Delusion in Death (In Death 35)

“Nancy! Nancy Weaver, is that you!”

She let out a laugh, took advantage of Gina’s momentary surprise and plopped down next to the man. “Who’d’ve thought I’d run into you this way. How the hell are you?”

“I—I’m fine.” Weaver’s eyes widened with recognition, but she held surprisingly steady. “Just fine.”

“You look just fine,” she said as Roarke took a chair from the vacated table, angled it beside Eve.

“I’m sorry.” Gina spoke coldly. “But this is a business meeting. You’ll have to catch up another time.”

“Oh, don’t be such a party pooper, Gina. I’ve got a weapon aimed at you under the table. Use yours on Nancy, make any wrong move, and I use it. Let’s just talk.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Franco murmur to the people at a side table out of Gina’s range of vision. To keep attention focused, Eve pulled off the scarf, the shades. “That’s better.”

“I have enough Wrath of God on me to turn this place into Armageddon.”

“Then we all try to kill each other before the SWAT team stationed outside stuns us senseless. And where do we go from there? Let’s avoid all that mess. Put your weapon on the table.”

“Not a chance. I’ll cut her open like a ripe peach first.”

A knife then, better than a blaster.

“Nancy’s not important,” Mira said in Eve’s ear. “Just a corporate shill.”

“You’d just be cutting open another corporate lackey. So what? And the minute you do, you’re down. You’re too smart to lose your leverage.”

Gina’s sharply honed face held nothing but cold determination. “I’ve got three vials of my leverage with me.”

“Show her respect,” Mira advised. “Open negotiations.”

“You’ve got the hammer there. We want to avoid another incident. There are kids in here, Gina.”

And she smiled. “That’s right, and they’re more susceptible. You won’t be able to stop them fast enough. You’ll stun them, open yourself up to outrage.”

“Got me there. What do you want?”

“I want this police state overturned. I want people like him—” She pointed to Roarke. “I know who you are now. I want people like him on the street and all the money and material possessions he’s so greedily grasped destroyed.”

“She’s testing you,” Mira said. “Draw her toward the grandson, the personal.”

“That’s above my pay grade. Tell me something I can make happen. It’s on the line for me, too, Gina. Let’s be real. You hit this place, all these people, I look like a moron when I’ve just announced an arrest. Lew goes down, sure—and you—but so do I.”

“I want to speak to my grandson.”

“I may be able to arrange that, sure.”

“Here. Face-to-face. I want him brought here.”

“That’ll take some time and doing. And what then? If I pull that off, he’s in the hot zone, like the rest of us. Maybe you don’t care about that, about infecting him.”

“I want to see him. Here. Then the two of us are going to walk out of here with the corporate lackey and the greedy bastard you married as shields.”

“Well, frankly, the corporate lackey’s dispensable, but I’m pretty attached to the greedy bastard.”

“How can you say that?” Under the table, Weaver tapped Eve’s foot twice, an acknowledgment. “You’re the police. You’re supposed to protect me.”

“Grow up,” Gina snapped. “Cops are cops, corrupt with power. Bring Lewis here, arrange for transportation to my shuttle—which will be clear—or I turn this place into a madhouse, complete with homicidal kids.”

“You should know how this works, Gina. Give a little to get a little. You’re asking me to release a mass murderer—well, two counting you—give up two civilians, and what are you offering me?