Nora Roberts - Remember When

"You did fine. You want to work on focusing on the data instead of yourself.

Self-conscious cops don't lead teams. Neither do cops who second-guess themselves every two minutes. You earned the shield, Peabody, now you have to use it. But that's not what this is about."

"The clothes are..." She trailed off at Eve's stony stare. "Self-conscious again. Putting it away. What is this about, then?"

"I work after shift a lot. Regularly. Go back out into the field to tug on a lead, work up various scenarios or do 'link or comp work in my home office.

Bounce the case off Roarke. It's how I work. Are you going to have a problem with me not hooking you in every time I do?"

"Well, no. Well... I guess I'm trying to find the partner rhythm. Maybe you are, too."

"Maybe I am. It's not because I'm flipping you off. Let's get that clear. I live the job, Peabody. I breathe it and I eat it and I sleep with it. I don't recommend it."

"It works for you."

"Yeah, it works for me. There are reasons it works for me. My reasons. They're not yours."

She looked down into her coffee and thought of the long line of victims, and they all led back to herself, a child, bleeding and broken in a freezing hotel room in Dallas.

"I can't do this any other way. I won't do this any other way. I need what this gives me. You don't need the same thing. That doesn't make you less of a cop. And when I go out on my own on something, I'm not thinking you're less of a cop."

"I can't always put it away either."

"None of us can. And those who can't find a way to deal with that burnout, get mean, get drunk or off themselves. You've got ways to deal. You've got family and outside interests. And shit, I'll say it this once, you've got McNab."

Peabody's lips curved. "That must've hurt."

"Some."

"I love him. It's weird, but I love him."

Eve met her eyes, a brief but steady acknowledgment. "Yeah, I get that."

"And it does make a difference. And I get what you're saying, too. I can't always put it away, but sometimes I have to. So I do. I probably won't ever be able to spin it around in my head the way you do, but that's okay. I'm probably still going to bitch some when I find out you went out without me."

"Understood. We're all right then?"

"We're all right."

"Then get out of my office so I can get some work done before we see Gannon."

***

She wrangled for a consult with Mira and after some heated negotiations with the doctor's admin, was given a thirty-minute during lunch break at Central's infamous Eatery. Eve couldn't figure out why anyone with Mira's class would suffer the Eatery's indignities, but she didn't argue.

She managed, with considerable footwork, to delay her report to Commander Whitney until late that afternoon.

Another call included threats of doubtful anatomical possibility and a bribe of box seats at a Mets game. The combination netted her the promise from the chief lab tech of a full report on both cases by fourteen hundred.

Considering her 'link work a job well done, she grabbed her files, signaled Peabody and went into the field.

***

Peabody fisted her hands on her hips. "This is returning to the scene of the crime way, way after the fact."

"We didn't commit a crime, so technically we're not returning." Eve ignored the people who trooped or stalked around her as she stood at the corner of Fifth and Forty-seventh. "I just wanted a look at the place."

"Got hit pretty hard in the Urban Wars," Peabody commented. "Easy target, I guess. Conspicuous consumption. The haves and have-nots. All that fancy jewelry showcased while the economy took a nosedive, illegals were sold on the street like soy dogs and guns were strapped on like fashion accessories."

She edged closer to one of the displays. "Shiny."

"So three guys walk in, do a little switch-and-grab with the fourth, and walk out with pockets full of diamonds. Nobody's prepared for it as the inside guy's long-term, trusted, considered above reproach."

Eve studied the window displays as she spoke, and the people who stopped to huddle at them, dreaming over that shine. Gold and silver-metals; rubies and emeralds, and diamonds bright as the sun-stones. Since they couldn't be consumed for fuel, didn't keep you warm in the winter, it was tough for her to relate to the pull.

Yet she wore a circle of gold on her finger and a bright, glittering diamond on a chain under her shirt. Symbols, she thought. Just symbols. But she'd fight for them, wouldn't she?

"Inside man has to walk out, too," she went on, "practically on their heels, and go straight under. Finger's going to point at him, he knows that going in.

But he wants what he wants and he tosses everything else away for it. And gets taken out before he can pat himself on the back. Crew did him, so Crew had to know how to get to him. Not only his location, but how to lure him out."

She looked up, as a tourist might, to the upper floors. No people glides on a building like this. There wouldn't have been any early century either, she mused. It had been rehabbed and rebuilt after the wars but was, essentially, the same as the history image she'd studied.

And leading down from the corner it dominated were shop after shop, display after display of body adornments. This single cross-town block held millions in merchandise. It was a wonder it wasn't hit on a daily basis.

"They didn't even bother to take out the security cams," she commented. "In and out and no sweat. But the cops would've ID'd them eventually. Every one of them had a sheet but the inside guy, and his gambling problem would've flagged him. So they were just going to stay under, keep the stones tucked away, wait for the air to cool. Then poof. You know why it might've worked?"

"The investigation would have focused, at least initially, on the inside man.

They'd figure he cracked up, planned and executed. He's gone, diamonds are gone. They move on him."

"Yeah, while the rest of them scatter and wait it out. Crew was smart to eliminate him, but he went off when he didn't dispose of the body. Smarter, much smarter to dump the guy in the river so the cops waste time and resources looking for a dead man. Didn't think it through all the way, because he wanted what he wanted, too. Once he had it, he just wanted more. That's why he ended up dying in prison. This guy, our guy, he's a little smarter."

She studied a group of three women who stopped by a display window to make ooohing noises and exclamations. Yeah, the stuff was shiny and sparkly. She wasn't entirely sure why people wanted to shine and sparkle, but they did-and had since the dawn.

"But he's just as obsessed," Peabody commented. "Crew was obsessed with the diamonds, I think. That's what I get from the book. He had to have all of them. He couldn't settle for his cut, no matter what it took. I think this guy's the same in that area. Obsessed. Even possessed, in a way. Like they were-the diamonds-cursed."

"They're carbon-based stones, Peabody. Inanimate objects." Unconsciously she rubbed a finger over the tear-shaped diamond she wore on a chain under her shirt. "They don't do anything but sit there."

Peabody looked back in the window. "Shiny," she said again with her eyes unfocused and her jaw slack.

Despite herself, Eve laughed. "Let's get out of this heat and go see Gannon."

Chapter 24

The Rembrandt, Eve discovered, was one of those small, exclusive, European-style hotels snuggled into New York almost like a secret. No sky-reaching towers or mile-wide lobby, no gilt-encased entrance. Instead it was a lovely old building she assumed had once been a high-dollar residence in a style that murmured elegant discretion.

Rather than her usual snarling match with a doorman, this one trotted over in his sedate navy blue uniform and cap to greet her with a respectful nod.