Behind her, Roarke put a hand on Peabody’s shoulder. “No,” he told her when Peabody reached for her weapon. “She’ll want this one on her own.”
“Jesus, you really are that stupid.” Eve drew her own weapon. “Knife. Full-power stunner. You be the judge. Drop it, or I drop you. And I’d love to.”
“I don’t need a goddamn knife to take you down, bitch.” Penny tossed it aside where it skidded across the floor. “Bitch like you needs a stunner.”
“Is that a challenge? I love a challenge. And what the hell. Roarke.” Barely glancing over, Eve tossed him her weapon. “Try me,” she invited.
Hate and excitement merged on her face as Penny charged. Eve felt the blood rush to her heart, her head. The sting of the wound in her arm focused her. She deflected Penny’s fist, but gave the woman credit for what had been behind it. She took a kick—a glancing blow on the hip—and felt the quick heat of fingernails as they swiped at her jaw.
Eve maneuvered, evaded, took a blow here, another there. And saw the violent light of pleasure in Penny’s eyes.
“You can’t fight worth shit,” Penny yelled out. “Pussy cop.”
“Oh. We were fighting? I didn’t realize we’d started. Okay then.”
And she moved in. A shorthand jab knocked Penny’s head back like a ball on a string. A roundhouse kick doubled her over when it plowed into her gut. An uppercut brought her up again. And a right cross took her down.
“That last one?” Eve bent over her as Penny lay unconscious at her feet. “That was for Quinto Turner. Get a wagon,” Eve ordered, then gave Roarke the come-ahead sign for her weapon.
“Your nose is bleeding, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah. Peabody, do you take note that my nose is bleeding?”
“Yes, sir, and your arm.”
“And these injuries were incurred as the suspect attempted to escape arrest and resisted same, thereby assaulting an officer, assaulting said officer with a deadly with intent?”
“All the above.”
“Good. Thanks,” she added when Roarke handed her a handkerchief.
He reached over, covered her lapel recorder with his hand. “You wanted her to go for you. You played with her, let her get a few in so you’ll have the cuts and bruises to prove it. So you could whale in.”
“Maybe.” She grinned as she stanched her bloody nose. “But that’s going to be really hard to prove. I’ve got to take her in, get her in the box.”
“I’ll be coming with you. Might as well see it through. And see that arm’s tended to.”
Penny called in the same lawyer, screamed police brutality, false imprisonment. Montoya made lawyer noises about suing, even when Eve came in with the wound on her arm raw and fresh, her face bruised, and claw marks at her jaw.
“Let’s have a look at this first, just to get it out of the way. Record playback.” While the scene inside the duplex ran, with Penny spinning at the door, striking with a knife, Eve spoke. “As we expected to make an arrest, record was on throughout, and record clearly shows the subject attacking me with a knife concealed on her person. Which, in fact, she had done on a previous occasion.”
Which, Eve thought, was why I counted on her repeating the performance.
She shut the recording off. “The charges there are a
ssault with a deadly and with intent to kill a police officer. That’s fifty years.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Oh, tired tune, Penny. Got it on record, got witnesses, got MTS report, got it all. Also, got you cold on the fraud. Our e-trace—duly authorized—nailed your pocket PCC for the receiving of Feinburg’s transmission, and the sending to same.”
“That’s nothing.”
“Penny,” the lawyer began.
“Nothing!” She elbowed Montoya aside. “That was Lino’s deal. He set that up. I just followed it through. Why the hell not? I just went to the damn house to see it. No crime in walking into a house when a freaking lawyer gave me the pass codes.”
“You’d be wrong. You perpetuated fraud. But I might be willing to deal on that, and on the charges stemming from your attack on me, if you can tell me the whereabouts of Miguel Flores, José Ortega, and Steven Chávez. We want to close it up.”