The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [202]
“Dallas, you said you knew her. Why would she do this?”
Eve tossed the goggles aside. She’d found her anger now, and it soaked into her bones. “So she could say someone else did. Me, maybe Roarke. Maybe go to the media with it,” she said as she began to pace. “No, no, you’re not going to get big fat piles of money that way. Attention, sure, and some dough, but not a bakery full. Blackmail. Figured she could go back on us. Pay up, or I go public, show people how you hurt me. But it turned back on her. Whoever she was working with decided they didn’t need her anymore. Or she got greedy, tried to cut them out.”
“Takes some brass ones to try to blackmail a cop like you, or a man like Roarke.” He looked back at the body. “Takes some sick need to do this to yourself for money.”
“Got paid back, didn’t she?” Eve said quietly. “All the way back.”
Peabody took a detour. Dallas would roast her if she got wind, but she didn’t intend to be long. Besides, the sweepers hadn’t found anything so far in the rooms vacated.
She wasn’t even sure McNab would be in-house. He could be out in the field for all she knew. Since he hadn’t bothered to leave her a message.
Men were such pains in the ass, she wondered why she bothered to keep one. She’d been doing okay solo. It wasn’t as if she’d gone out looking for somebody like Ian McNab.
Who would?
Now she was cohabbing, with a lease in both their names. They’d bought a new bed together—a really uptown gel. And that made it theirs instead of hers, didn’t it? Which she hadn’t thought about until now.
Which she wouldn’t have to think about now, except he’d been such a complete dick.
And technically, he’d been the one to walk out, so he should be the one to make the first move. She hesitated, nearly jumped off the glide. But the box Dallas had given her was burning a hole in her pocket—and the idea that maybe she’d been partly to blame was burning one in her gut.
Probably just indigestion. She shouldn’t have grabbed that soy dog on the corner.
She stalked into EDD, her chin jutted up. There he was, in his cube. How could you miss him when even in the rainbow hues of the division his green zip pants and yellow shirt vibrated.
She sniffed, then stomped over to jab him sharply on the shoulder twice. “I need to talk to you.”
His eyes, cool and green, flicked to her face, away again. “Busy here.”
The back of her neck sizzled at the dismissal. “Five minutes,” she said between her teeth. “Private.”
He shoved back from his station, swiveled around fast enough to make his long tail of blond hair swing. He gave a jerk of the shoulder to indicate she should follow him, then strode off on his shiny yellow airboots.
Color, from anger and from embarrassment, rode her cheeks as she wove through the clicks and clacks of EDD. The fact that no one paused long enough to hail her or send her a wave told her McNab hadn’t kept their situation to himself.
Well, neither had she. So what?
He opened the door to a small break room where two detectives were arguing in the incomprehensible terms of e-geeks. McNab simply jerked a thumb toward the door. “Need five.”
The detectives took their argument and a couple of cherry fizzies out the door. One paused long enough to glance back at Peabody with a look of sympathetic understanding.
Of course, Peabody thought, the look came from a female.
McNab got himself a lime fizzy, probably color-coordinating his outfit, Peabody thought nastily. She closed the door herself as he leaned back against the short counter.
“I’ve got something cooking, so make it fast,” he told her.
“Oh, I’ll make it fast. You’re not the only one who’s got something cooking. If you hadn’t snuck out of the apartment this morning, we could’ve dealt with some of this before shift.”
“I didn’t sneak.” He took a long drink, eyeing her over the neon tube. “Not my fault you sleep like a corpse. Plus, I didn’t feel like slamming up against your attitude first thing in the morning.”
“My attitude?” Her voice came out in a squeak that would have mortified