Treachery in Death by J. D. Robb Page A

want to pay her back for every second I was in that freaking shower. I mean, over and above bringing a dirty cop to justice.”
    “Naked in the shower,” Eve reminded her.
    “With nothing to do but give them an angry towel snap if they slapped open the door.”
    “We’ll pay them back,” Eve promised, and looked over to where Roarke and McNab worked together. Roarke in his tailored dress shirt and pants, McNab in pink, multi-pocketed knee shorts and a buttercupyellow tank that sported E-DICK in screaming red letters across his skinny chest.
    Geeks were geeks, Eve thought, whatever the wardrobe.
    “Your map,” Roarke announced, nodding to the wall screen. “And your most-likelies.”
    “Not bad. His type tend to stick to a certain area, to do their business within a handful of blocks where they know the score, the routes, the dodge points.”
    “If he was going to rabbit, wouldn’t he move outside his usual turf?”
    She shook her head, glanced at McNab. “Look at the time line from the conversation Peabody overheard. The heat’s up, and that says this screwup was fresh. The kill recently ordered and executed. Garnet didn’t even know about it. Add to that, ten thousand on the line. This had to move fast. From Keener’s sheet, he’s not a bright light. Smart enough not to go home, but not, most likely, smart enough to relocate outside his comfort zone. He hadn’t rabbited yet, so he wasn’t finished getting his shit together. We’re going to find him within this area, just like his killer did.”
    She studied the map a little longer. “Eliminate anything he’d have to pay for. No tenanted apartments.”
    The map adjusted to Roarke’s command.
    She knew the area well enough, with its sidewalk sleepers, low-rent street LCs, funky-junkies, ghosts, used-up chemi-heads. Even the gang-bangers had given it up as not worth the trouble.
    “I like these five locations. Two-man teams. We’ll get you a vehicle. A nondescript one,” she added when she saw McNab’s face light up.
    He shrugged. “I guess it has to be.”
    “It does. Roarke and I will take these two, Peabody and McNab these two. If we zero, we’ll converge on location five. We get nothing, we’ll widen the map again. Do either of you have a clutch piece on you?”
    At the negative, Eve rolled her eyes. “We’ll get you that, too. There are some people in this sector who just aren’t very nice.
    “We’ll seal up. I don’t want to leave any trace we’ve been there. Keep any disturbances to the locations to a minimum, and don’t talk to anybody. Don’t ask questions. Go in, go through, get out.”
    “If we find the body?” Peabody asked.
    “Get out, signal me, and get gone. We’ll meet back here where I’ll be getting an annoying anonymous tip about a dead guy. Records on, boys and girls, the whole time, so keep the chatter down, too. Records will be turned over to command and IAB.”
    She blew out her breath as she studied McNab. “You’re not going on a covert op in that getup. Roarke, have we got anything we can put on this geek?”
    “Actually, you’re more his size.”
    Eve closed her eyes. “Jesus. I guess I am.”
    She found jeans and a black T-shirt, and after she’d tossed them at McNab, closed the bedroom door so both she and Roarke could change.
    “I’m partially sorry,” she said.
    “Oh?”
    “I’m partially sorry because I did start to tag you about being so late, then got interrupted and forgot. But I almost always remember, so I think I could get a goddamn pass on it.”
    “I wasn’t angry, and I’m not angry about you not calling—particularly. I don’t give you grief about that sort of thing, Eve.”
    “No, you don’t, but I feel guilty about it because you don’t.”
    “Ah, my fault again.”
    “Oh, shut up.”
    “There goes the truce.”
    “You could be partially sorry.”
    “But I’m not, not a bit, for enjoying the evening with Summerset and his very interesting friends—who I’d never