In Death 15 - Purity in Death

up. He didn't look good. Halloway. All sweaty and his eyes were blown. Your eyes get fucked sometimes with all the data, but his were bad. I went back to my cube, he went to his. I forgot about it."
    "Did you speak with him again? See him speak or have an altercation with anyone else?"
    "No. I had to get this report out. And there was a search and scan on a couple 'links I'd been putting off because they promised to bore my brains out. I got some coffee, bullshitted with Gates. Got stuck with a transmission from some woman who thinks her computer's possessed by aliens. We get those all the time. We've got this routine we walk them through to . . . Doesn't matter. I'm just off that call, and I hear somebody yell. Somebody's yelling in EDD half the time, but this was different. This was trouble. I swung around to see what the hell was going on."
    He stopped there. Eve could hear the monitor's rapid beeps. His heart rate was up, she thought. Time to back off.
    "Okay, we'll get the rest tomorrow."
    "No. No, I remember how it went. I saw him coming at me. It didn't click through all the circuits at once. I mean, jeez, why would Halloway be charging at me with his weapon out? Doesn't compute. His face . . . He looked crazy, and he was already sweeping out streams like some combat cop laying down suppressive fire. Somebody screamed. I jumped up . . . started to jump up. I didn't have my weapon on. Hardly any of us wear it when we're working. I think maybe I was going to dive for cover. I think maybe I started to. Then bam - a couple of elephants plowed into my chest, and I was gone. How many of us did he take out?"
    "Three others took jolts, and were treated and released on-scene. You got the worst of it."
    "Just my luck. Halloway, he was okay before this. We'd rag on each other now and again, but just the way you do. We didn't have bad blood between us. He liked his work, and there's this skirt he was gone enough over that they were going to get married. He bitched about Feeney sometimes. Thought the captain was old-fashioned or something, but everybody bitches about the ranks off and on. It doesn't make sense he'd come at me that way. Something's wrong about this."
    "Something's wrong about it," she agreed.
    "I need to be in on the investigation."
    Yeah, she thought, he did. In his place, she'd have needed it. "There'll be a full briefing tomorrow, nine hundred, my home office. Meanwhile, you'd better get back in shape because I don't have time to carry you around."
    "Yes, sir. Thanks."
    "We've got to go stock the AutoChef with gruel and other tasty invalid food. See you around."
    "The gruel was a nice touch," Roarke told her as they walked down the hall.
    "I thought so."
    "Put a nice happy glow on his face."
    "Lieutenant! Dallas!"
    She turned to see Peabody hustling down the hallway, then took a staggering step back when her aide caught her in a fierce embrace. "Thanks. Thank you."
    "Oh, jeez." Mortified, Eve lifted a hand, patted Peabody awkwardly on the back. "Okay."
    "His heart stopped. During the transpo. They had to zap him. It was only a few seconds, but I thought: What'll I do? What'll I do? He's such an asshole," Peabody said and burst into tears.
    "Man. God. Roarke."
    "An interesting and flattering lineup," Roarke said to his wife's strangled call for help. "Here now, darling." Gently, he eased Peabody's death grip on Eve and with his arm around her led her into a small waiting area. He sat her down and dabbed at her cheeks with a handkerchief.
    Eve shuffled her feet, then sat. Then rubbed a hand over Peabody's thigh. "You're just going to puff up his ego if he finds out you're crying over him. He's already hard to live with."
    "I know. Sorry. It was, I guess it was hearing him say how it went down. It's got my brain all scrambled up."
    "There's a lot of that going around."
    Peabody managed a watery laugh and laid her head on Roarke's shoulder. Such was her state of mind that the physical contact didn't cause her to experience the usual sexual tingle. "You guys are the ult. Seriously. Taking him in for a few days while his system levels out."
    "Well." Eve sighed. Friendship, she thought, could be so damn inconvenient. "He's bound to be pretty demanding. I'm sure as hell not going to be his private nurse. You're going to have to come along and take that duty."
    Peabody's lips trembled. Her eyes filled again.
    "Don't! Don't do that again. That's an order."
    "Yes, sir." She let out an enormous sigh. "I'm going to