New York to Dallas edahr-41

by J. D. Robb

  He selected a few cheeses, some berries, carefully sliced rounds from a baguette, calming a little itch of panic at the base of his spine with the homey chore.

  He did love this kitchen, he thought as he worked, the high sheens, the smooth surfaces. He’d enjoy using it for a week or two.

  Really, this was a much better location, better plan. Things had worked out precisely the right way. Precisely.

  Then soon enough, with Dallas floating in the river—a real pity he’d been denied that tradition with Sylvia—he’d move on. As much as he wanted New York, for spite if nothing else, he had to consider another venue altogether.

  London perhaps, he thought as he carried his tray into the living area. He’d always planned to spend some time in London. He set his tray on the coffee table, unfolded a wide, white linen napkin. Ran his fingers over the spotless and smooth material.

  Yes, London. Carnaby Street, Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus.

  And all those rosy-cheeked bad girls.

  “Screen on,” he ordered, trying out a public school British accent. Pleased with the sound, he laughed, and continued in character. “Play Darlie.”

  He swirled brandy, nibbled on cheese and berries. And discovered that the pale substitute worked quite well if he just had the right mind-set.

  He decided then and there to make one titled “Eve Dallas.” He imagined the staging, the props, the lighting. He considered writing some dialogue, for both of them.

  Wouldn’t it be fun to force her to speak his words?

  He could barely wait to produce it, direct it. And view it, over and over after he’d killed her.

  21

  Near dawn she dreamed. Trapped in the dark, whispers and whimpers all around her. Cold, so cold, and the bite of the shackles clamped on her wrists and ankles.

  He was out there, and the knowing carved a bleeding gash of fear in her belly.

  Not like this, she thought as she yanked and strained against the shackles. A thousand ways to die, but not like this, and not at his hand.

  Light oozed into the room, slipping dirty red through cracks and fissures to smear the dark like blood.

  And she learned it could be worse to see.

  They huddled all around her, all the girls, all those hopeless, empty eyes. They sat, staring and shivering in the icy room of her nightmares. All of them had her face. The child’s face.

  She fought harder, twisting, dragging against the restraints. She heard—felt—the bone snap. One of the girls shrieked, and each of them clutched her arm.

  “It’s not happening, not happening. It’s not real.”

  “It’s as real as you make it.” Mira sat in one of the blue scoop chairs from her office, crossed her pretty legs.

  “You have to help.”

  “Of course. It’s what I do. Now, how does being here like this make you feel?”

  “Fuck feelings. We have to get out!”

  “Angry then,” Mira said placidly, and sipped tea from a china cup. “But more, I think. What’s under that anger, Eve? Let’s dig it out.”

  “Get us out. Can’t you see how scared they are?”

  “They?”

  “I’m scared. I’m scared.”

  “Progress!” With a pleased smile, Mira lifted her teacup in salute. “Now let’s talk about that.”

  “There’s no time.” Her head swiveled side to side while panic gnawed at her, belly and bone. “He’ll come back.”

  “He’ll only come back if you let him. Well, that’s all the time we have for today.”

  “For God’s sake don’t leave us like this. Take the girls. Take them out of here. They don’t deserve to be here.”

  “No.” Her voice gentle as a kiss, Mira shook her head. “You don’t.”

  “What about me!” The woman, the partner, the mother stood, her throat gaping and wet with blood. “Look what you did to me.”

  “I didn’t kill you.” Eve cringed while the girls, all the girls curled into defensive balls.

  “Stupid bitch, it’s all your fault.” When she slapped one of the girls aside, Eve felt the blow. “Stupid, ugly, worthless bitch. You should never have been born.”

  “But I was. How could you hate what came out of you? How could you hate what needed you? How could you let him touch me?”

  “Whine, whine, whine, all you ever did was whine. You’re nothing but a mistake, and now I’m dead because you’re alive.” The face changed, image over image. Stella to Sylvia, Sylvia to Stella. “You deserved everything he did to you, everything he’s going to do.”

  “He’s dead! He can’t do anything because he’s dead.”

  “Stupid little cunt. Then how did you get here?”

  “Boy, nobody lays the guilt on like a mom.”

  With a sympathetic smile, Peabody crouched in front of Eve. “How’re you doing?”

  “How the hell does it look like I’m doing? Get these kids to safety. Call for backup. Get me a weapon. I need a weapon.”

  “Jeez, Dallas, take it easy.”

  Incensed, Eve yanked at the shackles. “Take it easy? What the fuck’s wrong with you? Get off your ass and do your job.”

  “I am doing my job. We’re all doing the job. See?”

  She could, like a dream over a dream, see her bullpen, cops at desks, in cubes. And Feeney in his rumpled suit in the middle of the clashing colors and constant movement of EDD. Above them Whitney stood, his hands clasped behind his back. Watchful.

  “Officer needs assistance,” Eve murmured, dizzy.

  “You’re getting it, Dallas. Best we got, just like you taught me. Look at my guy.” She grinned and pointed to McNab, who pranced around on wildly striped ankle skids, talking incessantly in e-geek. “That’s how he works. Doesn’t he have the cutest skinny butt? Now your guy, he’s got it rough right now.”

  Eve saw Roarke behind a wall of glass. At his desk he worked a comp, two smart screens, a headset. His ’link signaled, and codes and figures whizzed by on the wall screens.

  He had his hair tied back. His eyes were fierce and intense, and even from a distance she could see they were filled with fatigue and worry.

  “Roarke.” Everything in her spilled out in the single word, the love, the fear, the anguish.

  “It’s hard to think really clear, catch the little details when you’re that worried. He loves you. You hurt, he hurts.”

  “I know. Roarke.”

  “Gotta break the glass, I guess.” Peabody smiled. “You’re my hero.”

  “I’m nobody’s hero.”

  Peabody gave the wrist cuffs a tap. “Not like this, you aren’t.”

  “Get me out of these!”

  “How?”

  “Find the key. Find the goddamn key and get me out.”

  “Wish I could, Dallas, but that’s the whole thing. You’ve got to find it. Better find the key before he gets another one. Before he gets you. You’ve never been stupid. Don’t let her make you stupid.”

  “How am I supposed to find anything when I’m locked in? How—” She broke off, cringing back when she heard the footsteps. “He’s coming.”

  “He never left.” The mother walked to the door.

  “Don’t open it. Please!”

  “Whine, whine, whine.” She opened the door.

  McQueen walked in, flashed a charming smile. “Hello, little girl,” he said in her father’s voice.

  And bleeding from a dozen wounds, he came for her.

  She bolted up in bed, clutching at her throat. The breath wouldn’t come, no matter how wildly her heart hammered, the breath wouldn’t come.

  She didn’t even feel the cat butting his head fiercely against her side.

  Roarke burst into the room. He leaped to the bed, clamped his hands on her arms. “I’m here. Eve. Look at me.”

  She did, she was. She saw his face, his eyes violently blue against bone-white skin. She saw fear, and struggled to say his name.

  “Breathe. Goddamn it.” He shook her, hard, lifting her
half off the bed.

  The shock of it unlocked her throat. When her breath exploded out, his arms wrapped around her. “It’s all right. You’re all right now. Just hold on to me.”

  “He came for us.”

  “No, baby, no. He’s not here. It’s just you and me. Just you and me.”

  “You were there, behind the glass.”

  “I’m here, right here.” He cupped her face so she could see him, feel him. “You’re safe.” His own breathing unsteady, he kissed her brow, her cheeks, wrapped the throw around her.

  “The room. I was in that room. He locked me up. I don’t know which one. They were all there. The girls. All the girls were me.”

  “It’s over.”

  But it’s not, she thought, and closed her eyes. It’s not over.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

  She opened her eyes, looked around. The hotel, she assured herself. The bedroom with the lights low and soft. The cat—he’d brought her the cat—and Galahad sat at her side watchful as a guard dog.

  “Where did you go?”

  “I had some work. Bloody work.” He bit off the words, his voice raw. “I didn’t want to wake you, so I went up to the office. You’d slept quiet, so I thought . . . I shouldn’t have left you.”

  She studied his face now, looked beyond herself and into him. Guilt, fear, worry, anger. All that, she thought. All of that in him. “Did I scream?”

  “No. You started to thrash and struggle, and when I got here—”

  “How did you know? How did you know to come?”

  “I had you on monitor.”

  “You were watching me sleep,” she said slowly, “while you worked.”

  “I’d hoped you’d sleep a bit longer. It’s early yet, barely dawn.”

  “But you were working, and watching me.”

  “It was hardly voyeuristic.”

  She waved him, and the edge in his voice away. “You were worried about me, so you had to keep an eye on me while you tried to work.”

  She thought of how he’d looked behind that glass wall, handling so many tasks at once with weariness on his face.

  “Of course I was worried.”

  “Because I might have a nightmare.”

  “You did have a nightmare, so—”

  She waved him off again, and this time shoved to her feet. “So you have to monitor me like I’m some sort of sick kid, and feel guilty because you actually took a little time, before the fucking sun came up, to deal with your own work. Well, that’s just enough. They’ve screwed us up long enough, and it’s got to stop. It’s going to stop.”

  He watched her storm around the room and wondered if she knew she was gloriously naked, and absolutely shining with outrage. And watching her he felt more at peace than he had since she’d walked into his office in New York days before.

  “I’m not putting up with this,” she continued. “You can’t even go out and buy up a solar system without worrying I’ll fall apart. How are you supposed to get anything done?”

  “Actually, I’m not in the market for a solar system right at the moment.”

  “Bad things happen, who knows better? Bad, unspeakable, ugly things happen whether you deserve them or not. Your father was a bastard, and he put you through hell, but you don’t sit around whining about it.”

  “No. Neither do you.”

  “That’s right.” She jabbed a finger at him. “That’s fucking-A right, and it’s just more crap that needs to be flushed. I am not a whiner. I’m not weak and stupid. I’m a goddamn cop.”

  “To the bone.”

  “Damn straight, so this subconscious shit better latch the hell on because I’m done letting it kick me around. I’m done letting it put that look on your face. I’m a goddamn cop, and it doesn’t matter why I am or how I am. What matters is doing the job, doing it right, doing it smart, doing it all the way through. What matters is you and me. What matters is you, because I fucking love you.”

  “I fucking love you, too.”

  “Bet your ass, you do, and you wouldn’t have fallen for some sniveling coward.”

  “I wouldn’t,” he agreed. “I didn’t.”

  “So.” She took her first clear breath. “That’s it. That’s settled.”

  She slapped her hands on her hips, then looked down with a frown as flesh met flesh. “I’m naked.”

  “Are you really?” He felt a laugh in his chest, a marvelous sensation. “Well, so you are. I don’t mind a bit.”

  “I bet.” She snatched up the robe he’d obviously laid at the foot of the bed before he’d gone off to try to work. She punched her arms through the sleeves. “I’m so pissed off.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  She went to the AutoChef, programmed two coffees. Then, studying the cat, who studied her, added a bowl of milk. She set the bowl on the floor, carried the coffee to Roarke.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m not saying you can’t worry. Worry’s part of the deal, I get it. But I don’t want to be responsible for worry weighing you down like it has since we got here.”

  “You’re not responsible.”

  “I let it screw me up, so it screwed you up. I’ve got to get a handle on it. My mommy didn’t love me, well boo-frigging-hoo.”

  He drew her down beside him. “We both know it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

  “Whatever, I’m not letting her get me so tangled up I can’t think straight. I keep you on edge. And no more guilt. If you’re going to be guilty it’s going to be about something I want to punch you for, not for getting some work done one flight up.”

  “What matters is you—as you said to me. But I’ll try not to feel guilty unless it’s a punchable offense.”

  He draped an arm around her as they sat drinking coffee. “You slept well,” he commented, “until the last.”

  “Credit the full spaghetti-and-meatballs treatment. Who won the game?”

  “I haven’t a clue. I was right behind you.”

  “So we both got some sleep, that’s a good start. Let’s make a deal. Let’s get this son of a bitch and go home.”

  “Gladly.”

  “I need to suit up and look over what we’ve got again. Because if there’s anything to this subconscious shit, I’m missing something. We’re missing something.”

  “Give us a minute,” he murmured when she started to rise.

  So she sat with him, with him and the cat, drinking coffee and watching the sky lighten into day.

  In her office, she had a second cup of coffee and studied her board. She hadn’t wanted breakfast, and he’d decided not to push.

  “Are you going in this morning?” he asked her.

  “In? Oh, to Ricchio’s house. I’m not sure. Here’s the thing. We got Melinda back, and that was the lure. That was the specific reason to request I come here to work with them. Continuing to work with them wouldn’t be a problem for Ricchio, and probably not the feds, though they’ve all had time to study up on McQueen and don’t necessarily need me there. But unless we’re idiots, it’s very possible he’ll snatch another kid, then hang her over my head to get me where he wants me. Why not just stay put and finish it?”

  She shrugged. “But I think we both work better from here, so why go in until and unless we have something solid to add?”

  “Working from here suits me. That search you wanted on potential locations is in.”

  “Okay. Look, why don’t you take care of the half a million things you’ve been letting dangle in Roarke’s Empire of Everything?”

  “Catchy title. I may use it one day.”

  “I’m going to go back to the beginning. I want to go over all the data, the interviews, time lines, the works. Basically do a solid review, and that’ll take a while. You can send me the search results, and I’ll add them in.”

  “All right. But I have Summerset and Caro, and a number of other people dealing with the dangling half a million in REE. So if you come up with anything,
or want something looked into, let me know.”

  “Yeah.”

  She went to her desk, called up the incident report and Bree’s statement on the night Melinda was abducted.

  The data remained fresh in her head, she admitted. She knew all the details here, just couldn’t see anything she or the Dallas cops, the feds, had missed. But she rechecked the time lines, read over the interview with the bar owner on Sarajo, the statement from the neighbor.

  She filtered in, sifted through all the information Peabody, Feeney, and the New York team had accumulated. She went step by step, stage by stage, retracing her time in Texas, reviewing every fact, speculation, and probability on McQueen and his movements.

  She answered her ’link with her mind still steeped in it.

  “Dallas.”

  “McQueen’s made contact,” Ricchio told her. “He wants to talk to you. Should we link him up?”

  “Give me a second.” She rushed over to Roarke’s office. “McQueen through Ricchio. Can you try a trace from here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have him linked.” She went back to her desk, sat. “I’m set.”

  “Do you want to block your video?”

  “No, let him see me.”

  “We’re linking.”

  She angled in. She wanted him to get a good look at her. She was rested, alert. She was ready.

  “Eve.”

  “Isaac. Really sorry I missed you yesterday.”

  “I feel the same. That’s why I’m making arrangements for us to get together very soon.”

  “How about now? I happen to be free.”

  “Patience. I have a few more preparations to make so we can have a perfect reunion. As you know I had to dispose of the help, so I’m a little shorthanded.”

  “Yeah, you were a little rushed, not so careful this time around, Isaac. When you go back to New York, it’ll only be a jumping-off point. This time it’ll be off-planet accommodations for you.”

  “Oh, I have something else entirely in mind.”

  “Such as.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll tell you all about it when you’re gracing my guest room. Meanwhile, I thought you might enjoy a preview of an exciting home vid I produced recently.”