"She's used to waiting," Peabody pointed out.

"Not for this. If you want to observe," she began, glancing over at Roarke.

"I'll be in and out. And close enough when you're finished with this."

She got off the elevator, headed straight for her office.

"I'm going to tap your coffee," Roarke told her, "before I take myself off to a quiet spot for an hour or so."

"You can use my office."

"I may end up there, but you'll need it for a bit, won't you?"

Even as he said it, they stepped in to find Reo waiting.

"That was fast."

"I'd just gone to my office. If I'm working on Saturday, I might as well work. Hi, Roarke."

"I'll be out of your way in just a moment. Coffee?"

"Oh boy, yeah. What happened to your hand?" she asked Eve.

"She had a knife." Eve sat on the edge of her desk, took the coffee Roarke offered.

"I'll take mine to go." Unconcerned about Eve's dignity in front of Reo, Roarke caught Eve's chin in his hand, kissed her firmly. "Go finish it."

"I'll see you tomorrow." Reo smiled at him. "At a happier event."

"What's tomorrow?" Eve demanded as Roarke strolled out.

"Bella's birthday party."

"What? No, that's... tomorrow?"

"Sunday afternoon," Reo confirmed. "And really good timing as it turns out."

Eve stared into her coffee. "I just can't catch a break."

"Oh, what's your problem? It's happy! There'll be cake and surely adult beverages. Now let's talk about our murderous teenager."

"Yeah, wait. I want Peabody in on this."

To make that happen, Eve merely stepped to the door, shouted, "Peabody!"

But she did program a coffee regular and shove it into her partner's hand when Peabody came in, double-time clomp.

"Close the door. Okay, here's how I want to play it. There's some timing involved."

Eve ran it through for them. Together they discussed strategy, tactics, legalities. As she finished off her coffee, she glanced over at the sharp knock on her door.

"That's going to be Nadine. Peabody, go on and check on our suspect from Observation. I'm going to need about ten minutes."

Eve opened the door. Before Nadine could spew out the words that went with the hard gleam in her eyes, Reo stepped forward.

"Hey! How are you? I heard you were at Madison Square."

"Backstage and out of the action."

"Plenty of action around here, and more to come. If I don't get a chance to see you before you leave, we'll talk tomorrow."

"Same goes." And Peabody, recognizing that gleam, hustled out with Reo.

Now Nadine shut the door. "You lied to me."

"I did not. Would I, if it saved lives? Absolutely. But I didn't. I used you," Eve added. "And as a result you saved lives. One of them could have been mine. Thanks."

"What kind of bullshit -"

"It's not. You can spend the time I have to give you bitching at me, or you can let me lay it out for you then have your exclusive. Your choice."

The gleam stayed hard. "We're supposed to be friends, over and above the rest of it, Dallas. We're supposed to be friends."

"Yeah, that happened. That happened and because of it I never thought of or considered tagging anyone else. I know my friends. I may have more of them than I actually want, but I know them or they wouldn't be. And I knew I could count on you."

"You could have told me the truth, and still counted on me."

Since she'd figured they'd have to push through this first, Eve shrugged, programmed coffee for Nadine.

"I did tell you the truth. I left out the part of it that would have compromised your journalistic integrity." She passed Nadine the coffee. "Because, fuck it, Nadine, we're not supposed to be friends. We are."

"Just how did -" Obviously still riding on plenty of mad, Nadine stopped herself, held up a hand. "Fine. Lay it out."

"I was on my way to the op on Lex. And I peeled off on a hunch. It hit me, that's all. It just did, and when it did, I knew I needed a distraction if the hunch played out. I fed you the Lexington Avenue op when I verified the suspect was holed up with a fucking armory at her mother's house. She'd have spotted us coming in, and it's a pretty sure bet somebody, many more than a couple of somebodies would be in the hospital now, if not the morgue, if we hadn't been able to distract her. You coming on with the bulletin fixed her attention on her screen. It made her believe she was safe where she was, and I could call in the rest of the team while we moved in on her.

"She's in Interview now, Nadine, and with minimal damage to all parties, because you told her what I needed her to hear."

Nadine scanned Eve's face. "You call that minimal. You've got a black eye. And what's wrong with your hand?"

"Minimal," Eve said again. "You gave me the window. I used you to open the window. You went on the air with what I gave you, which wasn't a lie. I couldn't give you the rest, for obvious reasons. And I couldn't give you the rest and ask you to report half a story. I don't know all the Friendship Rules, but I'm going to say one of them's not asking and expecting a friend to compromise her professional integrity to open a window for you."

Nadine huffed, then pulled out Eve's desk chair and sat. She drank some coffee. "The Lexington Avenue op wasn't bullshit?"

"No, it wasn't. We were following a viable lead. Viable because the person giving us that lead believed it. That would be her father."

Nadine straightened in the chair. "Her father flipped on her?"

"Not exactly, and if you want to ask questions, why don't we do it? I've got a case to close."

Nadine sat another moment. "I hated getting scooped by that putz from New YorkOne."

Eve shrugged again. "Happens, right? He's probably going to hate you going on with details of the arrest with a follow-up on the result of the interview with said suspect."

"Yeah, he is." Nadine pushed up. "I need to trust you."

"And you can. Nadine, both Roarke and Peabody took hits body armor kept those hits from sending them to the morgue."

"You?"

"Yeah, and me. The thing is, without the distraction, she might've hunkered down and distracted us by picking off civilians a couple blocks away. But she didn't have time to go there because we got in. She focused on you, then she had to focus on us. Minimal damage," Eve repeated.

"All right. I'm going to think about all that. But right now, I'm going to tell my camera to come in. We'll get this on the air. I suppose offering you makeup for that face is a waste of time. You want those bruises to show."

"Hey. I earned them." Eve smiled.

Peabody stepped out of Observation, where she and Mira had been watching a bored, sulky-eyed Willow and talking about tomorrow's birthday party.

She walked to the Interview room door, opened it.

Willow glanced up. She'd shorn off the dreads so her dark hair hung shaggy and short. Like Eve, she sported some visible bruising.

"About fricking time."

"It's going to be another couple minutes," Peabody told her. "Do you want a drink?"

"Jesus. Yeah." Willow shrugged. "Orange fizzy."

On a nod, Peabody turned, then jolted when she came face-to-face with Eve. "Sorry. I didn't think you were ready. I offered to get the kid a drink."

"Fine. Just here comes the APA. Just don't take all damn day."

"Rabbit quick." In her haste, Peabody left the door slightly ajar.

"Dallas."

"Reo. I told you we didn't need that damn deal."

"We made the deal with Mackie for good reasons, and you know it. And without his information you wouldn't have known what kind of firepower you were going in against."

"That's the least of it. Dealing with him for information on her? Making that agreement that ties into trying her as a minor? I'd've brought her down without it. I did bring her down, goddamn it. How about you explain to families of all the victims how the person who took their lives does a couple of years for it?"

"Would you have preferred notifying more families their loved ones were in the morgue?"

"With your deal, I can just wait until she's out at eighteen to start doing that again."

"Rehabilitation -"

"Oh, don't even start that crap with me. People like me risk everything to put people like her in a cage. Then you deal it down to nothing so they walk out and do it all again. She does under three years, and you call that a win."

"It's not about winning, it's about doing our jobs. We both did our jobs, and this is where we stand. If you convince her to confess, we can save the taxpayers' money, avoid a trial, and move on. Now do you want to tie this up so we can both go home, or do you want to stand here and bitch at me about how the system works?"

"The system sucks."

"Are we ready?" Peabody asked as she came back, fizzy in hand.

"We're ready. I don't need you in there, Reo."

"Not your call. We're on the same side, Dallas, so suck it up."

Peabody pushed open the door.

Face set, eyes still flashing with anger, Eve walked in. "Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve; Peabody, Detective Delia; Reo, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Cher, entering Interview with Mackie, Willow."

She reeled off the rest of the data as Peabody set the fizzy on the table. Willow picked it up, held it in her restrained hands, and sipped with a smirk on her face.

"Have you been read your rights, Miss Mackie?"

"Yeah. And sure, I understand them fine. Banged you up pretty good. Too bad your hand got in the way of my knife."

"Don't be disrespectful." Peabody sent her a disapproving scowl. "You're in deep enough."

"Could've taken you," Willow shot back. "And you'd be as dead as that idiot who played you in the vid."

"Back-talking adults isn't going to help you," Peabody warned. "You're in serious trouble, Willow."

"You busted into my house. I defended myself."

"We entered your mother's house duly warranted," Eve corrected. "And found you in possession of numerous illegal weapons. You utilized those weapons to attack police officers."

Willow smiled. She might have been an attractive young woman, despite the bruises and scrapes a few passes with the healing wand and some ice packs hadn't soothed away. But there was ugliness in that smile.

She lifted her middle finger, scratched her cheek with it as she looked at Eve. "Not my weapons. I used them to defend myself."

"You fired on police officers," Eve reminded her.

"How the fuck was I supposed to know you were cops?"

"Because we identified ourselves as same."

"Like that means dick."

"You saw the vid? The Icove Agenda?"

"Sure. Every time I watch it, I root for you to get blown up in the Icove lab." Smiling, Willow rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Maybe one day."

"But you didn't recognize me?"

"Only saw you for a second."