Page 136 of Treachery in Death

“I need you to do it now, and on the extreme QT. Since her boy’s back in the basket, she’ll have to start wrangling. And I have something else.”

“How impossible this time?”

“You tell me. She’s got to have eyes, maybe ears, too, on her squad room, on her own office. She’s got to be monitoring or spot checking. Possibly she’s got some sort of alert set up in her office to let her know if anyone goes in when she’s not around. Can you tap into that, give us the feed?”

“Well, for Christ’s sake. Without knowing the system, the placement, the keys, or the alert specs?” He gave her a long, sad look. “Hell, why not? What’s another freaking miracle today?”

“Can you do it really fast?”

“Not as fast as I’d boot your ass if you get within range.”

“I’m bringing my geek in to give you a hand.”

“Send him. You stay away.”

Eve scowled when he cut her off, then turned to Roarke. “Can you do it really fast?”

“Tap in and redirect an unknown and at this point theoretical system with potential and unidentified keys and fail-safes? I wouldn’t mind booting your ass myself. Yes,” he said before she could speak. “Because you’re going to get her out of her office and clear her squad room long enough for me to get in, run and scan, locate and identify, and get out again.”

“How am I supposed to clear her squad room?”

“That, Lieutenant, would come under the heading of your problem. I’ll need five minutes.”

“If I can get you fifteen, there’s something else I want you to do while you’re in there.”

“And what would that be?”

“It involves stealing.”

His face brightened. “I like it already.”

“Just let me pull Peabody in, then I’ll lay it out for you.” Before she could order the code, the ’link signaled in her hand.

“Dallas, I got it!” Peabody all but sang it. “I got it! Over three months of notes, times, locations, overheard snips of conversation. Names—she’d been digging in hard and she listed names she believed to be involved in Renee’s network—and she backed it up with a lot of documentation.”

“Bring it in.”

“You’re not coming here?”

“Change of plans there. Copy it, bring it in.”

“I’m on my way. Jeez, Dallas, I almost missed it. She had it shielded with a layer of jock-shock music. The disc analysis barely gave me a blip—and then it looks like a standard override—before I—”

“Explain later. We’re taking this down tonight. I want you in.”

“Tonight? I’m even more on my way.”

“That’s good work,” Roarke commented to Eve. “If the disc was layered and disguised as an override, it was good work on Devin’s part, and on Peabody’s.”

“I’ll pat her on the back later.” She glanced at the time, calculated. “Here’s what I need you to do once I clear it—and clear the squad room.”

“I take it you’ve figured out how to do that.”

“One cop on the slab, another in surgery, and a third being grilled by IAB? That’s a quarter of her squad right there. I’d say Renee and her men have earned a good talking-to.”

She started setting it up while Roarke finished the drive to Central.

“The commander and Mira,” Roarke commented. “What you’d call a command performance. Concern, a bit of stern disapproval, with a touch of group therapy thrown in.”

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