The In Death Collection, Books 16-20

by J. D. Robb

  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 approaching. 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.”

  “She’s strong. She’s young and strong and healthy. It weighs on her
side. You know that.”

  Broken. Shattered. Fractured. “Go tell him. Feeney’s here, Feeney’s with him. Go tell them.”

  “Come, sit down then.” Gently, he kissed her forehead, her cheeks. “Wait with them. We’ll all wait together.”

  “Not yet. I’m okay.” She eased back, but took his hands, squeezed them before releasing them. “I just need to settle down. And I . . . I need to contact some people. I need to do . . . things, or I’ll go crazy.”

  He drew her to him again, held tight. “We won’t let her go.”

  An hour ticked by, minute by endless minute.

  “We get any more?”

  Eve shook her head at Feeney. She’d taken to leaning up against the wall outside the waiting area when she wasn’t pacing. The waiting room had started to fill with cops. Uniforms, detectives, civilian drones, who settled in to wait or stopped by for news.

  “Her family—”

  “I talked them into staying put, at least until we know more.” She sipped from another cup of coffee. “As soon as we do, I’ll give them her status. I played it down, a little. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but—”

  “Nothing they can do, for now.”

  “Right. If they have to get here, Roarke’s already made arrangements for transpo. How’s McNab?”

  “Hanging on by a couple of greasy threads right now, but hanging all the same. Helps to have other cops around.” His eyes went to slits. “He’s meat, Dallas. There’s not one badge in the city who won’t put in the time to track him now he came after one of ours.”

  “He’s meat,” Eve agreed. “And he’s mine.”

  She stayed leaning against the wall, only turning her head when she heard the clip of heels. She’d been expecting them.

  Nadine streamed down the corridor, two uniformed officers at her back.

  Good, was all Eve thought. She needed the distraction of going a round with someone.

  But Nadine stopped in front of them, laid one hand on Feeney’s arm, the other on Eve’s. “How is she?”

  Friendship first, Eve realized. When it came to the wire, friendship crossed the line first. “She’s still in surgery. Nearly two hours now.”

  “Did they give you any idea when—” She stopped herself. “No, they never do. I need to talk to you, Dallas.”

  “Talk.”

  “Alone. Sorry, Feeney.”

  “No problem.” He slipped back into the waiting area.

  “Is there somewhere we can sit down?” Nadine asked.

  “Sure.” Eve simply slid down the wall until her butt met the floor. And looking up, sipped her coffee.

  After a tap of her foot and a shrug, Nadine sat on the floor beside her. “As far as Peabody’s concerned, I won’t air anything you don’t want aired. That’s for her.”

  “Appreciated.”

  “She’s my friend, too, Dallas.”

  “I know she is.” Because her eyes stung, she closed them. “I know it.”

  “You give me what you want out there, and I’ll get it out. Now let’s take a minute to discuss the gorillas you’ve put on my tail.”

  Eve looked over at the uniforms, satisfied they were—per her orders—burly guys and seasoned. “What about them?”

  “How do you expect me to work with a couple of storm troopers in my shadow?”

  “That would be your problem.”

  “I don’t—”

  “He went after her, he could go after you. We were on screen together. Little push,” she murmured. “A little push. I didn’t expect him to go for Peabody.”

  “He was supposed to go for you.”

  “Makes more sense, goddamn it. I’m primary. I’m in charge. But he goes for my partner. So he could go after you. Working through the lineup, I get that now. Wants me to see he can take out my people under my nose. Wants me to know it before he comes for me.”

  “I can follow the dots, Dallas, but it doesn’t address how I’m suppose to gather data and report same when I come as a trio, and two of that trio are badges. Nobody’s going to talk to me.”

  “Deal with it,” Eve snapped. “Just fucking deal, Nadine. He’s not going to put his hands on another friend. He doesn’t get the chance for another.”

  Nadine studied the icy rage on Eve’s face, and said nothing. She leaned back, took the coffee out of Eve’s hand, sipped. “Tastes like warm piss,” she commented, then sipped again. “No, maybe a little worse than that.”

  “It’s not so bad after the first gallon.”

  “I’ll take your word,” she decided, and handed it back. “I don’t want him to get his hands on me. I do want to mention I know how to take precautions. Particularly after my own romp in the park with a homicidal maniac a year or so ago. And I haven’t forgotten who got me out of that. I’m also smart enough, and have a healthy enough sense of self-preservation to accept that there might be times I need someone to take an interest in my welfare. So I’ll deal, Dallas.”

  She shifted, looking for comfort on the hard floor. “And actually, the one on the left is kind of hot.”

  “Try not to have sex with one of my men when he’s on duty.”

  “I’ll try to restrain myself. I’m going to go see McNab for a minute.”

  She nodded. Eve considered pacing again, or just closing her eyes and pushing herself into oblivion. Roarke came out before she’d decided, crouched in front of her.

  “It might be an idea to go down, get some food—other than the slop available through vending—for the horde in there.”

  “Trying to give me something to do with myself?”

  “Both of us.”

  “Okay.”

  He straightened, took her hand to pull her to her feet.

  “It just seems like we should know something more by now. It just seems like—”

  She looked toward the elevators and saw Louise and Charles rushing in.

  “News?” Charles demanded.

  “Nothing. Nothing for over an hour now.”

  “I’ll go into surgery.” Louise squeezed Charles’s arm. “I’ll scrub up, get a look for myself.”

  “That’ll be better,” Eve said when Louise dashed off. “We’ll know more, and that’ll be better.”

  “What can I do?” Charles gripped Eve’s hand. “Give me an assignment—something.”

  She looked into his eyes. The friendship deal came in a lot of layers, she thought, a lot of measures. “Roarke and I were talking about getting some food for everybody.”

  “Let me take care of that. I’ll just go let McNab know we’re here, and I’ll take care of it.”

  “It keeps rippling, doesn’t it?” Roarke watched Charles move through the groups of cops to where McNab stood. “All the people, the relationships, the connections. Lieutenant.” He framed her face with his hands, kissed her gently on the forehead. “It wouldn’t hurt you to find a flat surface, close your eyes for a few minutes.”

  “Can’t do it.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  She waited. And felt she was at the center of a vortex as she contacted or was contacted by Whitney, Mira, Peabody’s family. Cops came. Some went, more stayed. EDD and Homicide, uniforms and rank.

  “Get McNab,” she murmured to Roarke when she spotted Louise. “Keep it low. I don’t want the whole department out here when she fills us in.”

  Bracing herself, she stepped forward to meet Louise. “Roarke’s getting McNab, so you only have to say it once.”

  “Good.” She wore scrubs now, pale green and baggy. “I’ll go back, observe, but I wanted to give you what I could.”

  Roarke came out with McNab, with Feeney and Charles. The first circle, Eve supposed, of all those spreading ripples.

  “Are they finished?” McNab said quickly. “Is she—”

  “They’re still working on her. It’s going well. She’s got a solid surgical team, Ian, and she’s holding her own.” She reached out, took his hands. “It’s going to take a while longer. There was extensive damage, and t
he fact is she’s undergoing more than one surgery. Her vitals are good, and everything that can be done is being done.”

  “How much longer?” Eve demanded.

  “Two, three hours more. At least. She’s critical, but she’s holding. Now I’m going to suggest you go down and give blood. It’s something positive you can do. I’ll go back in, observe. The head of the surgical team will give you more details when it’s done, but I’ll keep you updated as much as possible.”

  “Could I go in with you? If I scrubbed—”

  “No.” Louise leaned in, kissed his cheek. “Go down, give blood. Do the positive, think strong thoughts. Those things matter, I promise.”

  “Okay, I’ll go down now.”

  “We’ll both go down,” Feeney said, then jerked his chin toward the waiting room. “We’ll go down in shifts. Time we’re finished, you’ll have more cop blood in this place than you know what to do with.”

  A little woozy from the loss of a pint of blood—Eve would rather have lost it through injury than by syringe—she sat back in the waiting area. Her hands stayed in Roarke’s while her mind drifted.

  She thought of the first time she’d seen Peabody, looking efficient in her uniform. There’d been a body between them. There was always another body.

  She remembered when she’d pulled Peabody off patrol and into Homicide as her aide. And how Peabody had nearly “Sir, yes, sir’d” her to death in the first hour.

  Those days were over.

  Hadn’t taken the smart mouth long to surface—in, over, and around the “sirs.”

  Stood up for herself is what she did. Respected the rank, but stood up for herself. Learned fast. Quick brain, good eyes. Good cop.

  God, how much longer?

  Fell for a detective who turned out to be a wrong cop. Shook her confidence, hurt her feelings. Then McNab had pranced in. Charles had glided. But in spite of the looks of that strange triangle, it has always been McNab.

  A couple of hard bumps and they’d bounced away from each other. Bad feelings, bitter words. Spitting at each other if they were in the same space more than ten seconds. Bounced back together eventually. Maybe that’s what people did, bounced back where they were supposed to be, bumps or not.