by J. D. Robb
“Thank you for your help.”
“But . . . Isn’t there something else?” Carleen asked when Eve got to her feet. “Isn’t there something more we can do?”
“There may be. We’ll stay in touch, Mrs. Steeple. You can reach either Detective Peabody or myself through Central, any time. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“I’ll show you out. Carleen, you should check on the kids.”
He walked them to the door, waited until he was sure his wife was out of earshot. “Look, I’m sorry I shot off like that.”
“No problem.”
“I want to know. Was she mutilated—like that other woman? I don’t want Carleen to see her if . . .”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“How?”
“I’m not going to give you those details, not at this time. They’re confidential to the investigation.”
“I want to know when you find him. I want to know. I want—”
“I know what you want. But what you need to do is take care of your wife, of your family. You need to leave the rest of it to us.”
“You didn’t know her. You didn’t know Lily.”
“No. But I know her now.”
Chapter 11
It was after five A.M. when Eve walked into Homicide. The skeleton squad from the graveyard shift was handling the ’links, catching up on paperwork. Or sleep. She gestured a come-ahead to Peabody so her partner would follow her into her office.
“I’ve got to contact Whitney.”
“Better you than me.”
“While I do, you tag Celina. Inform her we’re sending a couple of plainclothes to bring her in for a statement. I want her here at eight hundred hours. Then find me two cops to take the detail. When you get that set, you should catch a couple hours in the crib.”
“Don’t have to tell me that twice. Gonna join me?”
“No, I’ll stretch out in my office.”
“Where?”
“Just get this set up and close the door behind you.”
Alone, Eve stared at the ’link, and recited a little mantra in her head.
Let the commander answer and not his wife, let the commander answer and not his wife. In the name of all that’s holy, let the commander answer and not his wife.
Then, sucking it up, she sat down and made the call.
She nearly let out a cheer when Whitney’s tired face popped on screen.
“I’m sorry to wake you, sir. There’s been a homicide in Memorial Park. Single victim, Caucasian female, age twenty-eight. Sexual homicide with mutilation. The same MO as Maplewood.”
“Scene secure?”
“It is, sir. I’ve closed the park and have men at every entrance.”
“Closed it?”
“Yes, sir. It’s necessary, for the next ten to twenty-four hours.”
He let out a long, long sigh. “Which means it’s necessary for me to wake up the mayor. I want a full report on my desk by eight hundred hours. I’ll see you in my office at nine hundred.”
“Yes, sir.”
Eve looked at the blank screen. No, she didn’t see how she was going to manage sleep.
She input her notes and the record from on scene. Preparing for the long day ahead, she programmed a full pot of coffee, then sat to refine her report.
She read it over, searching for any missed details. Finding none, she ran standard probabilities, included the results. Then she saved it, filed it, and copied her commander, her partner, and Mira.
Rising, she pinned Lily Napier’s photos, alive and dead, to her board.
At seven-fifteen, she set her wrist unit, stretched out on the floor and slept, restlessly, for twenty minutes. Primed with another cup of coffee, she took a shower in the facilities off the locker room. Briefly, she considered popping some Stay-Up, but it always made her feel jittery and strange.
If she was going to be heavily caffeinated, she preferred doing it with coffee.
She opted to use a conference room rather than her office for her session with Celina, and since Peabody didn’t appear to be up from her nap, scheduled it herself.
Then she called down to the desk sergeant on duty and requested to be informed when Celina Sanchez checked in.
Rather than tolerate the swill the department offered, she culled another pot of coffee from her office and carried it to the conference room.
The desk sergeant beeped her just as Peabody came in. She sniffed the air. “God. Just pour it in a saucer and I’ll lap it up.”
“Get us some bagels or something from vending first,” Eve told her. “Charge them to the squad budget.”
“You’re actually thinking about food. I must be dreaming.”
“Sanchez is on her way up. So get your ass moving.”
“That’s the Dallas I know and love.”
When the door was shut again, Eve pulled out her personal ’link and beeped Roarke’s.
He answered quickly.
“Okay, she’s . . .” Eve narrowed her eyes. “Where are you?”
“About to continue my little adventure in Daytime Breaking and Entering.”
“I told you to wait until I contacted you.”
“Hmm.” He smiled and continued to work on Celina’s bedside ’link. “It appears I’ve disobeyed, once again. I expect to be roundly punished at the first opportunity.”
“Damn it—”
“Would you like to continue this chat, or let me get on with things?”
“Do it.”
In Celina’s bedroom, Roarke smiled to himself. He had a habit of irritating his wife, and was afraid he was just small enough to enjoy it.
He’d watched the cops pull up, go into Celina’s building. Casual shirts and trousers aside, he’d have made them as what they were at two blocks, heading in the opposite direction.
Cops looked like cops, especially to the eye of a criminal. Even a former criminal.
And though he trusted his cop implicitly, he preferred casing a job personally.
Ten minutes after Celina had come out and driven off with her escort—it was always best to make certain the mark didn’t turn around and go back for something forgotten—he jammed her security cameras with a remote. And strolled across the street.
Under three minutes later he was through the outside locks and alarms, and strolling inside.
A short time later, he’d verified the source of the transmission and was replacing the ’link. Celina had made the call exactly as she’d claimed. From her own bedside unit, moments after two A.M.
His cop could stop wondering.
It was hard to resist that poking around Eve had warned him against. It was, after all, in his nature. She, his cop, would never understand the hum in the blood that came from simply being where you were not allowed to be.
He gave himself a moment of it, admiring the art on the bedroom walls—fanciful, sensual, evocative. The color scheme that was richly and confidently female.
And if he wandered the second level of the loft, he was, technically, on his way out.
He liked the style, the openness of space, and again what he saw as the confidence of a woman who knew how she wanted to live, and did so.
He thought it might be interesting to hire her for some business event down the road.
He strolled out, as he’d strolled in. And with a check of the time, calculated he’d be in midtown in plenty of time for his first meeting of the day.
He didn’t beep her. Eve knew Roarke and his clever fingers. When her personal ’link hadn’t signaled by the time Celina was brought into the conference room, she knew the transmission was verified as being made from the bedroom ’link as stated.
No need to wonder, she thought. And no mistaking the emotional state of the stricken and exhausted woman who came into the room.
She looked drawn and sallow, like someone who was recovering from a long and severe illness.
“Dallas.”
“Have a seat. Have some coffee.”
�
�I will.” She sat at the conference table and used both hands to lift the mug. Her rings clinked lightly against the cheap stoneware. “I took a soother after we spoke last night. Didn’t help very much. I took another right before I came in. That doesn’t seem to be doing the job either. What I’d like to do is tranq myself into a coma. But I’m not sure that would help either.”
“It wouldn’t help Lily Napier.”
“That’s her name?” She drank. Paused. Drank again. “I didn’t turn on the media reports this morning. I was afraid I’d see her.”
“You saw her last night.”
Celina nodded. “It was worse than the last one. What I mean is, for me. I’m not equipped for this.”
“It’s very difficult for someone with your gift to witness or experience violence,” Peabody said, and was rewarded with a grateful smile.
“Yes. God, yes. It’s not that I experience the same extent—the full physical extent of the violence as the victim, but enough. And if . . . when you’re linked, psychically, the emotions reverberate in you. I know how she suffered. I’m alive. I’m alive and whole and drinking coffee, while she’s not. But I know how she suffered.”
“Tell me what you saw,” Eve ordered.
“It was . . .” Celina held up a hand, as if halting everything until she gathered herself. “The other time, it was like a dream. A vivid and disturbing dream, but something I could dismiss as just that. Until I saw the media reports. This was more. I wouldn’t have, couldn’t have mistaken it for anything but a vision. One of the most powerful I’ve ever had. It was like being there. Walking alongside her.
“She walked quickly, with her head down.”
“What was she wearing?”
“Ah, dark skirt—black, I think—short. A white shirt. Long sleeves, open collar, and a little cardigan-style sweater over it. Flat shoes with thick soles. Gel-soles, perhaps. She barely made a sound. She had a bag. A small purse she wore on a strap over her shoulder.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Dark. I don’t know. She didn’t know he was there, waiting, inside the park. In the shadows. He was dark, everything about him is dark.”
“Skin? Is he black?”
“No . . . I. No, I don’t think. I see his hands when he strikes at her. They’re white. Glossy and white and big. Very big. He struck her in the face. There was horrible pain. Horrible, and she fell, and the pain went away. She . . . passed out. I think. He hit her, kept hitting her even when she was unconscious. In the face, in the body.
“ ‘See how you like it. See how you like it.’ ”
Celina’s eyes went glassy, the pale, pale green of the irises nearly translucent. “ ‘Who’s the boss now? Who’s in charge now, you bitch?’ But he stops, he stops beating her, slaps her cheeks lightly with those big hands. Bringing her around. She needs to be awake for the rest. There’s such pain! I don’t know, don’t know if it’s his or hers, there’s so much pain.”
“It’s not your pain,” Peabody said quietly and shook her head before Eve could speak. “You’re a witness, and you can tell us what you see. It’s not your pain.”
“Not mine.” Celina breathed in deep. “He tears her clothes. She can’t fight, barely struggles. And when she tries to push at him, he yanks her hand away. Something in her breaks. She’s confused, the way an animal’s confused when it’s caught in a trap. He rapes her, and it hurts. It hurts deep inside. She can’t see him. It’s too dark and the pain is overwhelming. She goes under again. It’s safer there, there’s no pain there. She doesn’t feel when he kills her. Her body reacts, convulsing. And that . . . there’s a thrill in that for him. Her death throes bring him to orgasm.
“I’m sick.” Celina pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m sick. I need to—”
“Here, come on.” Peabody was up, drawing Celina to her feet. “Come with me.”
As Peabody helped her out of the room, Eve pushed away from the table. She walked to one of the windows, shoved it open so she could lean out. Lean out and breathe.
She understood the nausea all too well. What it was like to see, again and again. To feel, over and over. And the sickness that came with it.
She let the air and the noise, the life of the city, push it out of her again. She watched an airtram crammed with commuters streak by, and an ad blimp hover, spewing out its announcements for sales, events, tourist packages.
Her legs felt watery yet, so she stayed where she was, listening to the click of chopper blades, the blast of horns from the street below, the rattle of an airbus.
It all teemed together, a cacophony that was a kind of music to her. A song she understood, and one that gave her a sense of place.
She was never really alone in the city. Never helpless with her badge.
Remembering pain, knowing its source, could make her stronger. It was good to know that.
Steadier, she closed the window, walked back to the table, and poured more coffee.
Some of the color had seeped back into Celina’s cheeks when Peabody brought her back in. She’d fussed with her face a little—bright lip dye, eye gunk to cover the worst of the damage. Women, in Eve’s opinion, could worry about the strangest things at the strangest times.
Once Celina was seated, Peabody went over to get a bottle of water.
“You’re better off with this than the coffee,” she said, setting it on the table.
“Yes, you’re right. Thanks.” She held out a hand, gave Peabody’s a squeeze. “Thank you for staying with me, helping me pull myself back together.”
“No problem.”
“You must think me very weak,” she said to Eve.
“You’re wrong. I don’t think anything of the kind. I . . . We . . .” she amended. “We come to them after it’s done, and we see, day after day, the results of what people can do to each other. The blood, the gore, the waste. It’s not easy. It should never be easy. But we don’t see it happening—how it happens. We don’t feel what the victim feels and have to take it in.”
“Yes, you do.” Celina wiped her fingers under her eyes. “You’ve just found a way to handle it. Now, I have to.”
She steadied herself with more water.
“He undressed her after. I think. There was a part of me, by now, resisting the vision. Fighting it. But I think he took her clothes; they were torn from the rape. He carried her . . . Not her—damn it.”
She sipped water, took three long breaths. “What I mean is she’s someone else to him. He sees someone else, and he’s punishing someone else. Someone who punished him. In the dark. He’s afraid of the dark.”
“He kills at night,” Eve pointed out.
“He has to. He has to overcome it?”
“Possibly. What else?”
“I broke out of the vision. I broke out because I couldn’t stand it. And I called you. I know I should have let it run its course. I might have seen something that could help. I was panicked, and I fought it until I broke out.”
“We got to her, to the scene, quicker because you contacted me. We were able to preserve the scene because we were able to get there so fast. That matters.”
“I hope to God it does. Are you any closer to him?”
“I think we are.”
Celina closed her eyes. “Thank God. If you have anything of his, I can try to see him.”
“We have the murder weapon.”
Celina shook her head. “I’ll try, but it’s bound to be like it was before, so what I see—feel—is the act itself, and the emotions raging through it. I need something he’s touched with his bare hands. Something he’s worn or held to really see him, to add to what you already know.”
Eve laid the cord on the table. “Try anyway.”
Celina wet her lips, then reached out, touched the ribbon.
Her head snapped back, and her eyes rolled up so only a slice of green showed in the white. As she started to slide out of the chair, her fingers went limp and released the ribbon.
> Eve leaped up, caught her before she hit the ground.
“All him. Nothing of her. She’s gone. Hidden away when he puts it around her neck. There’s just his rage and fear and excitement. It’s all over me like—like insects biting at my skin. Horrible.”
“What does he do when he’s done with her?”
“Goes back to the light. He can go back to the light. I don’t know what it means. My head. My head’s splitting.”
“We’ll get you something for it, and have you taken home. Peabody?”
“Let’s get you a blocker. Do you want to rest before you go home?”
“No.” She leaned against Peabody. “I just want to go.”
“Celina.” Eve covered the red ribbon with her hand so when the woman turned she didn’t see it. “You might want to talk to Dr. Mira, a little counseling.”
“I appreciate the thought, I really do, but counseling—”
“Her daughter is Wiccan, and a sensitive.”
“Ah.”
“Charlotte Mira. She’s the best, and it might help you to talk to someone who’d understand your . . . situation.”
“It might. Thanks.”
When she was alone, Eve lifted the red cord, studied it. She didn’t need to hold it to see, or to feel. Gift? she wondered. Or curse?
Neither, she decided, and sealed the ribbon again. It was a tool, nothing more or less.
She was trying to find the energy just to stand when the door opened, and Commander Whitney came in.
She rose immediately. “Sir. I’ve just finished interviewing Sanchez, and was on my way to your office.”
“Sit. Where’s that coffee from?”
“My office, Commander.”
“Then it’ll be well worth it.” He got himself a mug, poured, then sat across from her. Saying nothing, he scanned her face while he drank. “How much sleep you bank?”
“A couple hours.” Less, but who was counting?
“Looks it. And the fact of that occurred to me when I came in and read your report. You’ve been eleven years, give or take a few months, under my command, haven’t you, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”