“They had eyes on your father?”
“Yes. Eyes and ears. They . . . it’s complicated, Feeney, and I don’t have it in me to go through it all. But the fact is there’s a file. Roarke’s read it and—”
“Hold up. They had eyes and ears, they knew there was a kid, and they didn’t intervene?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Fuck the point.”
“Feeney.” She turned back and was assaulted by the same rage shooting off him as it had with Roarke. “I shouldn
’t be telling you any of this. If anything . . . You could, depending on the outcome, be considered an accessory before the fact. But maybe, by telling you, we can change the outcome. He’ll look for payback, and he can’t. It could ruin him. You know that. I’m asking you to help me stop him.”
“Stop him? What makes you think I won’t give him a hand with it?”
“Because you’re a cop,” she snapped. “Because you know you can’t take it down to the personal that way. You know what can happen when you do. I need you to keep him busy, too busy for him to spend any time moving on this other thing. I need you to find a way to try to talk him down from this. I think he’d listen to you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She dragged her hands through her hair. “I just do. Please God, Feeney, don’t make me go to Summerset with this. It’s hard enough asking you. I just need to buy some time so I can think it clear.”
“Keeping him busy’s not a problem seeing as there’s only three of us working on fourteen units. Talking to him . . .” Feeney’s hands retreated to his pockets as he shrugged. “I’ll see if I can find an opening for it. Can’t promise I will.”
“I appreciate it. I appreciate it, Feeney. Thanks.”
“Let me ask you something, Dallas. Just between you and me, here and now. We don’t have to bring it up again, but I want a straight answer from you. You don’t want payback?”
She looked down at the floor, then made herself lift her gaze and meet his eyes. “I want it so bad I can taste it. I want it so bad, so fucking bad, it scares me. I want it, Feeney, so bad that I know I have to put it away. I have to, or I’ll do something I’m not sure I can live with.”
He nodded, and that was enough for both of them. “Let’s go do the job, then.”
Commander Whitney was a big man who sat behind a big desk. Eve knew his day was filled with paperwork and politics, with diplomacy and directives. But it didn’t make him less of a cop.
He had skin the tone of glossy oak, and the eyes that beamed out of his wide face were dark and intelligent. There was more gray in his hair than there’d been the year before, and Eve imagined his wife nagged him to deal with it.
Personally, Eve liked it. It added one more aspect of authority.
He listened, and she found his silence during her report both heavy and comforting.
She remained standing when she was finished, and though she didn’t glance over at Peabody, she knew her partner was holding her breath.
“Your source on this information is reliable?”
“Sir, as this information came to me through unknown sources, I am unable to vouch for the reliability of same, but I’m convinced the data itself is reliable.”
He raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Carefully said. It may stand if and when you’re pushed on it. How do you intend to proceed?”
“I intend to disclose this information to Reva Ewing.”
“That should make her lawyers stand up and dance.”
“Sir, she didn’t kill Bissel and Kade. I can’t in good conscience withhold this information from someone who is, essentially, another victim.”
“No. I just hate seeing lawyers dance.”
There was the faintest snort from Peabody, hastily transformed into a cough.
“The PA’s not going to be happy,” Whitney added.