by J. D. Robb
“Was Ava still here?”
“No, she’d just left. I, ah, scooted her along, actually, so she could get ready for her date. I closed up last night.”
“You were the last to leave?”
“That’s right.”
“And where did you go?”
“I went home. I, ah, walked home, changed, had some dinner.”
“You didn’t go out again?”
“No.”
“Make or receive any calls, have any visitors?”
“No, it was a quiet night. Lieutenant, I have patients myself.”
“Okay. I’ve only got a couple more staff members, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
Eve stepped back into Slone’s office. Collins, Burke, and Kiki, she thought, were top of her suspect list. She scanned Silas Pratt’s data, but he didn’t keep her waiting long.
He strode in, a sharply handsome man with an air of confidence. His eyes were a laser blast of blue, and she could admit they gave her a jolt. When he offered his hand she allowed herself to think just that: Here’s a great-looking man with killer eyes.
He smiled at her. “Lieutenant, I’m Silas Pratt.”
Her heart pumped a little harder as he squeezed her hand. She felt the probe of his gaze, and yes, of his power, like heat along her brain. “Have a seat, Dr. Pratt,” she said and removed her hand from his.
“Can you tell me if you have any leads? Other than Jack. No one who knows him will believe Jack did this to our Ava.”
“You’ve only known him a couple of weeks.”
“That’s true. Peter recruited him, but I like to think I’m a good judge of character. What they’re saying was done to Ava, well, it’s monstrous, isn’t it? And to someone so young, so vibrant.”
Now he did sit, and passed a hand over those potent eyes. “I thought of her almost as a daughter.”
“You don’t have children. According to your official data.”
“No. But it was easy to feel a paternal kind of affection for Ava.”
“I don’t want to intrude any longer than necessary.” And she wanted out, Eve admitted. There was a heat in the room now, a kind of singeing of the air. “When did you leave yesterday?”
“About quarter to five. Ava was getting ready to leave, I remember. Leah was shooing her out. She and Jack—well, you know about all that.”
“Yes. Did you approve of that? One of your doctors dating your office manager.”
He looked surprised by the question, even bemused. “They were both adults—and frankly, they seemed besotted with each other from the first minute.”
“Where did you go when you left?”
“Home to change. My wife and I had a small dinner party last evening. A few friends.”
“I apologize, but it’s routine. I’ll need the names and contact numbers.”
“Of course.” He smiled at her. “No apology necessary.” And he gave her six names. She thanked him, dismissed him. Then added those names to her list of suspects.
Eight
Roarke arranged lunch for himself and Isis in the owner’s suite of the hotel, and passed the forty minutes eating food that didn’t interest him while making polite small talk with a witch.
“When’s the last time you slept?” Isis asked him.
“I suppose it’s been about thirty-two hours now. She’ll push herself until she drops, you see. Eve.”
“And you relax and recreate?”
“More often than she. But no, in this case, in this particular case, I suppose we’ll both push. Her time’s up, so if you’ve finished, I’ll take you to 606.”
“First.” She rose, stepped to him, and placed her hand on his head. “No, relax, just for a moment. Clear your mind. You can trust me.”
A warm flow, he thought. Not the quick burst of energy that came from popping a booster, but more of a slow, steady build of stamina.
“Better?”
“Thank you, yes.”
“It won’t last long, but between that and the little you ate, it should get you through. What you need is some rest.” She picked up her bag. “I’m ready.”
He led her to the elevator.
“You said there’s a private elevator that opens into the suite, as well as the doors to the hallways.”
“That’s right.”
“I want to see it from the outside first. I want to go through the door, not through a machine.”
“All right. Sixtieth floor,” he ordered. “Main bank.”
“I’ll ask you, whatever happens, not to leave me alone.”
“I won’t.” When the elevator doors opened, Roarke took her hand.
The bloody footprints still walked the carpet. Blood smears marred the walls where Jack had laid his hand for balance. In Roarke’s hand, Isis’s fingers tensed.
“People think of it as a cliché.” She stared at the door where the tail of blood made a six from the middle zero. “But it has power and meaning. It should be cleaned—all of this—with blessed water as soon as possible.”
Roarke stepped forward, drew out his master. And Eve strode off the elevator like vengeance.
“Wait. Didn’t I tell you to wait?”
“And so I did.” Roarke turned to her, his gaze as icy as hers was hot. “You’re late.”
She put herself between him and the door. “I know who did this. At least I know some of them. I can close this without the mumbo.”
“Nice to see you again, Eve.”
Eve shifted her gaze to Isis. “No offense. I appreciate you being willing to help, and in fact, have some questions you may be able to answer. You don’t have to see what’s in there.”
“I’ve already seen some of it, through him and now through you. Seen what’s trapped in your minds. But I can’t feel unless I go in. I can’t feel or see what she saw and felt unless I go in. I might help, I might not, but he needs it.”
Isis took Eve’s arms so that for a moment, she stood as the link between Eve and Roarke. “You know that.”
Eve yanked out her master and turned to the door. “When I say it’s done, it’s done,” she stated.
Roarke slipped the protection charm into her pocket as she unsealed the door.
She stepped in first. “Lights on full.” She turned quickly when she heard Isis let out a quick, shuddering breath. But Isis put out a hand, and took another step into the room.
“It reeks still, and will until it’s cleansed. No one can stay here until a cleansing. You feel it, do you feel it? This is not the work of a dabbler, not the vile work of one who only seeks blood and death for their own sake. This is power and purpose, and it brought the dark.”
“You’re going to tell me they called up Satan?”
Isis turned her black eyes on Eve. “I imagine he has more important things to do than answer a summons. But evil can be called, and it can be fed. You can’t do what you do and believe otherwise. Or see what you see.”
She stared at the pentagram, and the pools and rivers of blood that washed over it. “She doesn’t know me, neither in body nor spirit. I need some of her blood. Get that, while I prepare.”
She knelt and began taking items from her bag.
Eve said, “Crap,” but she stalked off to get swabs from the bathroom amenities.
“I’ll need three. Head, heart, hand.” Isis set out candles, crystals, herbs.
Though she rolled her eyes, Eve crossed to the pentagram. If she felt a pull when she stepped into it, she willfully pushed it away. She slapped a look toward Roarke as she coated the swabs. “If it ever gets out that I not only allowed but participated in some voodoo bullshit—”
He crouched beside her, took her free hand. “My lips are sealed as long as you want them to be. I owe you for this.”
“Damn right you do.”
“You’re so tired, darling Eve.” Before she could evade, he leaned to her, brushed her lips with his.
“There’s power there, too,” Isis murmured. “We’ll need it. Light the c
andles, please, and stand with me. Together with me while I cast the circle. Hurry. I can’t stay here long.
“The power of three in light,” she said as Roarke lit the candles. “The power of three in flesh.” She took a bag and walked a circle of salt around them. “Order the lights off,” she commanded, and when only the candles lit the room, she began to chant in a language Eve didn’t recognize.
With a curved knife she turned, like the hand of a compass. Her face glowed; her eyes burned. She placed crystals at the compass points of the circle, then sprinkled herbs into the water she’d poured into a small copper bowl.
Whether it was fatigue or the power of suggestion, Eve felt something cold, cold, brutally cold push against the air.
“It cannot enter what is light. It cannot enter what is bright. And we will not open!” Isis threw her hands high, and her biceps quivered with the strain. “I am daughter of the sun, sister of the moon. I am child and servant of the goddess. In this place, at this hour, I call upon her power. Into me, into mine, bring both light and sight divine. Set the murdered spirit free, send her essence into me.
“The power of three, by her blood.”
Isis smeared Ava’s blood on her forehead, on her breast, on her hand. And falling to her knees, she shook. Her eyes glazed like black glass while her face went white as wax. Horror etched into her features. Both Eve and Roarke dropped down beside her. Her hands grasped theirs, her fingers tightened like wires.
“She’s in some sort of trance. We have to get her out.”
“We gave our word,” Roarke reminded her. “Christ, she’s cold as ice.”
Isis bowed back until her head nearly touched the floor. And screamed. For one mad moment, Eve imagined she saw a gash open and gush blood from her throat. And when the witch slumped, Eve wasn’t certain if she was unconscious or dead.
“Fuck this, we’re getting her out of here now.”
“Don’t leave the circle.” Isis’s voice was weak, but her eyes fluttered open. “Don’t. The red bottle there. I need it, and a little help to sit up.”
They eased her up, and taking the bottle, she sipped slowly from it. “It’s not an illegal,” she said, with both pain and humor in her eyes. “A potion. There’s always a price for power.”
“You’re in pain,” Eve said flatly. “We need to get you out of here.”
“The circle needs to be closed as it was opened. Properly. Then, yes, we all need to get out of here.”
When it was done, and her tools gathered again, Isis leaned on Roarke while Eve resealed the door.
“Can we go back to where we had lunch? I’ll tell you what I can tell you, but I want to be away from here.”
In the owner’s suite, Roarke helped her to the couch, tucked pillows behind her head. “What do you need?” he asked her.
“A really big glass of wine.”
“I can get that for you. Lieutenant?”
“Coffee. I understand you’re a sensitive,” Eve began, “and you believe, strongly believe in your . . . faith.”
“You sometimes hear the cries of the dead. Feel their pain, and know their need for you. We’re not so far apart.” Isis closed her eyes a moment, opening them when Roarke brought her wine. She drank slowly, as she had her potion. “She was a lovely child. I saw some of what they did to her. Not all, I think, not all, but enough. She was inside herself, screaming to get out, but trapped there. There are ways to trap a spirit, with drugs, and other methods. She drank what they gave her, ate, let them touch her. She had no choice. They marked her with a serpent.”
Eve thought of the tattoo, said nothing.
“Sex for power. Well, for some of them, it was only sex—the greed for it, the meanness of it. No love, not even lust. Just greed and violence and power. The one they brought her first, not one of them. Trapped as she was. Something there.”
Isis touched a hand to her forehead, sipped more wine. “Something light between them,” she continued. “Light and new, twisted now when they coupled on the sign. Snuffing out that fragile light with chants and drugs and power until it, too, turned mean. They raped her, took him away and raped her, again and again while she lay unable to fight, to resist. And her trapped spirit screaming, screaming.”
“Easy now,” Roarke murmured, and took Isis’s hand. “Easy.”
She nodded, gathered herself again. “They pulled her up, dragged her to the one who leads them. She looked at him. He said her name, and she looked in his eyes when he cut her throat.
“And they fell on her like beasts. I couldn’t bear any more. I couldn’t bear it.”
Eve rose and walked away while Isis wept in absolute silence, while Roarke sat with her, held her hand. She walked to the wide glass doors, yanked them open, and stepped out into the spring air that buzzed like a mad hive from the city.
When Roarke came out, she continued to stare out at the snarls of traffic, the rush of people below. “What am I supposed to do with this?” she demanded. “Go to the PA and tell him I want to arrest these people because a witch communed with the tragic spirit of the victim?”
“Eve.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder, but rather than turn to him, she curled her hands on the rail until they were fists. “I know she didn’t bullshit that, okay? I may be cynical, but I’m not stupid. And I’m sick at the thought that she saw what she saw. Nobody should. Nobody should have to see that, feel that.”
“No one but you?” he asked, and turned her to face him.
She shook her head. “I looked right in the faces of some of the people who did this to that girl. And I looked right in the eyes of one of them, the one I think cut her throat. And for a second—hell, longer—I was scared right down to my guts.” She let out a breath. “Now, I’m just pissed off.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Then take them down, Lieutenant.”
“I damn well will.” She put her arms around him first, squeezed. “You pissed me off.”
“Same goes. Now, it seems, I’m not. And I just love you.”
“I’m still a little pissed.” But she tipped her head back, looked into his eyes. “But I love you, too.”
Stepping away, she went back to Isis. “Are you steady enough to look at some pictures?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s hope I don’t need your statement, your ID, or . . . the rest of it to take these bastards down. But just in case.” Eve pulled a stack of ID photos from her bag, spread them on the coffee table.
“Yes.” Shifting to sit up, Isis took another sip of wine. Then, without hesitation, pointed out Ava’s murderers.
Nine
Eve rushed through Central, dodging other cops on the glides on her way to Homicide. The time with Isis had put her behind. She needed to meet with Mira, go over her notes, organize them. Then talk the PA into issuing more than a dozen arrest warrants.
And God, she needed coffee.
She veered toward her bullpen just as Peabody came out.
“I was about to tag you. Grabbing an energy bar first. You want?”
Eve started to decline, the things were disgusting. But they worked. “Yeah. I need to put a couple of things together, then meet with Mira.”
At Vending, Peabody plugged in some credits. “You want the Razzmatazz or the Berry Burst?”
“What difference does it make? They’re both revolting.”
“I kinda like the Berry Burst.” As Peabody made the selections, the machine cheerfully congratulated her on her choices, then listed the ingredients and nutritional information. “I checked in with Mira since you were late getting back.”
“Ran into stuff. Fill you in. Coffee.”
Peabody hiked after Eve to Eve’s office. “She said she needed another thirty minutes, that was about five minutes ago. Down-the-hall neighbor at the vic’s apartment states the vic never came home after work yesterday. They were supposed to do the girl thing together for the date. Hair, outfit, like that. Ava never showed. Nothing in her apartment to i
ndicate an interest or connection with the occult. EDD’s got her electronics.”
“She never went back to the apartment because they took her at the clinic.” Eve took a bite of the energy bar, washed it down with coffee. She filled Peabody in, and as expected, her partner’s eyes went big as planets.
“You—you did like a ritual?”
“You had to be there,” Eve muttered.
“No, really happy to pass. Was it scary?”
“The point is, while I’m not sure how much weight the woo-woo might carry in court, Isis fingered every single one of the people on my list. Damn smug is what they are, alibied up. Alibiing each other. Break one, break all. If Mira’s got anything solid, we top it off. We’ve got enough to push for a search warrant on the clinic—and if we push right, on the residences of the staff. Contact the PA. Get them.”
“Me? Me?” If she’d just been ordered to run naked through the bullpen, Peabody would’ve been less stunned. “But you should do it. They listen to you over there. What am I supposed to do?”
“Jesus, Peabody. Sing, dance, shed a goddamn tear. Put the package together and get it done. I’ve got Mira in fifteen. Go.”
She all but shoved Peabody out the door, then closed it. Locked it. She two-pointed the rest of the energy bar into the trash. It wasn’t doing the job. She needed five minutes down, she admitted. Just five. She set her wrist unit to alarm, sat at her desk, laid her head down on it, and shut her eyes.
She went straight under.
A sound woke her, a kind of humming. Voices, tinny with distance, tapped on her subconscious. One—young, male—spiked with excitement.
“Look! Flying cars. Look out the window! That is so cool.”
Eve allowed herself a groan, started to slap at her wrist unit. Opening bleary eyes, she stared groggily at the swirl of luminous blue light, and the man, woman, and child cloaked in its circle. Instinct had her reaching for her weapon even as she registered them—tall man, a lot of gold hair, slim brunette with startled green eyes, and a shaggy-haired boy.
She thought she heard the woman say, “Oops.” Then they were gone, and her wrist unit was beeping.
“Okay, with a dream that weird, I need more than five minutes down.” She turned off the alarm, scrubbed her hands over her face. After downing the rest of her now lukewarm coffee, she gathered what she needed for Mira.