Page 143 of Fury In Death

“Sit,” Summerset added. “I’ll see to it.”

Maybe it felt weird to sit and have Summerset serve plates, a glass of wine, but now that she’d thought about food, she wanted it.

She ate slowly, carefully, but it went down just fine.

“Is the face any better?”

“A bit.”

“Needs more than a bit. You get body blows, nobody notices, but get your face banged up, everybody does.”

“And that, of course, is the main thing.”

“I go in tomorrow with this? Jenkinson’s going to go on a fuck rampage. Worse? I’ve got a media conference scheduled first thing.”

“Where you’ll look like a cop who doesn’t back down.”

She considered. “That’s one way to look at it. I like that way. The point of the media thing, for me, was to speak directly to Redman, which I’ve already done. To try to talk him down, and I’m not sure that’s possible.”

She ate a little more and gave thanks to whoever had come up with the idea of pasta in red sauce.

“Roarke, he said the serum—that he created—he said it kept him alive, and was killing him. Somehow, because I believe him, it’s doing both. He said his time was running out.”

“You want to stop him, and you want to save him.”

“I have to stop him. He’s smart. I don’t think he anticipated Banner in a cell, but Redman will find a way in. I don’t know how, but he’ll find a way.”

“So you’ll be speaking to him after all tomorrow.”

“I hope he listens.”

“You did, eventually.”

“I should’ve anticipated he’d stay close—the timing. But he’s smart, and the smart thing was to get gone. But he stayed close, and listened to me, to Peabody, to all of it. Normally, I’d call that a mistake, but it was purposeful.

“He’s studied me.”

“Has he now?”

“He trusts me. He looked into Feeney, and if he hadn’t seen a solid cop doing his best, there wouldn’t be a Feeney. Same with the arson investigator.”

“He only goes after the guilty.”

She heard it in his tone, the way he brushed the line of black-and-white into the gray.

“He’s still a vigilante, and a killer. Wyst was taking off, making all the plans, arrangements, transfers. He’d poof, or poof until this blew over.”

“Bloody coward.”

“They’re all bloody cowards, cowards who think they’re above the law because they have money and influence. This is so damn good,” she said, and ate some more. “I have a favor to ask.”

“It’s a fine time to ask me for one.”

“There’s a couple of people, a scientist, an exec coordinator—well, two exec coordinators,” she amended as she thought of Lorilee. “Smart, steady women. They come off clean, have assisted in the investigation. We’ll be shutting down Banner-Wyst.”

“And they’ll be out a job, won’t they?”

“You could take a look, run them through your system. If you’re satisfied, have a place for them, all good. If you’re not and don’t, still good. I could probably work them into the NYPSD.”