by J. D. Robb
“Just a couple blocks away. We covered a lot of ground, didn’t pick anything up.”
“That’s the way it goes.”
“You said it. Did you get any more packing done?”
“Baby, you’re going to give me a really big sloppy one when you walk in the door. It’s done, and we’re ready to rock and roll out of here.”
“Really? Really?” She did a little skip-step on the sidewalk. “There was a lot left, you must’ve worked the whole time.”
“Well, I had the really big sloppy one as incentive.”
“You didn’t throw out any of my—”
“Peabody, I want to live. I didn’t ditch anything, including your little stuffed bunny.”
“Mister Fluffytail and I go back. I’ll be there in five. Be prepared for the sloppy one.”
“When it comes to sloppy ones, I’m a fricking Youth Scout.”
She laughed, stuffed the ’link back in her pocket. Life was really good, she thought. Her life was really good. In fact, just at the moment it was absolutely mag. All the little nerves about moving into a new place, with McNab—signing a lease, blending lives, furniture, styles, sharing a bed with the same guy for . . . well, possibly forever—were gone.
It felt right. It felt solid.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t irritate her cross-eyed sometimes. It was that she got he was supposed to. It was part of their thing, their style.
She was in love. She was a detective. She was partnered with the best cop on the NYPSD—possibly the best cop anywhere. She’d actually lost three pounds. Okay, two, but she was working off number three even now.
As she walked, she looked up, smiled at the lights glowing in her apartment—her old apartment, she corrected. McNab would probably come to the window any minute, to look out, wave, or blow her a kiss—a gesture that might’ve looked silly on another guy, but gave her such a nice little rush when it came from him.
She’d blow one back, and wouldn’t feel silly at all.
She slowed her pace, just a bit, to give him time to come to the window, fulfill the fantasy.
She never saw him coming.
There was a blur of movement. He was big—bigger than she’d imagined—and he was fast. She knew, in that fingersnap of time that she saw his face—eyes obscured by black sunshades—that she was in trouble. Terrible trouble.
Instinct had her pivoting, reaching for the weapon she wore at her hip.
Then it was like being rammed by a stampeding bull. She felt the pain—crazy pain—in her chest, in her face. She heard something break, and realized with a kind of sick wonder that the something was inside her.
Her mind stopped working. It was training rather than thought that had her pumping out with her legs, aiming for any part of his mass so she could knock him back far enough to give her room to roll.
She barely budged him.
“Whore.”
His face loomed over her, features obscured by the thick layers of sealant, the wide, black shades.
It seemed time dripped, slow as syrup. That her limbs were weighed down like lead. She reared up to kick again—all in slow, painful motion—struggling to suck in air to a chest that burned like fire. Ordering herself to remember details.
“Cop whore. Going to mess you up.”
He kicked her, so she doubled up in agony as her fingers fumbled for her weapon. Parts of her, separate parts of her went numb, and still she could feel the violent impact of his feet, his fists. She could smell her own blood.
He plucked her up, as if she were no more than a child’s doll. This time she heard—felt—something rip.
Someone screamed. She felt herself hurled into the dark as she fired.
McNab put on music. She’d sounded tired when she’d called, so he went for some of her Free-Ager flutey shit. Since he’d finished packing the lot—including sheets—they were going to bunk in her sleepbag. He thought she’d get a bang out of it. Last night in the old place, all cuddled up together on the floor, like kids camping out.
It was just totally frosty.
He poured her a glass of wine. He liked doing it for her, thinking how she’d do it for him when he caught a late night. It was the sort of thing cohabs did. He supposed.
It was the first official cohabitation for both of them. They’d live, he decided, and learn.
He was thinking maybe he’d go to the window, toss her out a noisy kiss as she walked up, when he heard the screaming.
He raced out of the kitchen, leaping over packing boxes and across the living area to the window. And his heart stopped dead.
He had his weapon in one hand, his communicator in the other, without any memory of grabbing either, and was running out the door. “Officer needs assistance! All units, all units, officer needs immediate assistance.”
He shouted out the address as he bolted down the stairs. Praying. Praying.
She was half on the sidewalk, half on the street. Facedown, with blood, her blood, staining the concrete. A man and a woman were crouched beside her, and another was huffing toward them.
“Get away. Get away.” He shoved blindly at the nearest. “I’m a cop. Oh God, oh Jesus God, Dee.”
He wanted to scoop her up, gather her in, and knew he didn’t dare. Instead he pressed shaking fingers to the pulse in her throat. And felt his heart hitch when he felt the beat.
“Okay. God, okay. Officer down!” He snapped it into his communicator. “Officer down. Require immediate medical assistance this location. Hurry, goddamn it. Hurry.”
He touched her hand, struggled not to squeeze it. Got his breath back.
“Be on the lookout for a black or dark blue van, late model, heading south from this location at high speed.”
He hadn’t seen it clearly enough, not enough. He’d only seen her.
When he started to strip off his shirt to cover her, one of the men pulled off his jacket. “Here, cover her with this. We were just coming out, across the street, and we saw . . .”
“Hold on, Dee. Peabody, you hold the hell on.” Still gripping her hand, and seeing now she had her weapon in the other, he looked up at the people around him. His eyes went flat and cold as a shark’s.
“I need your names. I need to know what you saw.”
Eve’s heart was knocking on her ribs when she shoved off the elevator and strode double-time down the hospital corridor. “Peabody,” she said, slapping her badge on the counter of the nurse’s station. “Detective Delia. What’s her status?”
“She’s in surgery.”
“That’s not telling me her status.”
“I can’t tell you her status because I’m not in surgery.”
“Eve.” Roarke put a restraining hand on her shoulder before she simply leaped over the counter and throttled the nurse. “McNab will be in the waiting area. We should go there first.”
She struggled to draw a breath, even out her terror and temper. “Get somebody to go into surgery and get her status. Do you understand me?”
“I’ll do what I can. You can wait down the hall, to your left.”
“Easy, baby.” Roarke murmured to her, slid his arm around her waist as they went toward the waiting area. “Try to take it easy.”
“I’ll take it easy when I know what the hell’s going on.” She stepped into waiting, and stopped.
He was alone. She hadn’t expected him to be alone. Such places were usually filled with people agonizing. But there was only McNab standing at one of the windows, staring out.
“Detective.”
He spun around—and the grief and hope on his face shuddered into only grief. “Lieutenant. They took her. They took her into . . . They said . . . I don’t know.”
“Ian.” Roarke crossed to him, laid an arm around McNab’s shoulders and drew him toward a chair. “You’ll sit a minute now. I’ll get you something to drink, and you’ll sit a minute. They’re taking care of her now. And in a bit, I’ll go and see what I can find out.”
“You have to t
ell me what happened.” Eve sat beside McNab. He had a ring on each thumb, she noticed. And blood on his hands. Peabody’s.
“I was in the apartment. All packed up. I’d just talked to her. She’d tagged me to tell me she was a couple blocks away. She was only . . . I should’ve gone out and met her. That’s what I should’ve done. Gone out, and then she wouldn’t be walking alone. I had music on. Fucking music on, and I was in the kitchen. I didn’t hear anything until the screams. Wasn’t her. She didn’t have a chance to scream.”
“McNab.”
Roarke turned from the vending AutoChef at the tone of her voice. He was about to step in, draw her away, when he saw the change.
She reached out, took one of his blood-smeared hands in hers, held it. “Ian,” she said. “I need you to give me a report. I know it’s hard, but you have to tell me everything you know. I didn’t get any details.”
“I . . . give me a minute. Okay? Give me a minute.”
“Sure. Here drink . . . whatever he’s got here.”
“Tea.” Roarke sat on the table in front of them, faced McNab. “Have a bit of tea now, Ian, and catch your breath. Look here a minute.”
He laid a hand on McNab’s knee until McNab lifted his head, met his eyes. “I know what it is to have the one you love, the only one, hurt. There’s a war in your belly, and your heart’s so heavy it doesn’t seem as if your body can hold it. This kind of fear doesn’t have a name. You can only wait with it. And let us help.”
“I was in the kitchen.” He pressed the heels of his hands, hard, against his eyes. Then he took the tea. “Hadn’t been more than two, three minutes since she told me she was a couple blocks away. Probably just got off the subway. I heard a woman scream, and shouts. I ran to the window, and I saw . . .”
He used both hands to lift the tea, then drank it like medicine. “I saw her lying, facedown. Head and shoulders on the sidewalk, the rest in the street. Two males and a female were running toward her from the northwest. And I saw—caught a glimpse of a vehicle heading south at high speed.”
He stopped to clear his throat. “I ran down. I had my weapon and communicator. I don’t know how, I don’t remember. I called for assistance, and when I got to her, she was unconscious, and bleeding from the face and head. Her clothes were bloody, torn some.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “She was bleeding, and I checked her pulse. She was alive. She had her weapon out and in her right hand. He didn’t get her piece. The son of a bitch didn’t get her piece.”
“You didn’t see him.”
“I didn’t see him. I got names and partial statements from the three witnesses, but then the MTs got there. I had to go with her, Dallas. I left the witnesses to the uniforms who responded. I had to go with her.”
“Of course you did. You get a make on the vehicle? Plates?”
“Dark van. Couldn’t tell the color, just dark. But I think black or dark blue. Couldn’t see the plates, light was out on them. Witnesses didn’t make it either. One of the guys—Jacobs—he said it looked new, really clean. Maybe it was a Sidewinder or a Slipstream.”
“Did they see her assailant?”
His eyes went flat again, and cold. “Yeah, they made him pretty damn good. Big, beefy guy, bald, sunshades. They saw him kick her, fucking stomp on her. They saw her lying on the ground and the bastard kicking her. Then he hauled her up, like maybe he was going to heave her into the back of the van. But the woman started screaming, and the guys shouted and started running. He threw her down. They said he threw her down and jumped into the van. But she got a shot off. That’s what they told me. She got a shot off when he was throwing her down. Maybe it hit him. Maybe he staggered. They weren’t sure, and I had to go, go with her, so I couldn’t follow up.”
“You did good. You did great.”
“Dallas.”
And now she saw he was struggling against tears. If he broke, she’d break. “Take it easy.”
“They said—the medicals—they said it was bad. We were riding in, they were working on her. They told me it was bad.”
“I’m going to tell you what you already know. She’s no pushover. She’s a tough cop, and she’ll come through.”
He nodded, swallowed hard. “She had her weapon in her hand. She kept her weapon.”
“She’s got spine. Roarke?”
He nodded and, walking out to gather information, left her and McNab waiting alone.
Chapter 19
He paced and prowled and keened like an animal. And wept like a child as he crossed back and forth, back and forth, in front of the staring eyes. The bitch had hurt him.
It wasn’t allowed. Those days were over, and he wasn’t supposed to be hurt anymore. Ever. Look at him. He swung around toward the wall of mirrors to reassure himself. Look at his body.
He’d grown tall, taller than anyone he knew.
Do you know how much clothes cost, you damn freak? You better start pulling your weight around here, or you’re gonna go around naked as far as I’m concerned. I’m not going to keep popping for them.
“I’m sorry, Mother. I can’t help it.”
No, no! He wasn’t sorry. He was glad he was tall. He wasn’t a freak.
And he’d made himself strong. He’d worked, he’d strained, he’d sweated, until he’d created a strong body. A body to be proud of, a body people respected. Women feared.
You’re puny, you’re weak, you’re nothing.
“Not anymore, Mother.” Grinning fiercely, he flexed the biceps of his uninjured arm. “Not anymore.”
But even as he looked, as he preened in front of the glass to admire the brawny form he’d spent years building, he saw himself shrink, whittling down until it was a gangly boy with pinched cheeks and haunted eyes staring back at him.
The boy’s chest was crisscrossed with welts from a beating, his genitals were raw from the vicious scrubbing she’d given them. His hair hung dank and dirty to his shoulders the way she made him keep it.
“She’ll punish us again,” the little boy told him. “She’ll put us back in the dark.”
“No! She won’t.” He swung away from the mirror. “She won’t. I know what I’m doing.” Cradling his injured arm, he tried to pace off the pain. “She’ll be punished this time. You can bet your bottom dollar. Took care of the cop bitch, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”
He’d killed her. He was damn sure he’d broken her into a few nasty pieces, oh yeah. But his arm! It was hot and numb—the kind of numb that came with prickling needles—from shoulder to fingertip.
He cradled it against his body, moaning, as he was caught between boy and man.
Mommy would kiss it and make it all better.
Mommy would slap him silly and lock him in the dark.
“We haven’t finished.”
He heard the little boy, the sad, desperate little boy.
No, he hadn’t finished. He’d be punished unless he could finish it. Put in the dark, blind in the dark. Burned and whipped, with her voice pounding in his head like spikes.
He shouldn’t have left the cop behind, but it had happened so fast. The screaming, the people running toward him, the shocking pain in his arm.
He’d had to run. The little boy had said: Run! What choice had he had?
“I had to.” He dropped to his knees, pleading with the eyes that floated in silence, that stared without pity. “I’ll do better next time. Just wait. I’ll do better.”
In the bright lights that were never turned off, he knelt and rocked and wept.
Eve couldn’t sit. She wandered to the vending area, ordered up more coffee. She carried the thin, bitter brew to the window. Stared out as McNab had done. She ran over in her mind what she’d done, what was left to be done, but she couldn’t keep her thoughts from stealing into surgery where she envisioned Peabody’s lifeless body on an operating table, and faceless doctors with blood on their hands to their wrists.
Peabody’s blood.
She spun around as she heard footsteps a
pproaching. But it wasn’t Roarke or one of those faceless doctors. Feeney hurried in, his stylish shirt rumpled from the long day, a flush of anxiety riding on his cheeks.
He shot her a look, and when she only shook her head, he went straight to McNab, and sat—as Roarke had—on the table.
They spoke in murmurs, Feeney’s low and steady, McNab’s thin and disjointed.
Eve circled around them, and into the corridor. She needed to know something. To do anything.
When she saw Roarke coming toward her, when she saw his face, her knees went to water.
“She’s not—”
“No.” He took the coffee from her because her hands had started to shake. “She’s still in surgery. Eve . . .” He set the coffee on a rolling tray so that he could take both of her hands in his.
“Just tell me.”
“Three broken ribs. Her lung collapsed on the way in. Her shoulder’s torn up, hip’s fractured. There’s considerable internal damage. Her kidney’s bruised, and her spleen—they’re trying to repair, but they may have to remove it.”
God. “They—if they do, they can replace it. They can replace anything. What else?”
“He shattered her cheekbone, dislocated her jaw.”
“That’s bad. It’s bad, but they can fix—”
“There’s head trauma. It’s a concern.” He ran his hands rhythmically up and down her arms, kept his eyes on hers. “It’s very serious.”
The attending physician he’d collared in ER had told him Peabody looked as if she’d been struck head-on by a maxibus.
“They . . . they say her chances?”
“They wouldn’t, no. I can tell you they have a full team on her, and if there’s a need for outside specialists we’ll get them. We’ll get whatever she needs.”
Her throat was flooded, and closed like a dam. She managed a nod.
“How much do you want me to tell him?”
“What?”
“McNab.” He rubbed her shoulders now, waited while she closed her eyes, gathered herself. “How much do you want me to tell him?”
“All of it. He needs to know all of it. He—” She broke off, let herself cling for a moment when Roarke drew her in. “God. Oh God.”