"No question."
"We're going to give them one."
Eve kept her eyes straight ahead. "As police officers we won't, in any way, facilitate the escape of material witnesses."
"Right. I want to talk to my parents. Funny how when something really twists up your thinking-the order of things for you-you want to talk to Mom and Dad."
"Wouldn't know."
Peabody winced. "Sorry. Shit, I get stupid when I'm this tired."
"No problem. I'm saying I wouldn't know because I didn't have any-not normal ones. Neither did they. If that's what makes them artificial, then so am I."
"I want to talk to my parents," Peabody repeated after a long moment. "I know I'm lucky to have them, and my brothers, my sisters, all the rest. I know they'll listen, that's the thing. But not having that, having to make yourself out of what gets dumped on you, creating your life out of that. . . it's not artificial. It's as real as it gets."
The streets and sky were nearly empty. Occasionally an animated board bloomed out color and light. Dreams of pleasure and beauty and happiness. Bargain prices.
"Do you know why I came to New York?" Eve said.
"No, not really."
"Because it's a place where you can be alone. You can step out on the street with thousands of other people and be completely alone. Besides being a cop, that's what I thought I wanted most."
"Was it?"
"For a while, yeah. For a long while it was what I wanted. I'd gone from being anonymous to being monitored constantly through the foster program and state schools. I wanted to be anonymous again, on my terms. To be a badge, period. I don't know, if I'd caught this case ten years ago-five years ago-if I'd have handled it the way I'm doing now. Maybe I'd just have taken them down. Black and white. It's not just the job, the years on it that bring in all the gray. It's the people, dead and alive, you end up connected to who paint it in."
"I go with the last part. But no matter when you'd caught this, you i go this way. Because it's right. And that's what counts, that's what do. Avril Icove's a victim. Somebody needs to be on her side."
Eve smiled a little. "She has each other."
"Good one. A little bit of a cheap shot, but good nonetheless."
"Get some sleep." Eve pulled up in front of Peabody's building, tag you if I need you to come in, but for now plan to catch some sleep, pack, and go."
"Thanks for the lift." Peabody yawned again as she got out. "Happy Thanksgiving, if I don't see you before."
Eve eased from the curve, and saw in the rearview that McNab had left a light on in the apartment for Peabody.
There'd be a light on for her, too, she thought. And someone who’d listen.
But not yet.
She put her vehicle on autopilot, pulled out her personal 'link.
"Blah," Nadine said, and Eve could see the faintest of silhouettes on screen.
"Meet me at the Down and Dirty."
"Huh? What? Now?"
"Now. Bring a notebook-paper not electronic. No record Nadine, no cams. Just you, old-fashioned paper and pencils. I’ll be waiting."
"But-"
Eve just clicked off, and kept driving.
The bouncer on the door of the sex club was big as a sequoia, blac