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“Tomorrow afternoon.” Peabody yawned, enormously. “Maybe beat the most insane of the holiday shuttle traffic.”

“Go.”

“Go where?”

“Go as planned.”

Peabody stopped rubbing her exhausted eyes to blink. “Dallas, I can’t just take off to go eat pie at this point of the investigation.”

“I’m telling you that you can.” Traffic was blissfully light. She avoided Broadway and its endless party, and drove through the canyons of her city nearly as alone as a lunar tech on the far side of the moon. “You’ve got plans, you’re entitled to keep them. I’m stalling this,” she said when Peabody opened her mouth again.

Peabody shut it, smiled smugly. “Yeah, I know. Just wanted you to say it. How much time you figure we can buy?”

“Not that much. But my partner’s off with her face in the family pie. I got Roarke’s relations zeroing in on us. People start scattering with turkey on the brain, they’re harder to get in touch with, get balls rolling.”

“Most federal offices are closed tomorrow, and through to Monday. Tibble knew that.”

“Yeah. So maybe it slows things another few hours, maybe another day if God is good. He wants the same thing, so he’ll make noises, but he’ll stall, too.”

“What about the school, the kids, the staff?”

“I’m still thinking.”

“I asked Avril, well one of them, what they were going to do about the kids. How they were going to explain that there were three mommies. She said they’d be told they were sisters who’d found each other after a long separation. They don’t want them to know, not about them. Not about what their father was doing. They’re going to go under, Dallas, first opportunity.”

“No question.”

“We’re going to give them one.”

Eve kept her eyes straight ahead. “As police officers we won’t, in any way, facilitate the escape of material witnesses.”

“Right. I want to talk to my parents. Funny how when something really twists up your thinking—the order of things for you—you want to talk to Mom and Dad.”

“Wouldn’t know.”

Peabody winced. “Sorry. Shit, I get stupid when I’m this tired.”

“No problem. I’m saying I wouldn’t know because I didn’t have any—not normal ones. Neither did they. If that’s what makes them artificial, then so am I.”

“I want to talk to my parents,” Peabody repeated after a long moment. “I know I’m lucky to have them, and my brothers, my sisters, all the rest. I know they’ll listen, that’s the thing. But not having that, having to make yourself out of what gets dumped on you, creating your life out of that . . . it’s not artificial. It’s as real as it gets.”

The streets and sky were nearly empty. Occasionally an animated board bloomed out color and light. Dreams of pleasure and beauty and happiness. Bargain prices.

“Do you know why I came to New York?” Eve said.

“No, not really.”

“Because it’s a place where you can be alone. You can step out on the street with thousands of other people and be completely alone. Besides being a cop, that’s what I thought I wanted most.”

“Was it?”

“For a while, yeah. For a long while it was what I wanted. I’d gone from being anonymous to being monitored constantly through the foster program and state schools. I wanted to be anonymous again, on my terms. To be a badge, period. I don’t know, if I’d caught this case ten years ago—five years ago—if I’d have handled it the way I’m doing now. Maybe I’d just have taken them down. Black and white. It’s not just the job, the years on it that bring in all the gray. It’s the people, dead and alive, you end up connected to who paint it in.”

“I go with the last part. But no matter when you’d caught this, you’d go this way. Because it’s right. And that’s what counts, that’s what you do. Avril Icove’s a victim. Somebody needs to be on her side.”

Eve smiled a little. “She has each other.”

“Good one. A little bit of a cheap shot, but good nonetheless.”

“Get some sleep.” Eve pulled up in front of Peabody’s building. “I’ll tag you if I need you to come in, but for now plan to catch some sleep, pack, and go.”

“Thanks for the lift.” Peabody yawned again as she got out. “Happy Thanksgiving, if I don’t see you