Carmichael, uniform support will be key. I need you to work out a rotation. If you need any help with that, ask. Lastly, whatever you learn, I learn. Whatever you know, I know.
“Get hunting,” she said.
She stepped to Peabody’s desk. “Start on the associates. I’m going to write up the Tween interview and deal, then I’ll go by, inform the Modestos, see if I get anything else there. I’ll work from home.”
“I can work the Tween report in.”
“I’ve got it.”
Feeney tapped Eve’s shoulder. “Need a minute in your office.”
“Sure. Commander, thank you again.”
He merely gestured toward her office. She led the way, and got an uneasy feeling when Whitney closed the door.
Feeney scratched the back of his neck. “I’m putting a tracker on you.”
“Like hell.”
“Consider it an order,” Whitney told her.
“Sir—”
“An order,” he repeated.
Feeney let out a barely audible sigh. His baggy eyes offered sympathy. “I got a second one here for you to put on Roarke.”
“Is that before or after I stun him unconscious?”
Now he shrugged. “However it works, Dallas. You’re both targets.”
“Cops are always targets.”
“They’re not always targets of a contract killer with over four hundred kills under his belt. He gets lucky, manages to snatch one of you, we’ll know where you are.”
She resisted, barely, stepping back when Feeney took the trackers out of the pocket of his rumpled suit jacket.
“Sir, you can order me to wear one, and I’ll follow orders. I can’t order Roarke to do the same.”
“Convince him.” With that advice, Whitney walked out, left her with Feeney.
“This is just bullshit.”
“No bullshit. A little insulting, I get that, but it ain’t bullshit, Dallas.” He eased a hip onto the corner of her desk. “I spent a lot of time working with the commander on this today, getting intel and data, supposition, speculation. This son of a bitch knows how to slink into holes. He knows how to blend into the shadows, sink the blade in, and slide into a hole.”
“I know that, just like I know this is different.”
“Because it’s you?”
“Because it’s personal. When it’s personal, you make mistakes.”
He gave her a long look. “Damn right.”
Smacked right back at her, she realized. She’d served it up for him.
“Lose the jacket. You got anything on under the shirt?”
“What do you mean, do I have anything on under the shirt? Where are you putting that damn thing?”
He poked her under her right arm about an inch out from the armpit.
She took off the jacket, but just shoved up the short sleeve of the T-shirt.
A tremendous relief for both of them.
“It’s thin, and it’s pliable, and it’ll blend right in with the flesh patch.”
Eve stared up at the ceiling when he picked his spot, got to work.
“It’ll hold up to fluids—sweat, swimming, shower. Heat, cold. Try to peel it off, it’ll take some skin with it. So don’t do that. I’ve got a solution that removes it. Best we got, ’cause it’s the best there is. Guess who makes them?”
She didn’t have to. But knowing she wore a Roarke Industries product didn’t make it easier to swallow.
Lips pursed, he checked the seal, then pulled out his ’link.
“See, there you are.”
She frowned at the blinking red blip on his screen. When he tapped it, the screen showed Cop Central and the location of her office.
“You drive uptown, it’ll read you. You hop a shuttle, it’ll read you. End up in fricking China? It’ll fricking read you. The boy’s a fricking genius.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him that when he kicks my ass for trying to stick one of these on him.”
“Jesus, Dallas, just pull out some wife shit.”
“What wife shit?”
“How you know he’s smarter and stronger, and whatever other crap you need to toss in, but how you’re worried, how worrying messes you up. Shit like that, so he does it because he’s worried, and guilty, because you’re worried. Just wife shit.”
It fascinated. “How do you know wife shit?”
“Because I’ve had one more’n half my life, for Christ’s sake. Sheila doesn’t pull out the wife shit regular, and that’s why it works. Every goddamn time.”
Wife shit, Eve considered. It seemed like, maybe, it could run parallel with the Marriage Rules if she stretched it just enough.
“If it doesn’t work, I’m calling you in. You’re probably better at it.”
“Might be.” He handed her the box with the second tracker. “Instructions’re with it, but he’ll know how it works. Hell, he made it. Get it on him.” Feeney headed for the door.
“Hold on. If there’s wife shit, there’s husband shit.