The in Death Collection Books 11-15 - J. D. Robb [706]
He came at her. A silent, panther leap. Her fist shot out, rammed into his chin. As his head snapped back, she drew her weapon. But Peabody flipped out her stunner and nailed him.
“Damn it.” Eve, slapped her hands on her hips when he lay sprawled at her feet. “I wanted to do that.”
“So did I, and I beat you. Besides, you got to pop him first. Teamwork.”
“Yeah.” Eve smiled, but it still didn’t reach her eyes. “Nice teamwork, Peabody.”
Roarke corroborated the opinion when he met her in her office a few minutes later.
“The two of you played him like a violin. That’s superior virtuosity when you figure you’d only met him once before.”
“I knew him.”
“You did, yes. Knew precisely what would get under his skin and push him to pontificate. Well done, Lieutenant.”
“Not yet. It’s not done yet.” She heard the arguments, the raised voices coming through the bullpen toward her office. “But here comes the next stage. You want to hang in for this?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for worlds.”
“Of which you own several,” she murmured before Chang burst into her office like a tsunami.
“You will issue a statement. I’ve written it. You’ll issue this statement immediately, taking full responsibility for passing misinformation to a media representative.” He slapped both disc and hard copy down on her desk. His hair was wild; his eyes feral.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m telling you to do it. Because this is the last time you’ll undermine my work. The last time you’ll make a mockery of what I do.”
“What you do is a mockery, Chang.”
He took a step toward her. She was fairly certain he envisioned clamping his hands around her throat and squeezing until her eyes popped out. But whether it was the dare in her eyes or Roarke’s presence, he resisted.
“You leak a story to the media before its time. You use your influence with an on-air reporter to push forward your own agenda. You create a storm to distract from the fact that you’ve mishandled your own work. To—to plump and preen yourself before the public while leaving me to clean up the mess behind you. Mayor Peachtree has not been charged. He has not yet been interviewed, yet you’ve seen to it that he’s guilty in the eyes of the public.”
“Sure looks that way, doesn’t it? One small correction, though. I didn’t leak the story.”
“You think you can save yourself by lying to me?”
She shifted her body weight, and fascinated, Roarke eased back. He wondered if Chang knew how close he was to annihilation.
“Don’t call me a liar, Chang. You of all people.”
“Who is it who has a personal relationship with Nadine Furst? Who is it who gives regular favoritism to her and Channel 75, with exclusives and tips?”
“That would be me. And you know why? Because I can trust her to think of more than ratings. That relationship is why whoever leaked this saw that the story went to her. That’s your kind of maneuver, Chang.”
The hand around the throat image was appealing enough that she used it herself. She caught him one-handed, rapped him back into the wall, and lifted him to his toes. “All this spin, all this storm, all this fallout. That’s going to keep you a very busy boy for a while, isn’t it?”
“Get your hands off me. I’ll have you arrested for assault.”
“Yeah, you can bet a whole squad of cops is going to rush in here to save your oily ass from me. You’re going to get a lot of play out of this—fees, bonuses. Add screwing me over to the pie, and it’s real tasty. Did you leak the story, Chang?”
He was turning an interesting shade of puce as he batted and shoved at her hand. “Get away, get away!”
“Did you leak the goddamn story?”
“No! This isn’t something you leak until you’re prepared. Until the spin is in place. You leaked it.”
“No, I didn’t.” She released him so that he dropped to the flats of his feet with two sharp thuds. “Think about that. Now get the hell out of my office.”
“I’m filing a complaint.” He yanked at his collar. “You’ll read the statement or—”
“Bite me,” she suggested and shoved him out bodily.
“That was very entertaining,