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“Is it?” Eve stopped the car at the base of the front steps. “The law’s ignoring Mr. Smith. It hasn’t punished him, just like it didn’t punish the others. Purity punished them, and a lot of people thought: Hey, that’s not a bad idea. Cops didn’t do the job, so good, somebody else did. Nobody’s thinking, hmm, that Mary Ellen George was acquitted. Maybe she was innocent.”
“She wasn’t, so—”
“No, she wasn’t, but the next one could be. The one after that. It’s not easy to watch somebody walk, but it’s a hell of a lot easier than it is to know an innocent didn’t. These people are deciding who’s guilty. With what criteria, what system, what authority? Their own. They’re rolling, Peabody, and public opinion’s rolling with them. Let’s see how happy the public is when it starts coming into their homes, their lives.”
“You really think that’ll happen?”
“Damn right it’ll happen, unless we stop them. It’ll happen because they’re on a mission, and there’s nothing more dangerous than someone on a mission.”
She should know, Eve thought as she slammed out of the car. She’d been on one since she’d picked up a badge.
When she walked in, it was one of the rare times she wasn’t annoyed to see Summerset lurking in the foyer.
“Lieutenant, I’d like to have some idea how many of your guests will be staying overnight.”
“They’re not guests. They’re cops and a kid. Head on up, Peabody, I’ve got something to do here.”
“Yes, sir.” And assuming that something was to have her usual pissing match with Summerset, Peabody darted up to check on McNab.
“Give me the status on McNab, and give it in English,” Eve demanded.
“There’s no change.”
“That’s not enough. Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?”
“The nerves and muscles aren’t responding to stimuli.”
“Maybe we should’ve left him in the hospital.” She paced the foyer. “Maybe we shouldn’t have brought him here.”
“The simple truth is there would be little more they could do for him there as can be done here during the first twenty-four hours.”
“We’re past twenty-four,” she snapped. “We’re over that, and he should have it back.” She stopped herself, pulled it back in, and studied Summerset’s cadaverous face. “What are his chances? Don’t pretty it up. What are his chances of regaining sensation and mobility?”
“They decrease by the hour now. Rapidly.”
He watched Eve close her eyes, turn away. But before she did, he saw the raw grief. “Lieutenant. McNab is young and he’s fit. Those qualities play strongly in his favor. Being allowed to work at this time helps keep his mind active and off his difficulties. That can’t be discounted.”
“They’ll bounce him on disability, or stick him in a cube doing drone work. He’ll never feel like a cop again once that happens. He prances when he walks,” she said quietly. “Now he’s stuck in that chair. Goddamn it.”
“Arrangements have been made with the clinic in Switzerland. I believe Roarke mentioned this.” He waited until she turned around, looked at him again. “They’ll take him as early as next week. They have an impressive rate of success in regenerating nerves. He must continue his treatments until—”
“What’s their rate?”
“Seventy-two percent with injuries similar to McNab’s make a full recovery.”
“Seventy-two.”
“It’s not impossible he’ll recover naturally. In an hour. A day.”
“But his chances of that suck.”
“In a word. I am sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I.” She started up.
“Lieutenant? He’s frightened. He’s pretending not to be, but he’s a very frightened young man.”
“They used to put bullets in you,” she murmured. “Little steel missiles that ripped through flesh and bone. I wonder, when it comes down to it, if this is any cleaner.”
