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She gave a head nod toward the door, so they’d walk and talk. “Trueheart looks good. He steady enough?”
“Doc cleared him physically. Kid’s healthy as a horse. Shrink gave him thumbs-up, too.”
“I read the evals, Baxter. I’m asking you.”
“Truth is, I think what happened to him—nearly happened—a couple weeks ago shook me more than him. He’s solid, Dallas. He’s gold. Gotta tell you, I never figured on taking on a rookie, or putting on a trainer’s hat, but he’s a gift.”
Baxter shook his head as they caught a glide. “Kid loves the job. Hell, he is the job, like nobody I know except you. He bounces in each shift, raring. I tell you, he makes my fucking day.”
Satisfied, Eve headed down the hall with him.
“Speaking of trainees,” Baxter continued, “I hear Peabody’s going to take the detective’s exam in a few days.”
“Nothing wrong with your hearing.”
“Nervous, Mom?”
She shot him a narrow look. “Funny. Why should I be nervous?”
He started to grin, then they both turned at the high-pitched howl. A skinny guy in restraints broke away from the uniform escorting him, sent another to his knees with a well-placed groin kick, then came flying toward the glide, eyes wild, spittle flying.
Since her Pepsi was in her weapon hand, Eve winged it. It caught him between the eyes with an audible thud. It surprised more than hurt him, so that he stumbled, righted himself, then lowered his head and charged her like a battering ram.
She had just enough time to pivot. She brought her knee up sharply, connecting with his chin. There was a nasty crunching sound that she figured was either his jaw snapping or the cartilage in her knee shifting.
In either case, he went down hard on his ass, and was immediately tackled by two uniforms and one passing plain-clothes cop.
Baxter reholstered his weapon, scratched his head at the melee on the floor. “Want another Pepsi, Dallas?” What was left of hers was making a brown puddle on the floor.
“Goddamn it. Who’s in charge of this asshole?”
“Me, sir.” One of the uniforms staggered up. He was winded, and bleeding from the bottom lip. “I was taking him to holding for—”
“Officer, why didn’t you have control of your prisoner?”
“I thought he was controlled, Lieutenant. He—”
“Obviously, you thought incorrectly. It appears you need to refresh yourself on proper procedure.”
The prisoner bucked and kicked, and began to scream like a woman. To demonstrate proper procedure for controlling prisoners, Eve crouched, ignoring the twinge in her knee. She grabbed the screamer by a hank of his long, dark hair, jerked his head until his crazed eyes met hers.
“Shut up. If you don’t shut up, if you don’t cease resisting immediately, I will pull your tongue out of your mouth, drag it around your neck, and strangle you with it.”
She saw from his eyes that he’d been enjoying some chemicals, but the threat got through, or maybe it was the tone that warned him she meant it, literally.
When he sagged, Eve rose and gave the uniform the same cold glare. “Add resisting and assaulting an officer to our guest’s prize package today. I want to see a copy of your report before you file it, Officer . . .” She deliberately scraped her gaze down and scanned his name tag. “Cullin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lose him again, and I’ll use his tongue to strangle you. Move.”
There was a scramble as a couple of uniforms moved in, a show of solidarity, to drag the prisoner up and haul him away.
Baxter handed Eve a fresh tube of Pepsi. “Figured you’d earned this.”
“Goddamn right,” she shot back, and limped into Homicide.
She wrote her own report, and hand-carried it to Commander Whitney. He gestured her to a chair, which she took, grateful to get off her aching knee.
