Born in Death (In Death 23)

“Then get started.” She stormed out, veered off, and swung into Feeney’s office. He was sitting at his desk, machine-gunning on his keyboard while he hummed a tune.

Every so often he’d mutter, “Almost got you, you little bastard.”

“Your detectives have trouble understanding direct orders, or the chain of command?” she demanded.

He cursed, glanced up. He saw what Peabody had seen on her face. Easing back, he jerked his chin at the door. “Wanna shut that?”

She slammed it. “When I’m primary, the men assigned to the team, whether they’re EDD or Homicide, report to me.”

“You got a complaint about one of my boys?” They were all his boys to Feeney, regardless of their chromosomes.

It caught her just before she spewed. What was she doing? Playing tattletale over nothing just because she was pissed. “I’ve got a sensitive case,” she began.

“Yeah, I know about it. My boys report to me, and I logged in the electronics as you requested. So?”

“Big money sensitive. You figure Roarke would climb over my two vics, use that big money sensitive data to edge out a competitor? You figure he’d use my investigation or any information I might share with him therein for personal gain?”

“What the fuck you talking about? McNab make some idiot comment?”

“No. Whitney made a direct statement.”

Feeney pursed his lips, then blew out a breath. Then dragged his fingers through his wiry tangle of ginger and gray hair. “I got some of that coffee left you gave me for Christmas. Want a hit?”

“No. No,” she repeated and walked to his window. “Goddamn it, Feeney. He wants to slap at me for something I did or didn’t do on the job, something one of my squad did or didn’t, that’s okay. But to imply Roarke would use me, that I’d permit it, that’s over the line.”

“Have some almonds.”

She only shook her head.

Feeney dipped his fingers into the bowl of candied nuts on his desk. “Want my take?”

“I guess I do. I come pushing in here when you’re busy, I must need your take.”

“Then I’ll give it to you. I expect some of those honchos—and the lawyers who love them—have been stomping their feet, flapping their jaws. Complaining to the mayor, the chief. Mayor and chief give Whitney the word. He’s got to take the departmental line, give you the warning. Want my take on his personal line?”

“I guess I do.”

“I’ve known him a long time. If he had any genuine concerns in this area, he’d take you off the case. Period. By doing that, he’d cover his ass. Instead, he gave you the word, and he’s leaving his ass hanging out there.”

“Maybe.”

“Dallas?” He waited until she’d turned around. “You got any worries about Roarke on this?”

&n

bsp; “No. Goddamn no.”

“You think I do, or that any member of the team currently working the case has any worries?”

The tightness in her chest eased a little. “No. But I’ve got to go to Roarke with this—even if I don’t share a single byte of data with him, I have to go to him with this. If you think I was pissed when I came in here, let me tell you, that was a sunny day at the beach.”

He shoved the bowl of nuts in her direction, and for a moment there was a touch of amusement on his hangdog face. “Marriage is a freaking minefield.”

“Fucking A.” But she relaxed a little, enough to sit on the corner of his desk and pluck up a few nuts. “Sorry.”

“Forget it. We go back a ways, too.”

“I don’t know how much you’ve got on your plate, but if you’ve got room for more I could sure use you on this.”