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He was threading through traffic like a snake sliding around rocks. She didn’t have the courage to check out the speed.
“Black van, Dallas. Trueheart said black van, no windows in the back. He’s fading.”
“He’s not going to fade.”
She wasn’t going to lose him. She wasn’t going to lose that young, fresh-faced, quietly dedicated cop who could still blush.
“He needs to switch the communicator to homing pattern. That’s all he needs to do.” Her hand balled into a fist, bumped on her thigh. “Baxter, goddamn it!”
“Block and a half. No van sighted.”
Pizza and a vid, Trueheart thought as he rolled helplessly in the back of the van. Wished he could dance better. Woulda asked her to dance if he wasn’t such a klutzo.
No, no, in a van. Black panel van. In trouble. Oh boy, in trouble. Steve. Bartender. Brown and brown, five-ten, a hundred and . . . what was it?
Tranq’d me. Gotta think. Do something. Something . . .
She was so pretty. Marley. Really pretty.
But it was Eve’s face that blurred in his brain. Straighten up, Officer Trueheart. Report.
Report, report. Officer down. I’m really down. Supposed to do something. He tried to reach the weapon at the small of his back, but his arm wouldn’t cooperate. Communicator, he
thought. He was supposed to do something with the communicator.
The procedure floated in and out of his brain as the music played and the van drove smoothly through the night.
Eve leaped out of the car at the parking port, sprang at Baxter who already had the operator in a choke hold against the kiosk.
A half dozen cop cars and twice that many cops were blocking crosstown traffic. The air was full of sirens, shouts, threats, and the rolling boom of thunder.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t know.” The operator gasped out the words as his eyes bulged from a face going a dangerous shade of puce.
“Stand down, Detective.” Eve grabbed Baxter’s arm.
“My ass. You’re going to tell me, you flat-nose little shitfaced weasel, or I’m going to wring your neck like a Thanksgiving turkey.”
“Stand down!” Eve boomed it out, knocked Baxter back two steps. Anticipating them both, Roarke locked Baxter’s arms behind his back as Eve stepped in to drill a finger into the operator’s heaving chest. “You got ten seconds, or I let him have you. Then I let the rest of these cops finish the job. I want the make, model, license number of the van you just sidelined.”
“I don’t know what—”
She leaned in, spoke very softly. “I will give you more pain than you can imagine. Your brains will leak out of your ears, and your bowels out of your ass. I will cause that to happen without leaving a mark, and every cop here will swear you died of natural causes.”
He’d been afraid of Baxter, but it wasn’t fear he felt now. It was jittering, jelly-filled terror. The man cop had been all heat, and heat could give you a few bruises. But cold, this kind of cold killed.
“Chevy Mini-Mule. 2051 model. Black, panel style. I gotta look up the license. I don’t want any trouble. Hey, the owners are out of town for two weeks. Guy just wanted a ride.”
“Look it up, you pus-ball. You’ve got twenty seconds.”
She pointed at a uniform to go with the operator into the kiosk. Baxter had stopped struggling against Roarke. He stood now, pale as ice, with grief already creeping into his eyes.
“I was going the wrong way, Dallas. The wrong goddamn way. I left the kid in the club. Wanted to go home, put my feet up, have a beer. I left him there.”
“What are you Psychic Cop now? You should’ve known this was coming down.” There was a sneer in her voice, a brutal one she knew would snap him out of it. “I didn’t know that about you, Baxter. We’ll have to have you transferred to Special Ops. They could use your talents.”
“Dallas. He’s mine.”
“We’re going to get him.” She let herself go long enough to take Baxter’s arm. “Pull yourself together, or you won’t be able to help him.”
