In Death 32 - Treachery in Death

might suggest the next time you want to behave like a pair of morons you shut the door as I could hear your clever banter halfway down the hall. However, Detectives Peabody and McNab are downstairs. She seems very upset, and informs me she needs to speak with you. Urgently.”
    “Crap.” Eve hurried to her closet for shoes as she ran through the investigation they’d just completed. Had they missed something?
    “They’re waiting in the parlor. By the way, Judith and Oliver said to tell you good-bye, and they hope to see you again when you have more time.”
    She caught the chilly glance before he melted away, and decided she probably would feel like two jumbo scoops of shit. But later.
    “You don’t have to go down,” she said stiffly to Roarke. “I can handle this.”
    “I’ll do more than flick you in a minute.” He walked out ahead of her.
    They maintained a fuming silence all the way down and into the parlor with its rich colors and gleaming antiques. Amid the stunning art, the glint of crystal, Peabody sat, sheet-pale, with McNab’s arm tight around her.
    “Dallas.” Peabody got to her feet.
    “What the hell, Peabody? Did those three idiots execute a jailbreak?”
    Instead of smiling, Peabody shuddered. “I wish it was that easy.”
    When Peabody sank down again, Eve crossed over. She sat on the table so they were face-to-face, eye-to-eye. “Are you in trouble?”
    “Not now. I was. I had to come, to tell you. I’m not sure what to do.”
    “About what?”
    “Tell it from the beginning,” McNab suggested. “You won’t jump around so much. Just start at the top.”
    “Yeah, okay. I—ah—Okay. After I finished the paperwork, I decided I’d do an hour in the gym, work on my hand-to-hand. You said it was a weak spot. I went down to the second-level facilities.”
    “Jesus, why? It’s a pit.”
    “Yeah.” As she’d hoped, the comment had Peabody taking a breath. “It really is, so nobody much uses it, and my gear’s old and ugly, and I just didn’t want to sweat and stuff with the hard bodies in the new space. I put in an hour, overdid it.”
    Peabody raked a hand through the hair she hadn’t bothered to brush. “I was toasted, you know. Went in for a shower. I had my things stuffed in a couple of the lockers. I’d just finished, started drying off in the stall when the locker room door bangs open, and two people come in, arguing.”
    “Here.” Roarke pushed a glass of wine in her hand. “Sip a bit.”
    “Oh boy, thanks,” she said as he offered McNab the e-man’s favored beer. Peabody sipped, breathed. “Female, seriously pissed. I started to call out so they’d know I was in there, so they’d take the fight elsewhere, then the other one goes off. Male. I’m in the damn stall with nothing but a towel that wouldn’t cover a teacup poodle, so I sort of squeeze back into the corner, and hope they go away. But they didn’t, and I hear them talking about the operation she runs, how he fucked up and cost them ten K. God.”
    “Slow down a little, Dee.” McNab murmured it while he rubbed a hand on her thigh.
    “Okay. Yeah. So they keep at each other, and I realize they’re not talking about a police op, but a side one. A long-running one, Dallas. I’ve got a couple of dirty cops right outside the shower door, talking about product and profit, about houses in the islands. And murder.
    “I’m naked, and trapped, and my weapon’s in the locker. So’s my’link, and they’re slamming the shower doors open—one I’d’ve been in if there’d been any damn soap in there.”
    Roarke stood behind her and, reaching down, laid his hands on her shoulders and began to rub. Taking another breath, she leaned back.
    “I’ve been scared before. You’ve got to be scared going into some situations or you’re just stupid. But this . . . When the fight burns out, and they’re back in control, she, like, pats my shower door, and, Jesus, it opens a little. I can see her arm, her dress, her shoes. All she has to do is shift an inch, and I’m made—back in the corner of the stall with nothing.”
    Beside her, McNab continued to rub her thigh, but his pretty, narrow face hardened like stone.
    “I can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t risk it because I know if they see me, I’m dead. No way around it. But they leave, they never saw me. I got out, got McNab to get a cab and meet me so I could come here. So I could tell you.”
    “Names?” Eve demanded, and Peabody shuddered