J. Robb - Purity in Death

She brought the syringe down on his shoulder and pumped the tranq into him.

"Hold your fire! Hold fire!" She shouted it as Halloway ran in circles around the room, screaming as he ripped at his hair. "I disarmed him. He's unarmed."

The door burst open. She leaped between Halloway and the lasers. "I said hold your goddamn fire."

She whirled around. It was taking longer than five seconds. Halloway was throwing himself against the wall. Shrieking, weeping. Then his body danced, as bodies do when a stream takes them down.

Blood fountained from his nose as he pitched forward.

"Get medical in here," Eve ordered as she rushed over to kneel beside Halloway.

She'd seen death too often to mistake it. But still she checked his pulse.

"Damn it. Damn it." She beat a clenched fist against her knee, looked over to meet the knowledge in Feeney's eyes. "We lost him anyway."

"He really caught you a good one." Eve crouched down to where Feeney sat under the ministrations of a medtech. She pursed her lips as she examined the long, shallow gash that scored his cheek. "Been a while since you took one in the face, huh?"

"I don't stick my nose in the knothole as often as other people. You and me, we're going to go a round, Dallas. I taught you better than that. Adding a hostage-"

"Do I look like a hostage? I don't recall getting locked to my desk chair with my own restraints lately."

Feeney sighed. "Dumb luck that worked. And dumb luck-"

"Is a nice bonus to solid police work. Somebody told me that once." She smiled at him, laid a hand over his. Under her touch, his hand turned so their fingers linked.

"Don't think I owe you one. Not for dumb luck. And you make sure your man knows that-ah-business about banging and whatnot was just smoke."

"I know he's seething with a black jealousy and planning on whomping on you, but I'll do what I can to calm him down."

He nodded, but his grin faded as he looked away. "Caught us with our pants down, Dallas. Pants down around our goddamn ankles. I never saw it coming."

"You couldn't have. Couldn't have," she repeated quickly before he could speak. "He was sick, Feeney. Some virus, some infection. I don't know what the hell. Morris is working on it. It's the same deal that happened to the guy Trueheart took out. It's in the computer. It's got to be in the computer."

Jesus, he was tired. Sick and tired. All he could do was shake his head. "That's science fiction crap, Dallas. You don't catch anything but eyestrain from a unit."

"You put Halloway on Cogburn's unit. By the end of the day he's exhibiting the same symptoms as Cogburn. Deduction 101, Feeney, science fiction or not. There's something in that thing, and it goes into quarantine until we've got some answers."

"He was a good kid. He screwed off some, but he was a good kid, and a decent cop. I got on his ass this morning, but he needed a boot. Saw him sniping with McNab this afternoon and…"

Feeney rubbed his temples. "Oh Christ."

"They're taking care of McNab. He's going to be okay. He's tougher than he looks. He'd have to be, wouldn't he?" She worked up a smile when she said it and ignored the sick dread in her belly.

"Four of my boys hurt, one of them dead. I've got to know why."

"Yeah, we've got to know why."

She glanced back at Halloway's cube, at the old, broken-down data center on his work counter.

Absolute Purity, she thought.

She went back into Feeney's office. Halloway's body was already bagged. The blood that had burst from him was splattered like some mad drawing on the industrial beige wall.

She gestured to the MT who'd fixed her the tranqs. "What do you make of it?"

He looked down, as she did, at the body bag. "Some sort of rupture. Damned if I know. I've never seen anything like it, not without severe head trauma first. You need the ME's take. Maybe a brain tumor, maybe an embolism, massive stroke. Awful damn young. Couldn't hit thirty."

"Twenty-eight." He had a fiancee who was rushing back from a business trip in East Washington. Parents, and a brother, coming in from Baltimore.

And if she knew Feeney, Detective Kevin Halloway would be buried with all the honors due a badge who'd gone down in the line of duty.

Because that's just what had happened, she thought as they carried the bag away. He'd been doing his job, and had died because of it.

She didn't know how, she didn't know why. But a young EDD man had died today, for the job.

"Lieutenant."

She turned toward the door, and Whitney. "Sir."

"I need your report as soon as possible."

"You'll have it."

"What happened here…" He stared at the blood on the wall. "You have answers to that?"

"Some. More questions than answers. We need Morris to examine Halloway immediately. I believe he'll find similar neurological damage as he found in Cogburn. There are answers on Cogburn's data unit, but it can't be examined until some reasonable safety measures are devised. I do know Detective Halloway wasn't responsible for what happened here."

"I have to brief Chief Tibble and the mayor before we speak to the media. I'll let you ride on that one, for now," he added. "For the moment, the official word will be that Detective Halloway was suffering from some as yet undetermined illness that caused his aberrant behavior and resulted in his death."

"As far as I know that's exactly the truth."

"I'm not worried about the truth when it comes to the official word. But I want it, the whole of it. This matter is your only priority. Any and all other investigations you have ongoing are to be passed on. Find the answers."

He started out, then pivoted back. "Detective McNab regained consciousness. He's moved up from critical to serious."

"Thank you, sir."

When she walked out of EDD, she sported Roarke, leaning idly against a wall and working with his PPC.

Anyone less like a cop, less like a victim, she'd never seen. As far as the other element that frequented cop shops, he could still slide in, silkily though, to that dangerous group.

He looked up, held out a hand for hers.

"You couldn't have done more than you did."

"No." She knew that, accepted that. "But he's still dead. I put the murder weapon at his head. I didn't know it, couldn't be expected to know it, but that's what I did. And I don't even know what the weapon is."

She rolled her shoulders. "Anyway, McNab's awake and moved up to serious. I figure I ought to swing by and take a look at him before I head home."

"Interview him?"

"I'll give him some stupid flowers first."

Roarke laughed and had nearly lifted her hand to his lips when she jerked it down. Hissed.

"Darling, you really shouldn't be so shy about public displays of affection."

"Public's one thing, cops're another."

"Don't I know it," he murmured and went with her to the garage level.

"I'll ride along with you. One of us should see that Peabody gets a bit of food or has a shoulder."

"I'll leave that end to you." Eve climbed behind the wheel. "You're better at the 'there-theres' than I am."

He touched the ends of her hair. Just needed to touch. "She held up very well."

"Yeah, she hung."

"It isn't easy, when someone you care about gets hurt or is in danger of being hurt."

She slanted him a look. "People want easy, they should hook up with an office drone not a cop."

"Truer words. But actually, I was thinking how difficult it was for you to stand and watch Feeney being threatened with death for nearly an hour."

"He was handling himself. He knows how to-" It rushed up through her, grabbed her by the throat with spikey claws. "Okay." At the exit of the garage she stopped, dropped her head on the wheel. "Okay. Scared me. Jesus, Jesus. He knew just where to hold the damn weapon. Just the right point. One jerk and Feeney's gone. Gone in a blink and there's nothing you can do."