Page 93 of Devoted in Death

“Is this just a bad dream?”

“Fast, Reo. For the facilities, for the books, for the works. It ties in with the spree killings, and they got another last night.”

The rustling signaled Reo was pulling herself out of bed. “Give me the data again, and give me some probable cause.”

“Bubba’s about to assault one of my detectives.”

“‘About to’?”

“Anytime now. If you have to wait until that happens, you could get the rest set up. The latest vic turned twenty-one the day after Christmas.”

“Don’t hang that on me. Hell. Give me a few minutes. I used to sleep with a guy who knows a guy.”

Eve smiled when Reo clicked off.

“It doesn’t work so different,” Banner commented. “Where I’m from? Smaller scale, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t work so different from here.”

“Cops are cops. Peabody, hold the fort here. Banner, you’re with me. It might be handy to have you on the interview.”

“You’re going to be good cop,” Peabody warned him.

“With a little good old boy tossed in?”

Eve nodded. “That’ll work.”

She took the elevator down to the holoroom, working out the strategy in her head on the way.

“How many rooms in this place?” Banner wondered.

“I don’t have a clue. I keep finding ones I’d swear weren’t there before.”

“How long you lived here?”

“Three years. Three years,” she repeated with some wonder of her own. “Jesus, how did that happen?”

“You mind me asking something?”

“Didn’t you just?”

“Another something. Was Roarke really... well, what you’d call a thief?”

Eve kept her voice mild, her face inscrutable. “I never caught him stealing anything.”

Humor danced into Banner’s eyes. “Neither did anybody else from what I hear.”

He stepped out with her into the blank slate of the holoroom.

“I thought he’d be different.”

“Different than what?” Eve asked as she puzzled over how to program what she needed.

“Than he is. I didn’t expect him to be so amiable.”

“‘Amiable.’” She glanced back with a half laugh.

“I figured he’d be more... stiff, I guess. And what you’d call highfalutin. Not somebody I’d be easy having a beer with. Can I ask what you’re looking to do here?”

“He’s got it in here,” Eve muttered. “He would. I want one of my interview rooms. We’re going to pull Jambo into it.”

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