She worked through the pain, leery of blockers. But she coated her burned wrist with ointment, carefully wrapped it.
Pain was nothing, really, but the body’s reaction, even a warning. Purpose outweighed pain.
True, she’d broken down twice in tears. The pain in her body, the pain in her heart. Fear that eked in through the purpose. But the purpose stiffened her resolve, dried the tears.
Everything ended. She knew that, accepted that. Life was a cycle, one that couldn’t refresh until it ended.
So she would end it. Purge, purify, destroy to rebuild.
Careful of her wrist, she shrugged into the combat vest she’d worked on for most of the night. It fit well—heavy, of course, with the charges she wired in.
Still work to be done, but for what else she needed, it had to be Central. She knew just how to get through, get the rest, get it done. In just a few hours, she thought, and turned to the mirror.
She’d added one set of lifts to bring her height up to match Eve’s. She’d had her eyes done professionally, and would no longer need the dulling contacts for work.
That part of her life was already over.
She’d done the hair herself, and it was good. Short, shaggy, brown with lighter tones blended in. Just like Eve’s. All her sources said it was natural, that color. It hadn’t been easy to duplicate.
For over a year, she’d worked out rigorously, building muscle, killing fat. She’d been soft once, in another life. Now she was hard and strong.
Like Eve.
“We’re the same. You’ll understand that soon. There has to be payment for betrayal. Justice must be served. You can’t pay unless I pay. We’re the same. You’ll see.”
For now, she put on the dark brown wig, the blue contacts. Everything she needed was packed in the evidence box.
She put on her coat, hefted the box. She took the time to look around. The photographs, her equipment, her case board. Her life.
She’d never see it again.
It had been a kind of cocoon, she realized. A place where she transformed, in quiet, in safety.
Now she was ready to spread her wings and fly.
Eve stepped into the bullpen at Central.
“Listen up! I’ve got grunt work for anybody not on an active and hot, anybody who’s got some time.”
“We make time, LT,” Jenkinson said.
“Grunt work,” she repeated, “so I don’t want it pulling anybody away from a hot.” She nodded toward the handmade banner over the break-room door. “Stick with the motto. Anybody’s free enough, Peabody’s got the data.” She glanced toward Baxter’s empty desk. “Baxter catch one?”
“DB in Greenpeace Park,” Santiago told her. “He and Trueheart just left. Carmichael and I closed one last night. Wife paid her screwup of a lover a grand to off the husband. Guess she didn’t want to go through the trouble of a fricking divorce. The boyfriend rolled on her like snake eyes.”
“What?”
“You know, dice, roll the dice.” Sa
ntiago shook his hand to demonstrate. “I’m trying for colorful metaphors. Anyway, we’re pretty clear.”
Carmichael nodded. “We’re up for grunt.”
“Spread the joy, Peabody,” Eve said, and headed to her office.
She’d opted to take the results from a narrowing geographic search. Since the location was her hunch, she’d . . . roll the dice.
Why did they call it snake eyes? They were a dot on a cube. Snakes didn’t have dot eyes, so why . . .