by J. D. Robb
“Yes, so they always say.”
There was a lot of color. It was one of the things Eve always noted about Mira’s home. All the color and pretty little whatnots sitting around. Flowers and photographs.
Mira took her into a cozy sitting room done in quiet blues and misty greens. Over a small fireplace was a family portrait of the Miras, their children and spouses, their grandchildren. It wasn’t a formal pose, but a casual kind of grouping, as if a conversation was taking place.
“Nice,” Eve said.
“Yes, isn’t it? My daughter had it done from a photograph and gave it to me last Christmas. The children have already grown so much since. Well. I just need to get a few things. Dennis, entertain Eve for a moment.”
“Hmm?” He’d set down the tray and looked around absently.
“Keep Eve company.”
“Your husband’s not coming?” Dennis poured the coffee. “Nice boy.”
“No, he’s . . . this is really a professional visit. I’m sorry to interrupt your evening.”
“Pretty girl’s never an interruption.” He patted his pockets, looked around blankly. “I seem to have misplaced the sugar.”
There was something about him—the mop of hair, the baggy sweater, the bemused expression—that stirred a little glow of affection inside her. “I don’t use any.”
“Good thing. Don’t know where the hell I left it. Remembered the cookies, though.” He picked one up, handed it to her. “Look like you could use one, sweetie.”
“Yeah.” She stared at it and wondered why it, the gesture, the room, the scent of the flowers on the mantel combined to make her eyes sting. “Thanks.”
“It’s rarely as bad as we think it is.” He patted her shoulder and had her throat going hot. “Unless it’s worse. Charlie’ll fix you up. I’m going to take my coffee out on the patio,” he said when Mira came back. “Let you girls gab.”
Eve bit into the cookie, swallowed hard. “I’ve got a crush on him,” she said when she and Mira were alone.
“So do I. You’ll need to take off your clothes.”
“Why?”
“I can tell by the way you move you’ve got injuries, and pain. Let’s deal with it.”
“I don’t want—”
“And you can take your mind off what I’m doing by telling me about Bissel.”
Accepting that an argument would only drag things out, Eve stripped off the shirt, then the trousers. Mira’s quick wince of sympathy had Eve hunching in defense.
“Mostly from the safeties. You know, the harness, impact bags.”
“And would have been considerably worse without them, yes. You were treated on scene?”
“Yeah.” Eve felt her insides draw up as Mira opened a medical bag. “Look, they did all the stuff. And I took a blocker, so—”
“When?”
“When what?”
“When did you take something for pain?”
“Before . . . awhile ago. A few hours,” she mumbled when leveled by Mira’s patient gaze. “I don’t like meds.”
“All right, let’s see what we can do without them. I’m going to put the chair back. Relax. Close your eyes. Trust me.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Tell me what you’ve learned about Bissel.”
It wasn’t so bad, Eve thought. Whatever Mira was doing didn’t add to the pain, or layer on any stings or twinges. Best, it didn’t make her feel light-headed and stupid.
She ran through the progress of the case, and didn’t pause when Mira began to work on her face.
“So he’s alone now,” Mira said. “Angry, displaced, and probably feeling very, very sorry for himself. A dangerous mix with a man of his emotional content. His ego has been severely attacked. He should be patting himself on the back now, lavishly. Instead things continue to go wrong—through no fault, in his mind, of his own. He has a very vaulted opinion of himself, so someone else must be to blame. He sacrificed his wife, his brother, both his lovers without a qualm. He has no capability for real emotion, real attachments.”
“Sociopathic?”
“Of a kind, yes. But it’s not simply that he has no conscience. It’s that he sees himself as above the behaviors, needs, attachments, rules of general society. An artist on one hand, a spy on the other. He’s wallowed in the thrill of these parts of himself, preened on the pleasure of his own cleverness. He’s spoiled, and wants more. More money, more women, more adulation. He would have enjoyed the risk of killing. The planning stages, the idea of playing both ends for his own means.”
“Sparrow did the planning.”
“Yes, our organized thinker, but Bissel wouldn’t see it that way. He was the field operative, thinking on his feet and getting the job done. Adding his flourishes. In his capacity for the HSO, he was, basically, a delivery boy. This has given him the opportunity to show them, show everyone, how much more he is.”
“But if it had worked, no one would know.”
“He would know. He’d have fooled everyone, and he would know. Eventually, he’d have been compelled to share this with someone, to brag. He’d had Kade, his associates within the HSO, he’d had Sparrow. He could show his true face to these people. With them gone, he’d have to seek other outlets. Self-satisfaction wouldn’t hold him long.”
Gently, she brushed Eve’s hair back and treated the laceration on her temple. “Sparrow’s mistake was in not factoring in how much Bissel would enjoy the limelight, the thrill of killing and being a critical part of the plan.”
“Now that it’s all gone to hell?”
“Bissel will only have more to prove. He may go to ground, but he won’t stay there. In the past, his art fed that part of his ego that needed public acknowledgment, praise, admiration. That spotlight’s been taken, too. He needs a show. A platform.”
“If I make it public that he’s still alive, that he’s . . . the star, that would give him the show. He’d need to come out, wouldn’t he? Take a bow.”
“I believe he would. But with his violent tendencies, with his rapid descent into them, he’ll be dangerous. His killing pattern has escalated. The first, though the most brutal, was specific, and personal, and part of a blueprint already drawn for him. McCoy was more cruel, more cold, and orchestrated completely on his own. Powell took it beyond. This was a stranger. And the last—while his target was certainly the man he felt had ruined everything—injured a number of bystanders. They meant nothing to him. No one does but himself.”
She closed her bag. “I’m going to bring the chair back up now. You can get dressed. And have another cookie.”
Eve opened her eyes, looked down at herself. Cuts and bruises were covered with something pale gold that didn’t, in her opinion, look any better than the injuries themselves. But the aches had largely subsided.
“Feels better.”
“I imagine. I used topicals. An internal blocker would help, but we won’t push it.”
“Appreciate it.” She rose, began to dress. “I’ve got the technos on my team working on finding any bolt-holes, and I can continue to tie up his funds, making it tough for him to access anything. The only people I can figure he might go for, out of spite, are his wife and his mother-in-law, and they’re both tucked up. I’m going to let the media have his name as suspect, and enough of the circumstances to light a fire under him. I’m going to smoke him out.”
“It’ll be your fault then. He’ll panic first, but then he’ll try to find a way to punish you for upending the rest of his plans.”
“He’s stupid.” Eve buttoned her shirt. “He’s gotten this far largely on dumb luck. His luck’s about to change. I’ve got to get back, work a release through the media liaison. I want this one real official.”
“Could you sit down another moment?” To ensure she did, Mira sat herself. “Will you tell me what else is hurting you?”
“I think you hit all the hot spots.”
“I’m not talking about physical injuries. I know your face so
well now. I know when you’ve exhausted yourself with work, and when there’s something more, something other that’s pushing you to the edge. You’ve worn yourself out. You’re hurt and you’re unhappy.”
“I can’t talk about it. Can’t,” she said before Mira could speak. “There’s a problem, and there’s no point in me telling you there isn’t. I don’t know if it can be fixed.”
“Everything can, one way or the other. Eve, whatever you tell me here stays here. In confidence. If I can help—”
“You can’t.” Despair worked its way to the surface and made her tone sharp. “You can’t help, you can’t fix it, and there’s no point in you saying things you think I want to hear to draw me out, or to put a damn topical on it. I’ve got work.”
“Wait.” Mira got to her feet as Eve did. “What does that mean—that I would say what I think you want to hear?”
“Nothing.” Eve dragged her hands through her hair. “Nothing. I’m in a pisser of a mood, that’s all.”
“I don’t think that’s all. We’ve had what I feel is a good, an important, personal rapport. If there’s something that’s interfering with that, I’d like to know.”
“Look, Dr. Mira, it’s your job to dig under, and to use whatever tools it takes. I appreciate the help you’ve given me, the personal help as well as on the job. Let’s let it go at that.”
“I certainly won’t. Do you think I’ve been dishonest with you?”
She didn’t have the time, and less of an inclination to get into personal matters. But noting the set expression on Mira’s face, Eve calculated it was best to approach this as she had the treatment for her injuries: Strip down and get it over with.
“I think you . . . Okay, it’s a method, right, for the therapist to find or create a mutual ground with a patient? A kind of connection.”
“It can be, yes. And I did this with you by . . .”
“You told me, a long while back, you told me you’d been raped by your stepfather.”
“Yes. I gave you that personal information because you didn’t believe I could understand what you’d been through as a child. How you felt remembering being raped by your father.”
“It opened me up, and that was your job. Mission accomplished.”
Obviously baffled, Mira lifted her hands. “Eve?”
“Earlier this summer, you sat on the patio of the house, drinking wine, relaxing. Just a nice little moment. It was after I told you Mavis was pregnant. And you told me about your parents. Your mother, your father, how they had this nice, long-term marriage, how you had all these pretty memories.”
“Ah.” Mira let out a little laugh, and sat again. “And this has been troubling you ever since? Yet you said nothing.”
“I couldn’t quite figure out how to call you a liar . . . and what would be the point? You were just doing your job.”
“It wasn’t just the job, and I didn’t lie. Either time. But I certainly see why you’d believe I did and how it would make you feel. I’d like you to listen to me. Please.”
Eve fought the urge to check the time on her wrist unit. “All right.”
“When I was a girl, my parents’ marriage disintegrated. I don’t know why, except that there was some elemental problem, something they couldn’t, or wouldn’t resolve. They pulled away from each other, ripped the fabric of their relationship. They divorced.”
“You said—”
“Yes, I know. It was a difficult time for me. I was angry and hurt, confused. And like most children, self-absorbed. So, of course, I believed I was at fault. Believing that, I was only more angry, with both of them. My mother was, is, a very vital, attractive woman. She was financially well-off, had an important career. And she was miserably unhappy. Her way of coping was to surround herself with people, to keep busy. Mothers and daughters sometimes fall into a pattern of bickering, especially when they’re a great deal alike. We were, and we did.
“During this difficult and hostile time, she met a man.” Mira’s voice changed, subtly, went just a bit tight at the edges. “Charming, personable, attentive, handsome. He swept her off her feet. Flowers, gifts, time. She married him impulsively, less than four months after she and my father divorced.”
She rose, went to the coffeepot. “I shouldn’t have a second cup of this. I’ll be buzzing around driving Dennis to distraction half the night. But . . .”
“You don’t have to tell me this. I get the picture. I’m sorry.”
“No, I’ll finish it. Though I’ll shorten a long story for both our sakes.” She set the coffeepot down again, and spent a moment just tracing her fingers over the purple pansies that decorated it.
“The first time he touched me, I was shocked. Outraged. He warned me that she’d never believe me, that she’d send me away. I’d been in a little bit of trouble. Acting out, you might say.” She smiled, sat again. “Won’t go into that. But my mother and I were at odds, very much at odds. He was convincing, and frightened me. I was young, and felt powerless. You understand.”
“Yeah.”
“She traveled quite a bit. I think—well, it came out later, that she’d realized she’d made a mistake, marrying him. But she’d already had one marriage fail, and she wasn’t going to give up so quickly. She focused on her career for a time, and he had many opportunities to molest me. He used drugs to keep me . . . quiet. It went on for a very long time. I told no one. In my mind, my father had deserted me, my mother loved this man more than she loved me. And neither of them cared if I lived or died. I attempted suicide.”
“It’s hard,” Eve managed, “really hard to feel like you’re alone in all that.”
“You were alone. But yes, it’s equally hard to feel alone, and helpless, and guilty. Fortunately, I bungled the suicide. My parents, both of them, were in my hospital room, at their wits’ end. It came spewing out of me, all of it. The rage, the fear, the hate. It all came out, two and a half years of rape and abuse.”
“How’d they handle it?” Eve asked when Mira fell into silence.
“In a most unexpected way. They believed me. He was arrested. Imagine my surprise,” she murmured. “That it could be stopped, just by speaking of it. That saying it out loud could make it stop.”
“That’s why you became a doctor. So you could make it stop for other people.”
“Yes. I didn’t think of it then. I was still angry, still hurt, but yes. I had therapy—individual, group, family. And sometime during that healing period, my parents found each other again. They mended what was ripped. We don’t often talk of that time. I don’t often think of it. When I think of my parents, I think of them as they were before things began to unravel, and as they’ve been since they repaired the damage. I don’t think of the bitter years.”
“You forgave them.”
“Yes, and myself. They forgave each other, and me. We were stronger for it,” Mira added. “And I think I was drawn to Dennis because of his bottomless well of kindness, and decency. I’d learned the value of those things because I’d seen their opposite.”
“How do you find the way back? How do you find the way when a marriage crumbles under you, and you turn away from each other? When it’s bad, so bad you can’t talk about it, or think about it?”
Mira reached out, laid her hands over Eve’s. “You can’t tell me what’s hurting you, and Roarke?”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’ll tell you the simple and most complex answer is love. It’s where you start, and where, if you work hard enough, want hard enough, you end.”
20 SHE DIDN’T WANT to go home. It was, Eve knew, evasion at its worst, but she didn’t want to go home to a houseful of people. She didn’t want to go home to Roarke.
The answer couldn’t be love—simple or complex—she didn’t see how that could be it. She couldn’t find her way through this thing that was strangling her marriage. And if she loved the man any more than she did, she’d burn up from it.
She didn’t see how the answer could be evasion eith
er, though it helped at the moment. Walking in the city on a balmy evening, the familiar ground, the familiar sounds of irritable traffic, the smell of overdone soy dogs, the occasional whoosh through the vents of a train zooming by underground.
Clutches of people, ignoring each other—ignoring her—as they went about their own business and thought their own thoughts.
So she walked, and it occurred to her she never did this anymore. Never simply walked around the city when she didn’t have a specific destination, a specific purpose. She’d never been the meandering sort. And she sure as hell wasn’t interested in browsing from window to window to study whatever was being sold.
She could’ve rousted a couple of the sidewalk grifters hawking knockoff wrist units, PPCs, fake python handbags—all the rage this season—but she didn’t feel quite mean enough to bother.
She watched two women shell out seventy dollars each for snake bags complete with fangs for fasteners and wondered what the hell was wrong with people.
More because it was there than because of hunger, she dropped some credits on a glide-cart for a soy dog. The stink of the cart’s smoke followed her, and the first bite reminded her how disgusting, and oddly addicting, the fake meat on a stingy bun could be.
She watched a couple of teenagers weave through pedestrian traffic on an airboard. The girl riding pinion had her arms around the boy’s waist in what looked like a death grip, and she was squealing in his ear. From the expression on his face, he didn’t seem to mind. Probably made him feel like a man, Eve decided, to have some girl holding onto him and pretending she was afraid.
Not bothering to pretend anything was why she’d been so lousy at the mating rituals, she supposed. Then, with Roarke, she hadn’t had to pretend.
A messenger droid whizzed by on his zip-bike, risking smashed circuits and vehicular madness as he threaded through the breath of space between two Rapid cabs, then buzzed the bumper on another. The cab driver responded with a vicious blast of horn, which set off several other horns like dogs howling together at the moon.
“I’m driving here!” The driver shouted with his head and upper body popping out his side window. “I’m driving here, you asshole!”