulled him down the corridor. She poked her head into a conference room, then dragged him in after her. “Listen.”

This time her back hit the door, and while her mouth was busy, so were his hands. She forgot herself long enough to grab his sorry excuse for an ass, and squeeze. Then she remembered herself and shoved. “Stop it. You’re such a dick.”

“I might also have dent marks on my dick.” He cocked his head. “But you didn’t mean this wasn’t about sex, you meant you didn’t want it to be about sex. Okay.”

He stepped back and slipped his hands-to her partial and secret regret-into two of his many pockets.

“You’re still in the steam room about this morning, so let me ask you: Do you want me to agree with you about everything?”

“No, but… Maybe. You want me to agree with you about everything.”

“Not so much. I like when you do because then we’re all smug and snuggled up together, which could lead to the sex this isn’t about-or just a good feeling of, you know, solidarity. But I kind of like it when you don’t because then you’re all pissy and hot, and I’m pissy and horny, which again could lead to the sex this isn’t about. But mostly, when you don’t run on my line, it makes me think. And even after, I think if I don’t switch my line to run on yours, it’s okay. Because what you think makes you who you are. And that’s my girl.”

“Well, damn,” she said after a moment. “Damn. You have to go and be all lucid and smart.” No matter how she tried, it seemed it just wasn’t the day for keeping the wind in her sails. “And right. I guess, see I felt sorry for her, for Juanita, and you coming down on the hard line made me feel like maybe I wasn’t a straight enough cop.”

“It’s not what it means.” He gave her a light, affectionate poke in the shoulder. “Bogus, Peabody.”

“Some days I can’t believe I made it here. New York, Cop Central, Dallas, a detective’s shield. And you know somebody’s going to take a good look and say, what the hell, send her back to the farm.”

“You start heading there, think about all the bad guys you’ve helped put away.”

“Yeah.” She took a breath. “Yeah. But… Juanita’s not a bad guy. Not the kind you can just lock up and say, ‘Real good job, have a brew.’ It’s hard to shake, feeling that and knowing that’s just what we have to do.”

He gave her another poke, and a good, straight look in the eye. “Did you make the case?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s all there is. You can’t take on the PA’s job, the judge, the jury. You just make the case.”

“I know. I know. But this one… Dallas worked some stuff. She had Reo and Mira, even the priest. Juanita’s got to go down for it, but not as hard as it could’ve been.”

“The other one’s going down harder. That’s what you and Dallas are aiming for, right? And I’ve got a little something that’s going to help.”

“What?”

“I was on my way to tell Dallas, when I saw you. I got distracted by the She-Body.”

“Let’s go.”

“Hey, maybe we could just take five more to-”

“No.” But she laughed, and gave his ass another squeeze. “Absolutely no. But tonight? Your dents are going to have dents.”

“Hot damn.”

In her office, Eve studied the map on her comp screen. Calculated. There were ways, she thought, and ways to run a con. The problem-and she could work around it if need be-was that every one of the Ortega properties was currently occupied. If she ran an op in any of them, even anything as simple and basic as the sting she had in mind, she would have to move them out.

If anything went wrong, if a civilian got hurt, it would be on her.

But there were ways, she thought, and ways. She turned to the ’link and contacted Roarke’s office. Knowing the routine, she did the obligatory chitchat with Roarke’s admin, Caro.

“He’s in a meeting,” Caro told her, “but I can put you through if it’s important.”

“No.” Could be. “Can you give me an idea when he’ll be done?”

“He has another appointment scheduled in thirty minutes. So I’d say no longer than that.”

“Thirty would be fine for him to get back to me. If it’s longer, I may hit you up for that interruption. Appreciate it.”

“Happy to help, Lieutenant.”

Eve programmed coffee, went back to studying the map. “If you don’t have something for me,” she said when Peabody and McNab came in, “go away.”

“How about a toss-away ’link Juanita Turner didn’t toss away?”