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“Hey, She-Body. What’s up?” McNab asked.

“Just a change of plans. I’m going to sit in on the security briefing.”

“Dallas isn’t going for Clooney?” Feeney asked.

“Yeah, yeah, she’s going.” As if it was vitally important, she selected a chair, brushed off the seat, settled into it.

“Alone?” Roarke’s voice made her want to cringe, but she looked up over his shoulder, shrugged her own. “No, no, she’s got somebody. Um, you’ll have to explain the system to me in English. I only speak pidgin tech-speak.”

“Who’s with her?” Roarke asked, though he already knew. It was just like her.

“With her? Oh, ah, hmmm. Webster.”

Silence fell, a clatter of broken bricks. Peabody folded her hands in her pockets and prepared for the explosion to follow.

“I see.” When Roarke simply turned back to the screen and continued, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or scared to death.

Webster resisted, barely, making some smart comment about the sleek luxury car and instead settled in to enjoy the ride.

Or tried to, but his nerves were jumping.

“Okay, let’s just get this out of the way. I’m not Ricker’s man in IAB. I guess I figured there had to be one, but I don’t have a line on it. I will have. I’m going to make a point of it.”

“Webster, if I thought you were hooked to Ricker, you’d still be back at Central, crawling over the floor trying to find what was left of your teeth.”

It made him smile. “That means a lot to me.”

“Yeah, yeah, save it.”

“So . . . I went into your files. You can kick me about that later if you want. I had your code and password. Bayliss dug it out. I didn’t have any right to and blah, blah, but I did it. I followed your line on Clooney. It was good work.”

“You expect me to blush and say aw, shucks? You try that crap again, and I’ll have you up, toothless, before the review board.”

“Fair enough. You didn’t get a warrant.”

“That’s right.”

“What you got’s thin, but it spreads enough that a judge would’ve issued.”

“I don’t want a warrant. He’s entitled to a little consideration.”

“Bayliss hated cops like you.” Webster looked out at New York, the jam of it, crowded, colorful, arrogant. “I’d forgotten what it was like to work this way. It’s not something I’m going to forget again.”

“Then listen up, here’s how we do it. Clooney’s living on the West Side. It’s an apartment. He moved out of his house in the burbs a couple months after his son died. Hang a busted marriage on Ricker while you’re at it.”

“It’s the middle of shift. He’s not going to be home.”

“You didn’t finish his file. It’s his day off. If he’s not there, we knock on doors until somebody tells us where he might be. And we go find him, or we wait. I do the talking. He’s going to come in voluntarily. That’s the way we’re going to make it happen.”

“Dallas, he’s killed three cops.”

“Five. You didn’t finish my notes, either. You’re slipping, Webster. A thorough cop is a happy cop.”

She found the address, started to double-park, then remembered she not only had Roarke’s snappy sedan, but didn’t have her On Duty light.

Cursing under her breath, she cruised until she found a parking slot. Two blocks down and one level up.

“It’s a secured building,” she noted, nodding toward the security cam and code box. “We bypass it. I don’t want him to have time to get ready for us.”


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