Echoes in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “I know it, and I’m not going to. I think she’s had enough of being told what to do, what to wear, what to say.” He shrugged. “She talks to me. She’s careful, and more than that, she’s pretty thoroughly brainwashed. But, hey, I’m a professional.”

  “So am I, and she’s remembered more. She lied just now.”

  “Maybe. If she did, it’s out of fear. She continues to have nightmares, flashbacks, even some mild hallucinations where she says the devils were in the room.”

  “Plural?”

  “Sometimes. After the episodes, she’s ashamed, apologetic. She’s very fragile yet, Lieutenant. Her emotions are a thin piece of glass already cracked. Too much pressure, they’ll shatter. Putting them back together will take a lot longer.”

  “I don’t believe I’m putting undue pressure on her.”

  “You’re not, and believe me I figured I’d have to put on the stern-doctor face with you. But you’re good with her, so she’s responding. If she lied, it’s because she’s not ready. I may be projecting, but I don’t think lies are her fallback or go-to.”

  He glanced toward the door. “Having her family here is going to help her mend and, frankly, it takes a load off my mind. I could’ve stretched her stay here another day, maybe two using the Strazza’s widow pressure, but she’s ready to be an outpatient, physically.”

  “I need to go in there. I have to get back to work, and I need to know where she’s going to be when she leaves here.”

  “Yeah. I want to see if she’ll agree to me arranging for a cot in here for the sister. I’m hoping she’ll stay with her tonight.”

  Eve went in to see the two women curled together on the bed, with Tish, still in coat and boots, stroking Daphne’s hair and soothing her.

  She lifted a finger of that stroking hand to hold Eve back.

  “I’m going to make some arrangements, and let Mom and Dad know I’m here.”

  “Don’t go.”

  “I’m not. We’re going to have a pajama party tonight. Remember how we’d do that? I’m just going to take care of a couple of things, just outside the room, then I’m putting on my party pj’s and we’re getting some ice cream to go with a vid marathon. Pizza first, right? Pizza, then the ice cream, then the bellyache. Don’t start without me.”

  “I’m sorry, Tish. I’m so sorry.”

  “Shut up.”

  Tish eased out of bed, walked toward the door. She gestured with a jerk of her head, strode outside.

  “I’m so pissed off I may not be coherent, but—” Tears sprang to her eyes, so she pressed the heels of her hands against them. “No, no, no, not going there. Couldn’t get a flight because of the damn blizzard, then finally got a standby when the transpo centers opened. I should’ve been here.”

  “You’re here now,” Eve said, and Tish dropped her hands.

  “You’re the cop who contacted me.”

  “Dallas. Lieutenant Dallas.”

  “Thank you.” Tish offered a hand, then turned to Del. “You’re the doctor who’s been taking care of her.”

  “Del Nobel.”

  “Thanks.” She offered him her hand, too. “I want to talk to both of you in a lot more depth, but I don’t want to leave her alone long right now. I’m staying in there with her tonight.”

  She issued it like a challenge.

  “I’ll have a cot brought in for you.”

  “I don’t need it. You can bring it if that’s a rule, but the bed’s big enough. I want to know when she can get out of here.”

  “She can be released tomorrow. She’ll require some follow-ups as an outpatient, and there are some instructions she—and you—will need to follow.”

  “Whatever it takes. I need to get a hotel. I need a good, secure hotel where she’ll feel safe. A two-bedroom, for when my parents get here, with a sitting room or whatever. We’ll need a place to sit together, talk together.”

  “I was about to arrange a room at the Palace,” Eve told her. “It’s very secure. I can make it to accommodate what you need. Your sister has a debit card for—”

  “From him?” Tish’s damp eyes went hard as stone. “From Strazza?”

  “From the lawyer in charge of his estate.”

  “We don’t want it. We won’t take anything from him. I’ll use my card to secure the room. Fuck him—not the lawyer, though if he’s Strazza’s lawyer he probably deserves a few fucks. We’ll pay our own way.”

  “I can secure the room,” Eve said evenly. “Just give my name at the desk along with yours.”

  “I appreciate it. I appreciate, very much, what you’ve done for Daphne, both of you. I’m glad he’s dead. I’ll be glad he’s dead for the rest of my life.”

  She glanced toward the door. “There’s one more thing. Is there a way I can get her another pair of pajamas? He made her wear white.” She turned back, face set. “I’d like to get her another pair to wear tonight. I don’t care what color, I don’t care if they’re covered with pictures of three-headed sheep. Just not white.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Del told her.

  “Solid. Oh, yeah, one more thing. Pizza and ice cream. Any way to make that happen?”

  “There’s absolutely a way to make that happen.”

  “Mag.” Tish took a long breath. “Good start. We’re going to take care of her. We’re going to get her through.”

  When Tish went back in, Eve thought, yes, they would.

  * * *

  Tired from the marrow out, she drove home. She’d recharge, she promised herself. Coffee, lots of coffee would pump her right back up.

  She had items checked off her list. The Miras’ security—thanks to Roarke—was beefed up. Daphne Strazza and family had rooms waiting for their arrival the next day. And she had a theory to follow right down the line.

  Multiple theories, she admitted, and felt fatigue fall over her as she drove through the gates.

  Can’t let up, she thought, not on this one. So many reasons she couldn’t let up, reasons she wasn’t sure she could adequately explain to anyone.

  She left the car, went in the house. Found annoyance on the heels of relief when neither Summerset nor the cat waited. Where the hell were they? She’d have dug up a decent insult. She was tired, not brain-dead.

  She walked upstairs, decided to go straight to her office. If she went to the bedroom first, that big, wonderful bed might tempt her to take a nap.

  No time for naps.

  She heard Roarke’s voice coming from his adjoining office, turned that way.

  He’d snazzed his space up, too, and right now had the dual-sided fireplace he shared with her snapping. He sat at his own command center—sleek, powerful black—talking on an ear-link while a holo of some sort of … mechanical-like thing circled slowly and his wall screen ran with numbers, figures, maybe equations.

  Galahad sprawled over one of the legs of the command center, tail switching as he eyed the holo.

  She gave Roarke a half salute, stepped back into her own space.

  For a moment she just stood, staring at her board, staring at the dead, the blood, the cruelty.

  Grimly, she tossed her coat aside, the scarf and cap with it, and began the work by adding the last victims to the board. Then the crime scene photos, the ME’s findings, the lab results—no hair, no fibers, no DNA.

  She expanded the board—a handy new feature—and put up ID shots and data of the couples interviewed that day. She looked over as Roarke walked in, the cat padding ahead of him to greet her with body rubs.

  “You looked busy,” she said.

  “Just a few final touches on the meeting I was in when you contacted me earlier.”

  “I’m sorry to add more stuff to your day.”

  “Why? It all gets done, doesn’t it? Dennis was a bit baffled and more than fascinated with the new toys I added to their system. Our Mira was initially annoyed you’d … add stuff to my day and your own, but she came around.

  “And you, Lieutenant,” he continued as
he went to her, skimming a finger down the dent in her chin, “look tired.”

  “It’s not that kind of tired.”

  She surprised them both when he drew her in for a kiss by clinging to him, by the tears that spilled.

  “There now. What is it?”

  She shook her head, clung tighter. “I can’t explain. I can’t. Just, just hang on, okay? Hang on. I have to let go. I just have to let go.”

  He picked her up, carried her to the sofa, cradled her on his lap. “Let go then, baby. I’m right here.”

  The words, the way he held her, stroked her hair, had the grief, the exhaustion from fighting it, the sheer sorrow pouring out.

  “I can’t explain,” she managed when the tears slowed.

  “We’ll worry about that later.”

  While her head banged from the crying jag, it was a comfort to rest it on his shoulder. “I have so much to do.”

  “And you’ll do it. You’ll tell me how I can help.”

  “If I’d caught this case three years ago. February, three years ago, right before you? I think it would have broken me. I think it might have been the end of me. Now it just … Maybe it bruises some, but it won’t break me. It won’t because you hang on when I have to let go.”

  “Tell me what you can.”

  “There’s a lot. Starting with the victims this morning. What he did to them … Well, it’s right there, on the board. Reveled in it, I think. More than before, even more. Because taking those lives, that was the grand finale—isn’t that the term—he’d missed that before. He didn’t realize he’d missed that, and now he knows.”

  She started to get up, settled back when he held her against him. Yes, she thought, stay for now.

  “He’s made moves—virtually and face-to-face—with other women. Before the first assaults, between assaults. It fed the beast just enough.”

  She ran it through for him, through to the trip with McNab to the destroyed drop ’link while she sat in his arms with the fire crackling.

  “He may be able to salvage something,” Roarke said. “But isn’t the question: How was it all timed so very well?”

  “Yeah, that’s the question. It’s arrogance. It’s finding himself in the spotlight, feeling invincible. He likes to taunt—and that taunt was for me—for the cops, but I think for me. Female cop.”

  “All that’s difficult, but it’s not altogether what tied you into knots.”

  “The finish was Daphne Strazza.”

  She closed her eyes, told him.

  “Nobel’s right. She’s dangerously fragile right now, struggling just to get through one day to the next. She’s so damaged she doesn’t know how to make a decision, is so indoctrinated she can’t make one without being told. I know what it’s like. I remember what it’s like when you’re so terrified of making the smallest mistake you do nothing. And still it’s not right. I saw her face when her sister came in. Her first reaction was raw fear. Not of her sister. Maybe for her, not sure.”

  “You think Strazza threatened to hurt her family, used that as another level.”

  “I think it’s possible—probable. The fear was the first reaction, instant, ingrained. Then she flinched, jerked back like she’d been slapped when the sister said Strazza was dead. Period. It’s almost as if she didn’t completely understand it or believe it until that moment. Then she let go. What I saw in the sister was someone who knew how to hang on, to hold on.”

  She turned her face into his throat. “I saw myself, and you. What it is to have that, to be stunned you do. I saw love, and a chance to heal.

  “It took brutality to give her that chance. It took brutality to give me mine. Fighting that understanding, that mirror I see when I look at her, is exhausting.”

  “Why would you fight it?”

  “I have to be objective to do the job, and if I don’t do the job, do it right, another couple could end up on that board.”

  “Darling Eve.” He stroked her hair, pressed his lips to it. “It’s the blend of your objectivity, observations, instincts, and your empathy for the victim that makes you what you are. It’s that very blend that’ll lead you to the answers, lead you to him.”

  “I hope to Christ you’re right. Because they’re leading me. In a couple of directions, but they’re leading me.”

  “Then we’ll follow. But first, you’ll eat.”

  She started to dismiss that as a matter of course, then realized she felt steady again. And surprisingly hungry.

  “Actually, I could. I had the worst pocket of something earlier.” She eased back, smiled at him. “I could eat actual food of pretty much any kind.”

  “That’s quite an opening. I’ll surprise you.” He shifted, pulled a little case out of his pocket, flipped it open. “Take a blocker for that miserable headache, and don’t be a baby about it. Then, half a glass of wine, I think, to smooth out the edges. You’ll work better for it.”

  She took the blocker, deciding to reserve judgment on the wisdom of the wine when he wandered back into his office.

  And came out with a box wrapped in silver paper.

  “I think this is the right time.”

  She looked at the box, at him. “Come on. Wasn’t it just Christmas?”

  “No. And this is something, like the blocker, I think you could use at the moment.”

  She could hardly bitch at him when she’d just blubbered all over him, so she took the box, lifted the wrapped lid. And nearly blubbered again when she saw the little music box.

  When she looked at him, just looked at him, with her exhausted eyes stunned and filled with emotion, Roarke knew he had chosen well.

  She lifted out a young girl’s music box, not a fancy, important one. Just a sweet little white box with some gold swirls. And the dancer, twirling on one leg, arms curved overhead as the music played.

  “It’s a common thing,” Roarke began.

  “No, it’s not. It’s not. Shut up a minute.” She fought back tears, even if they were hot with gratitude, full of the miracle that she had someone who loved her just this much.

  “It’s not common,” she managed. “It’s beyond special. Not my style, right, not cop-style. But…”

  “Even when I bought it I wasn’t sure if it was for you or for me.”

  “For us then. It made you sad when I told you about it. You could’ve bought something slick or fancy or glittery, but you knew it wouldn’t be right. It would’ve looked important, but it wouldn’t be special. You took some … you took an ugly little memory, and you turned it into love. I’ll never … I can’t tell you…”

  She took a long breath, watched the dancer twirl. “What’s the song?”

  “A twentieth-century classic. ‘Tiny Dancer.’”

  “Fits. Thanks.” She moved to him, wrapped around him. “It means … I can’t begin. I’m going to put it in here. Not cop-style, but it fits in here.”

  She drew back, walked to the shelf where she’d put the silly stuffed Galahad he’d once given her, set the box beside it. “It’ll remind me there’s room for the sweet. No matter what, there’s room, and you need to take it.”

  Gently she closed the lid. “And when I need the sweet, when you’re not right here for me to grab on to, I just have to open it.”

  “He didn’t break you,” Roarke said.

  “No, they didn’t break us. That’s why it fits in here. It’s why we fit in here. And the way we do, Roarke, the way we fit? Nothing’s ever going to break us.”

  Touched by her reaction, steadier in his own heart seeing the little box on her shelf, he smiled at her. “We are what we are, and what we’ve become together. I’ll see to that meal.”

  When he went to the kitchen, she gave the music box a last brush of her fingers. Then she went to her command center, brought up the list the dependable Peabody had sent her, skimmed an e-mail from Mira thanking her for Roarke and telling her she shouldn’t worry.

  “I forgot,” Eve called out. “The resident corpse wasn’t in the foyer.
What gives?”

  “Summerset, alive and well, is off meeting a group of friends for drinks and dinner.”

  “Do corpses have zombie groups or friends or—”

  She swung around at the unmistakable scent.

  “Pizza?”

  “There are times,” Roarke said as he carried it to the table, “you need it.”

  She sat a moment, afraid she’d become overwhelmed yet again. Then she rose, went to him. She slipped her arms around him, kissed him softly, brushed her lips over his cheeks, then again to his mouth, still soft, but deep.

  “You make me question why I don’t offer you pizza every day. Several times a day.”

  “Just the right amount.” She hugged him, swayed with it. “Just one thing?”

  “Which one?”

  “Tell me there’s no spinach anywhere in that pie.”

  “There is no spinach anywhere in that pie.”

  “That’s perfect. I think wine’s a good thing. I’ll get it.”

  She looked back at him as she chose a bottle with a name she actually recognized. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What doesn’t matter?”

  “How hard it gets with the job. It doesn’t matter if you’re pissed at me or I’m pissed at you, or we’re seriously pissed at each other. Because we’re always going to come back to this.”

  “To pizza and wine,” he said a smile.

  “To that. To each other.” She carried the bottle to the table, poured him a glass, poured herself half of one. “And that’s enough sloppy stuff. Let’s eat.”

  19

  She could take a half hour, Eve told herself, with him, pizza, and wine. And talk about anything but murder.

  “So the youth center, it’s coming along?”

  “It is. We should do a walk-through, you and I. You may have some ideas on the finer details as we move in that direction.”

  “They won’t care about that—the kids who come there. They’ll care about having a roof over their head, and a decent bed to sleep in, a decent meal.”

  Which should include pizza regularly, Eve thought.

  “I know it’s more than that,” she added. “The counseling, the education, and the training, the chance to become something other than a punching bag or an addict or a petty criminal. They’re not going to care what color you paint the walls, or the shape of a sofa or table.”