Treachery in Death (In Death 32)

“It’s not about the money for him. It’s about the chain of command.”

“I’ve started on the others, made considerably more headway tonight. But I thought you’d be most interested in those three.”

“You’d be right. Anything on Brinker?”

“Brinker.” Roarke’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Ah, yes. He’s the little chateau in Baden-Baden—going back to his roots, I’d say—the manor house in Surrey, and the three mistresses.”

“Three? No wonder he’s asleep at his desk.” So, Lilah’s instincts were off there. “Asserton or Sloan?”

“No, nothing as yet—and as I haven’t had a single hit on either, there’s likely not to be.”

“Agree. Shift them over, push the rest. We serve Garnet up to IAB tomorrow, garnish him with the charges stemming from tonight’s temper tantrum with me. He’s cooked. What you’ve got? It’s the sauce.”

“The clever cooking analogy doesn’t distract me from the fact you don’t want to serve him up alone. You want Renee sharing the platter.”

“Be tastier,” she admitted, then waved a hand. “We’ve got to get off the food stuff. I’d rather have her nailed before I take Garnet in. Her, and the rest. But it’s not an absolute. He’ll flip if I need him to flip, and he’ll still go away a good, long time. If you’re done with this for the night, no problem.”

“And I look like the weak sister?”

“Don’t make me smile again. It hurts.”

“I’ll finish it. If I get further along, I should be able to program it to complete the task while we both get some sleep.”

“I need to contact Webster.”

“Eve,” Roarke said as she reached for her ’link. “He’s with Darcia.”

“Yeah, so? He needs to . . .” She broke off, winced as she had when her lip throbbed. “You think they’re having sex?”

“Oh, at a wild, what-the-hell sort of guess? Yes. Very likely.”

“I can’t think about that. I don’t want to know that. I know what he looks like when he has sex.”

Roarke flicked a finger on the top of her head. “I wonder why I need to be reminded of that.”

This time she pressed her fingers to her lip to hold it as it throbbed since she couldn’t quite swallow the laugh. “I’m just saying. I like how you look having sex better.”

“Darling, how sweet of you.”

“I need to scrape off the sarcasm you just piled on me, then I’ll contact him—but straight to message. I want him and the rest here by oh seven hundred.”

Bix picked Garnet up at one A.M.

“It’s about fucking time,” Garnet said.

“It took awhile for the LT to get it set up. Nobody wants any mistakes on this. Like she said, you and Dallas had a confrontation. Don’t want this to blow back on you.”

“Freeman’s got me covered.” Resentment oozed out of his pores. “If Oberman had done the damn job, I wouldn’t need to be covered.”

Bix said nothing, then glanced over. “Dallas do that to your face?”

Color—anger and humiliation—stained Garnet’s cheeks. “She’s not looking so pretty either. Cunt sucker-punched me.” The lie came so easily, as it had when he’d told Freeman the same, he nearly believed it himself. “Pulls her weapon on me. Says she’s going to take my badge. Maybe go after Oberman next,” he added, knowing Bix’s loyalties. “She’s jealous of the LT, that’s what it is. Bitch wants to take her down, cause trouble. If she causes enough, the whole thing’s going to break down. We’re all in the shit can then, Bix.”

“I guess so.”

“What’s the plan? You didn’t lay it out before.”

“The boss is using a bogus weasel to tag Dallas with a tip. A big one, deals with Keener. The boss says how Dallas is hot to close Keener, really wants to tie it to use that to discredit her. So we draw her in tonight, back to the scene.”