In Death 13 - Seduction in Death

hard on his knife hand.
    While he wailed, flopped, she saw the second man had moved fast. He had the side of his blade lodged at the throat of the screaming pedestrian. And he had Zeus in his eyes, that elixir that made gods of men.
    "Drop it. Let her go and drop it."
    "Fuck you. Fuck her. This is my goddamn corner!"
    "You cut her, you'll die on this goddamn corner." The man on the ground was weeping now. She could smell the piss leaking onto the sidewalk where his bladder had let go.
    "You put your piece down or I cut her from ear to ear." He leaned in, running his tongue over the terrified woman's cheek. "And drink the blood."
    "Okay. Looks like you've got me." She lowered her weapon, watching his eyes follow it down. Then watching them jitter as Peabody stepped in from behind and laid her stunner against the back of his neck.
    Eve sprang forward, grabbing his knife hand, twisting it. The civilian slid to the ground like an empty sack. "Stun him again!" Eve shouted as the drug-induced strength had the knife jamming toward her throat. She felt the prick, that hot sting of metal against flesh.
    And both of them scented her blood.
    His body jerked, then lifted when Eve plowed her knee into his groin. She shifted her weight, sliced her heel into his instep, then curled to use the momentum to flip him over her back.
    He landed like a felled tree, flat out, and with a solid crack of skull on concrete.
    Eve scooped up the knife, and wheezing, stayed bent over.
    "Dallas? You okay? Did he cut you?"
    "Yes, damn it. Get that one." She pointed at the first man, still weeping, trying to crawl away.
    She heaved the second man over, clapped on restraints. The hostage was on the ground as well, and still screaming.
    Eve wiped the blood off her throat with the back of her hand and glanced over. "Somebody shut her up."

CHAPTER TEN
    She had a long, shallow cut from just under her right ear to just above the jugular. A little more pressure, the MT Peabody had summoned behind her back had cheerfully noted, a little more depth, and she'd have pumped herself dry quick, fast, and in a hurry.
    As it was, it wasn't so bad. Though she had blood on her shirt.
    "They've got stuff that'll take the blood right out," Peabody assured her as they drove uptown. "My mother always used salt and cold water though. Does the job. Mostly."
    "So does chucking it in the rag pile." Though she imagined Summerset would pluck it out again, work some sort of household voodoo, and it would end up back in her closet. Good as new.
    "See if you can put a hook in McNamara. I'd like to work him into my day, see what he has to say about the partnership, scandal, and sex drugs."
    While Peabody made the call, Eve checked in for messages, grumbling when there was nothing new from Feeney or McNab.
    "Dr. McNamara's off planet, sir. Isn't expected back for a couple days. I've left a request that he contact you with his admin, and on his voice mail."
    "Okay, we'll shuffle him down in the pile for now. Give me the run on this first guy. Lawrence Q. Hardley."
    "Thirty-two. Single, white male. Family hit it big in the late twentieth in the Silicon Valley explosion. No marriage or cohabitation on record. No criminal or military record."
    "And no prints on file."
    "None. NYC resident since forty-nine. Assists in running family business, NY branch, and holds title of exec vp in charge of marketing. Reported income -- salary, investments, dividends, expense quota, approximately five million two annually."
    Peabody studied the image alongside the data. "Looks pretty good, too. Maybe he'll fall in love with me and beg me to marry him, thereby providing me with the style of living to which I would be willing to become accustomed."
    It didn't work out that way. Hardley showed no particular interest in Peabody, but he did toward his pretty male admin. Things had looked hopeful when he'd become flustered and annoyed at the questioning, had refused to answer without his attorney present.
    It took twenty minutes to arrange for the consult, and another twenty to wade through standard questions with the addition of the attorney through holo-projection.
    An hour wasted, Eve thought as she slid back into her car, ticking Hardley off the list.
    "Why didn't he just tell us he was gay?" Peabody wondered. "And had an alibi for both nights in question?"
    "Some people are still uncomfortable with alternative sexuality, even when it's theirs. Run number two."
    They eliminated three out of the ten