J. Robb - New York to Dallas

“Thank you, sir. That’s . . . thorough.”

“I know my cops,” he said briefly. “It’ll save you from running them. Good hunting, Lieutenant.”

She hurried back to Homicide. She’d have time to think, review, plan on the trip, but for now she had to move fast.

She spotted Peabody eyeing the dubious choices at Vending outside the bullpen. “Peabody, with me.”

She went straight through into her office.

“I’ve got Stibble holding. I was just going to grab some lunch, then—”

“Grab it later. McQueen’s in Dallas. He grabbed Melinda Jones, one of his former vics, last night.”

“Is she alive?”

“Assumed. He left a message for her twin sister. I’ve been invited down there to play with him.”

“To—” Peabody broke off, shut the door. “Does he know what happened to you there?”

“Undetermined.” As she spoke, Eve packed a file box. “I’m leaving asap.”

“You mean we. ”

“No, I don’t. I need you here. I want you to handle Stibble. Wring him dry. Continue to find out anything you can on this Sister Suzan. She’ll be in Dallas. She’ll have laid the groundwork for McQueen. They’ve got a place, somewhere private enough to hold a hostage. She’ll have a place of her own, close by. Use Baxter and Trueheart. If you need more manpower, let me know and I’ll arrange it.”

“You’re not going there alone.” Peabody shifted to block the door, and had Eve’s eyebrows lifting.

“Were your orders unclear, Detective?”

“Don’t pull that shit on me, Dallas. Just don’t. It’s a trap, and worse, it’s there. It’s where . . . it’s there.”

“I know where it is, and of course he’s figuring it’s a trap. He’ll want to string it out for a while, have some fun with it. That’s a mistake.”

Now Peabody folded her arms, planted her feet. “I’m going with you.”

“Peabody, I know you’ve been working on improving your hand-to-hand, but I can take you down in five seconds flat.” She took a breath as Peabody’s face only tightened into fiercer lines. First Mira, she thought, now this.

“If I can’t handle myself I don’t have any business with this badge or this office.”

“That’s not the point. This is different.”

“Every case is different, and how we deal with every case is different. But what’s the same is we work it, we do the job, and we take the risks the job demands. That’s it.”

She considered demoralizing her partner by moving her bodily from the door. Not only would it leave a bad taste in her mouth, but she needed Peabody on top, confident, clean-headed.

And under it, she just didn’t have the heart to slap back the concern of her partner. Her friend.

“I’m going to talk to Roarke right now, see if he can clear some time to go along as a consultant. The commander cleared it with Dallas PSD. Don’t question me on this, Peabody. I need to go, and I need to go knowing you’re capable of taking charge of the investigation from here.”

“In charge? Me? But Baxter—”

“You studied McQueen, and you’re familiar with all stages of the investigation to this point. You’re a goddamn decorated officer of this department. And you will take the lead on the New York end of this investigation as you’ve been trained to do. You will not let me down.”

“I won’t let you down. Please don’t go alone. If Roarke can’t leave this minute, take one of the other men. Take backup that’s familiar, that you know you can trust. You don’t know the people down there.”

“I’ve data on all of them. If Roarke’s not available, I’ll consider hooking Feeney into it.”

“Okay. But if you need me—”

“I know where you are. Now I’ve got to go. He only gave me eight hours and it’s ticking away fast. Send me whatever you get out of Stibble, whatever you get on the partner.”

“I’ll stay in regular contact.” With some reluctance Peabody moved away from the door, followed Eve out. “How do you want me to play Stibble? Should I—”

“You know what to do. Do it. Now brief the men.” Without another word she left.

She pulled out her ’link, tagged Baxter as she worked down the levels to the garage.

“Yo,” Baxter said.

“I’m headed out of town, following a lead on McQueen. Peabody’s taking over here. I want you and Trueheart working with her. She’s primary.”

“Copy that.”

“Don’t give her too much grief, Baxter, but don’t baby her.”

“How much is too much? Don’t worry about it. Trueheart’ll keep me honest. Just go get that fucker, LT.”

“That’s the plan.” She clicked off, contacted Roarke’s office.

His admin, Caro, smiled at her. “Hello, Lieutenant. Roarke’s just finishing up a holo-conference. If it’s important, I’ll cut in.”

“I’m on my way there. I need to talk to him as soon as possible. It’s urgent.”

Caro’s smile shifted to alert. “I’ll clear the time.”

“Thanks.”

And here we go, Eve thought, as she jumped into her vehicle and pushed the DLE Urban Roarke had designed for her to full speed. As she drove, dodging, weaving, hitting vertical to leapfrog, she plugged the disc Whitney had given her into the onboard comp, and began to familiarize herself with Lieutenant Ricchio and his unit.

When she stepped into the expansive black-and-white lobby of Roarke’s headquarters, one of his security met her. “We cleared an elevator for you. Straight up, Lieutenant.”

“Thanks.” She strode quickly past the moving maps, the banks and rivers of flowers, the crisscross of people bustling in and out of the shops and eateries.

Security escorted her to the elevator, then stepped back. “It’s programmed,” he told her before the doors closed.

She spent the time on the fast ride up, up, up, pacing the car, aligning her thoughts, working out what needed to be done and how to do it.

The doors opened again, directly into Roarke’s office, and he stood waiting.

“What’s happened?”

“McQueen’s taken a hostage.” When he gripped her hand, she saw her mistake. He thought it was someone in New York, someone they loved.

“Who?”

“Melinda Jones. She’s one of the twins, the last he abducted.”

“I remember.” But relief didn’t register on his face. He remembered, she thought, everything. “She’s in Dallas.”

“He grabbed her late last night. I can fill you in on it later. He’s given me a deadline to get down there, or he’ll start cutting pieces off of her.”

“He wants you in Dallas?” Those beautiful blue eyes narrowed and sharpened. “He specifically demanded this?”

“Yeah, in eight hours from the time the sister picked up the message. “That was at ten forty-three, their time. It’s twelve-forty now. So I’ve got six hours to get there. Or . . . it’s earlier there, so I lose an hour. Or gain it. Shit, I can’t ever figure that crap out.”

“There’s time enough. It isn’t a coincidence he’s there.”

“There are factors. We can get into them later. Right now I don’t want to fuck around, give him any excuse to start cutting her up. I’m cleared to work with the locals, and to take a partner or aide, or whatever. I need Peabody to stay here, to run this part of the investigation.”

He nodded, and saying nothing more crossed the long space to his desk in front of the sea of glass that gave him New York. “Caro, clear my schedule until further notice. I need a shuttle prepped and waiting at Transportation for a flight to Dallas, Texas. Right away.”

He clicked off the inter-office ’link. “Sit down a minute,” he told Eve.