In her pretty pearl-gray suit, Reo sat, set down a cup of what Eve knew by the scent was her office coffee and a file.

She smiled as if sitting down to a fancy lunch with a friend. The APA looked like an easy mark. Young, blond, pretty, slight build.

No one noticed the fangs until after they’d sunk into their neck.

“Cher Reo, Mr. Cohen, with the prosecutor’s office. I’m told you have information on gang activity and would like to proffer that for a deal regarding the various charges currently against you.”

Seeing a mark rather than her fangs, Cohen reverted. “I want immunity from all charges, state and federal.”

“Oh.” Reo batted her pretty eyes. “Oh dear, I’m afraid there’s been some miscommunication. Immunity isn’t on the table. Lieutenant, I’m at Central coordinating an assault charge. I can’t take time away from that to deal in fantasies. If Mr. Cohen gains a grip on reality, let me know.”

“Just wait!”

Reo smiled again. “Mr. Cohen, I realize you’re in a precarious situation, but there are only so many hours in a day. I simply can’t waste any of mine.”

“Wait!”

He snapped it out. The same tone, Eve thought, he’d used when telling Eldena Vinn to be quiet.

It wouldn’t work here, either.

Reo glanced at her wrist unit, back at Cohen with the bitter cold of January. “Sixty seconds, starting now.”

Eve decided he’d felt the first bite of the fangs when his tone turned wheedling.

“I can help you break the back of the Banger gang. You’d be able to confiscate thousands of dollars’ worth of illegals, and weapons, and equipment. I can’t go to prison. I might be killed! I want Witness Protection.”

“Mr. Cohen, Witness Security is a federal program. I’m an assistant prosecutor for New York.”

“You can work it,” he insisted. “You can get the deal. The feds are going to confiscate the real estate and the funds anyway. Why care if I go to prison? Why care if I can give them bigger, a lot bigger, than me? I’m a legal consultant, that’s all.?

??

Reo’s eyes widened as she picked up her coffee. “Like a consigliere?”

“Yes. No.” He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “I consult, advise, that’s all.”

“And you claim, in that capacity, to have valuable knowledge that will lead to arrests and convictions?”

“Absolutely.”

“Example?”

“I need a deal.”

“Oops, ticktock.” Another glance at her wrist unit. “I need an example. Demonstrate your knowledge, and we can talk deal. Otherwise…”

“There’s an electronics shop on Broome—or was. When they refused to pay an increased protection fee, Jones ordered the place hit. A couple Molotov cocktails right before closing. The owner was still inside. He got out with minor injuries, but he lost everything.”

“And how did you come by this knowledge?”

“After the fact.” Earnestly now, Cohen patted his hands at the air. “Of course I’d have advised against destroying property, endangering lives. After the fact, one of the gang—Rufus Miller—was arrested. There was a witness who claimed they saw him light the place up. I was called in as his representative.”

“When did this take place?”

“Last November.”

Reo took out her PPC, keyed into it, scrolled. “Hmm. I see the witness recanted.” Reo spent another minute scrolling. “I also see an Amber Alert on the witness’s eight-year-old daughter, who was abducted on her way home from school—on the very day of Miller’s arrest. She was returned, unharmed and unable to give any information on her abductor.”

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
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