Page 144 of Treachery in Death

While Reineke and Peabody dragged Palmer out the other side, Eve stepped back, let Jacobson deal with Marcell.

“That was some very creative and varied use of the word fuck, Detective.”

“Fucker.” Jacobson snarled it as he shoved Marcell to the ground. “On your fucking face, you fucking shit coward. Stream my lieutenant in the fucking back? Fuck you.”

There was a distinctive snap followed by a scream.

“I seem to have misjudged my step, Lieutenant, and stepped on one of this motherfucker’s fingers. I believe it’s broken.”

“Could’ve happened to anyone.” She crouched down as Jacobson yanked Marcell’s hands behind his back and restrained them. “Your own partner. Detective Jacobson has already eloquently expressed my feelings. I can’t think of anything else to say to a cop who would take part in murdering his own partner.”

“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.”

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