“Fine.”
“Well, that certainly took some time. A little trouble in paradise?”
There was just enough sympathy in the tone to have Eve skirting a little closer to the edge. “I’m just distracted.”
She stepped outside, opting to take the long way around. She wanted the air, she wanted the time. And she wanted the relative privacy of a crowded street.
“An anonymous police source, Nadine.”
“I’ll give you that, Dallas, but I have to tell you that coming so hard on the one-on-one, it’s going to be fairly easy to pin you as that source.”
“No kidding?”
Nadine studied her friend’s face. “Excuse me for being one step behind. I’ll just catch up now. You want certain parties to tag you, or at least suspect you, as the source of the information you’re going to give me.”
“I’m not going to give you information so much as supposition. You do what you like with it. You already know, or I’m wasting my time talking to you, that Kohli and Mills were on the task force that busted Max Ricker.”
“Yeah, I’ve picked that up. But then again, there were more than a dozen cops and various official drones on that task force. Ricker’s bad news, but it’s a long stretch to think he’d scrape his knuckles having a whole group of cops taken out. And for what? The annoyance factor? He lost a big pile of money, but he got off.”
“There’s reason to believe he had a connection to at least one of the victims.” Keep it vague, Eve thought. Let the reporter do the digging. “There are four men coming up for a hearing this morning who are allegedly employed by Max Ricker. They are charged with various crimes, including the unlawful vehicular pursuit of a police officer. Seems to me if Ricker’s ballsy enough to send goons after a cop in broad daylight, he wouldn’t stick at arranging for the murder of cops.”
“He came after you? Dallas, as a reporter, that tip makes me incredibly hot and excited.” But she laid a hand on Eve’s arm. “As your friend, I’d like to advise you to take a vacation. Far, far away.”
Eve stopped at the steps of the courthouse. “Your police source can’t tell you that Ricker is a suspect in the murder, or the conspiracy to murder, two NYPSD officers. But your source can tell you that the investigation is taking a cold, hard look at the activities, associations, and businesses of one Max Edward Ricker.”
“You won’t nail him, Dallas. He’s like smoke, just keeps shifting and vanishing.”
“Watch me,” Eve invited, and strode up the steps.
“I’m going to,” Nadine murmured. “And I’m going to worry, damn it.”
Eve pushed through the doors and tried not to sigh over the line for the security scan. She chose the shortest for police and city officials, inched her way forward, and had just cleared when all hell broke loose.
She heard the shouts from the second level where Lewis’s hearing was scheduled and, charging up the stairs, pushed her way through the crowd of lawyers and court groupies that had already gathered.
Lewis was on the floor, his face gray, his eyes rolled back.
“He just keeled over!” someone called out. “Just keeled right over. Somebody call the MTs. Get a doctor.”
She was swearing as she charged forward, crouched down.
“Ma’am, you’ll have to move back.”
She looked up at the uniform. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. This one’s mine.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant. I’ve called for medical.”
“He’s not breathing.” She straddled him, ripped open his shirt, and started CPR. “Get these people back. Lock down the area—”
“Lock down—”
“Lock it down,” she ordered, and gave her breath to Lewis, knowing it was futile.
She worked on him until the medical techs arrived and pronounced him. Disgusted, she cornered his guard. “Report. I want to know everything that happened from the time you got him out of his cell.”
“Standard, sir, right down the line.” The uniform was ready to be resentful that anyone would point the finger at him because some hired hammer’s heart went bad. “Due to the charges, the subject was cuffed, then transported here.”
“Who was in the transport?”