Three in Death by J.D. Robb

We’ll work from there.”
    “Do you think because you wear a ten-thousand-dollar suit I can’t smell the gutter on you?” Color began to flood Skinner’s face, but when Hayes stepped forward, Skinner gestured him back with one sharp cut of the hand. “You’re the same as he was. Worse, because he didn’t pretend to be anything other than the useless piece of garbage he was. Blood tells.”
    “It may have once.”
    “You’ve made a joke out of the law, and now you hide behind a woman and a badge she’s shamed.”
    Slowly now, Roarke got to his feet. “You know nothing of her. She’s a miracle that I can’t, and wouldn’t, explain to the likes of you. But I can promise you, I hide behind nothing. You stand there, with fresh blood on your hands, behind your shield of blind righteousness and your memories of old glory. Your mistake, Skinner, was in trusting a man like my father to hold a bargain. And mine, it seems, was thinking you’d deal with me. So here’s a warning for you.”
    He broke off as Hayes shifted. Fast as a rattler, Roarke drew a hand laser out of his pocket. “Take your bloody hand out of your coat while you still have one.”
    “You’ve no right, no authority to carry and draw a weapon.”
    Roarke stared at Skinner’s furious face, then grinned. “What weapon? On your belly, Hayes, hands behind your head. Do it!” he ordered when Hayes shot Skinner a look. “Even on low these things give a nasty little jolt.” He lowered the sight to crotch level. “Especially when they hit certain sensitive areas of the anatomy.”
    Though his breathing was now labored, Skinner gestured toward Hayes.
    “To the warning. You step back from my wife. Step well and cleanly back, or you’ll find the taste of me isn’t to your liking.”
    “Will you have me beat to death in a stairwell?”
    “You’re a tedious man, Skinner,” Roarke said with a sigh as he backed to the door. “Flaming tedious. I’d tell your men to have a care how they strut around and finger their weapons. This is my place.”
     
    Despite its size, Eve found the living area of the suite as stifling as a closed box. If she were on a case like this in New York, she would be on the streets, cursing at traffic as she fought her way to the lab to harass the techs, letting her mind shuffle possibilities as she warred with Rapid Cabs on the way to the morgue or back into Central.
    The sweepers would tremble when she called demanding a final report. And the asses she would kick on her way through the investigation would be familiar.
    This time around Darcia Angelo got to have all the fun.
    “Peabody, go down and record Skinner’s keynote, since he’s playing the show must go on and giving it on schedule.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    The morose tone had Eve asking, “What?”
    “I know why you’re leaning toward him for this, Dallas. I can see the angles, but I just can’t adjust the pattern for them. He’s a legend. Some cops go wrong because the pressure breaks them inside, or because of the temptations or just because they were bent that way to begin with. He never went wrong. It’s an awful big leap to see him tossing aside everything he’s stood for and killing one of his own to frame Roarke for something that happened when Roarke was a kid.”
    “Come up with a different theory, I’ll listen. If you can’t do the job, Peabody, tell me now. You’re on your own time here.”
    “I can do the job.” Her voice was as stiff as her shoulders as she started for the door. “I haven’t been on my own time since I met you.”
    Eve set her teeth as the door slammed, and was already formulating the dressing-down as she marched across the room. Mira stopped her with a word.
    “Eve. Let her go. You have to appreciate her position. It’s difficult being caught between two of her heroes.”
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
    “Sit, before you wear a rut in this lovely floor. You’re in a difficult position as well. The man you love, the