by J. D. Robb
“This devil’s my fight. Stick with Mira,” she said before she started toward Roarke.
“I can’t figure out how you connected the dots.” Peabody stopped her. “The basement, all those missing women, the soft-spoken piano player. I feel like I missed a couple dozen steps.”
“Things just started falling into place. Let’s just say I followed Szabo. She was already closing in. Check with Reo. See if she’s got the warrant.”
She continued on to Roarke. “I need to ask you for something.”
“Are you asking your husband or your civilian?”
“Looks like you’re both. I need you to stay close to me. If I start to lose it—”
“You won’t.”
“If, I think you can help me stay grounded. She’s in here.” Eve touched a hand to her chest. “This is the guy who took Beata, the guy who killed her. She might want some payback. If it looks like I’d turn that way, stop me. You stop me.”
“I have every confidence in Lieutenant Dallas, but if it makes you feel easier, I won’t let you do anything you’ll regret.”
“Good. But be, you know, subtle about it.”
He had to laugh. “You are absolutely you. All right then, while preventing you from taking a dead Gypsy’s revenge, I’ll do whatever I can to preserve your dignity. How’s that?”
“It’ll do.”
She reviewed the blueprints again on the way to the building, checked in with her teams, focused on the work.
“We go in the front, pass the main stairs, to the right and straight to the basement access door. It’s going to be locked. If the master doesn’t work, we use the battering ram or”—she glanced at Roarke—“other means. If Feeney picks up images down there, we follow his lead. Otherwise, Peabody, Baxter, Trueheart, take this sector. Roarke and I this one. One of you sees a mouse riveting, everybody hears about it. We clear sector by sector. If a door’s locked, take it down. Call for backup if you need it.”
She toggled to the exterior view. “Locations of cams are highlighted. I don’t see anybody watching them this time of night. But there are very likely cams down there not on the blueprints.”
Think like him, she ordered herself. Not like a frantic old woman.
“He’d want to watch her, and want his area secured in and out. Can’t have somebody stumbling across her, and can’t let her find a way out. If Renicki and Jacobson lock him down, they can work him for more information—but we won’t count on getting it. We’ll bring in the others, and we’ll go through every inch of that basement.
“Feeney,” she said into her mic, “give me the word.”
“Got nothing in the suspect’s place. Got two in the other apartment. Everything else aboveground is clear. Got nothing for you in the basement, but there are voids down there, Dallas, either due to the thickness of walls, jammers, or sensor blocks.”
“Tucks them up tight,” she murmured. “Give me the location of the voids.”
She keyed them in, felt the adrenaline begin to pump. “We hit those first. If he’s not upstairs and didn’t go for a goddamn walk, he’s down there with her now. We’re green. All teams, we’re green. Move.”
She jumped out of the back of the transport, weapon out. She prayed she hadn’t missed a deeper level of security, prayed he wasn’t monitoring the cameras as she used her master to access the main door.
Cops spread out to the exits, up the stairs, moving quick and quiet while she and her team rushed to the basement door.
“Master’s ineffective.”
“Give me a minute,” Roarke told her. “Battering rams are crude, and they’re noisy.”
She stepped back to give him room, mentally checking off each exit as her men reported them secure.
When Roarke’s clever tools and fingers unlocked the door, she signaled to Peabody. “High and left,” she told her, “then straight down.”
She went in low and right—and knew immediately her instincts had been on target.
Lights burned in the ceiling, dim but activated. The old metal stairs led down to a concrete floor, thick walls, narrow corridors.
She signaled Peabody to lead her team, then set off in the opposite direction with Roarke.
They passed through a cavernous room piled with old furniture, lamps, fabrics, down another dim corridor. She heard the clink and hum of the building mechanicals as they moved through a utility area where tools were neatly stored on freestanding shelves.
“This area needs to be maintained,” she said quietly, sweeping with her weapon as Roarke did the same with the one he’d slipped out of his pocket. “Wherever he keeps them has to be soundproofed and fully secured.”
“This sector’s void’s west. Down that way.”
Eve started to turn, then went into a crouch, weapon up. Her muscles trembled as the ballerina blocked her way.
“I can’t get out,” the woman said and held out her hands. “We can’t get out. Can you help me?”
“You have to wait.”
“Eve?”
“It’s Vanessa Warwich.” Eve fought off shudders as her skin shivered from the sudden cold. “You have to wait a little longer.”
“I couldn’t dance anymore.” She lifted her sparkling white skirt. “He cried when he killed me.” She touched her fingers to the gaping slice across her throat. “But I couldn’t dance anymore.”
“Just wait.” And gritting her teeth, Eve walked through the pleading woman. She reached out to try to balance herself when her head spun.
Roarke grabbed her, braced her. “Bloody hell. Stay here.”
“I have to finish it. You know I have to finish it. I have to make it stop.” She glanced back and into Vanessa Warwich’s eyes but saw the others behind her. All the pretty girls in their sparkling skirts and toe shoes.
All those white throats gaping.
“She’s waiting. Warwich waiting—trapped. And God, she’s not alone. We have to move.”
“Hold on to me if you have to.”
He took the lead, brooked no argument. She steadied herself as she followed, cleared her throat as she listened to team updates.
Her op, she reminded herself. She was in command here. She had to be.
Natalya and Alexi were secured, Peabody had reached the first of her voids. An empty room. The search of Sasha’s apartment was under way, but neither he nor the murder weapon had been found.
Roarke held up a hand, stopped her. “Sensors,” he murmured. “They’ll read us.”
“Then we’re getting close.”
“They’ll likely signal in his apartment but could very well alert him if he’s down here. Give me a minute to jam them.”
“You’re handy.”
“We do what we can.” He took out what looked like an innocent PPC, keyed in various codes. “It’s rudimentary,” he told her. “Just a precaution to let him know if anyone’s down this way.”
“Or if his current ballerina managed to get out. Are we clear?”
“We are.”
“Peabody, we hit sensors. Watch for them. We’re moving.”
Another turn, another twenty feet, and they spotted the door. “Secured door,” she said into her mic. “Accessing now.”
She rolled her shoulders as Roarke got to work. She was ready, she thought. She was herself.
When he nodded, they went through the door together, swept it.
She supposed it would be called a sitting room—windowless, but with a softly faded carpet, a sofa, a lamp. And a small monitoring station.
He could sit here and watch her before he went in, she thought, studying the blank monitor, then the second secured door, the one painted bright bloodred.
“The red door,” she murmured. “Locked behind the red door.”
Without a word Roarke went to the door, checked the security. She had to breathe deeply, slowly, fighting the voice inside her begging her to hurry, hurry, hurry.
“Got his lair,” she said to Peabody. “Key in on me. Secondary door and
inner security being bypassed. Feeney, I’ve got a monitoring station here. Send McNab in. We’re clear,” she said at Roarke’s nod. “We’re going in.”
She looked at him, trusted him to keep her centered. She held up three fingers, closed to a fist, then held up one, two. On three they were through the door.
Ten
He’d set his prison with a stage with filmy white curtains on either side and lights to enhance the mood of the music that soared. Roses, their petals glowing silver in the light, scented the air. Eve spotted all this, and another door, in an instant, but her focus centered on the stage and the dancers.
Beata, her face pale with exhaustion, her eyes empty of hope, wore a white, filmy skirt, topped by a bodice glittering with gold like the ring that crowned her.
The same costume as all the others. All the pretty dancers.
Beata rose, fluid as water, en pointe and into an arabesque before turning into the arms of the devil.
He gripped her waist, lifted her high, while his eyes shone through the holes in his mask. His cape flowed from his shoulders as he dipped her head toward the floor.
Eve’s weapon seemed to burn in her hand. She longed to fire it, craved it as her heart raged in her chest. And the words, the thoughts that roared through her head were in Romany.
Roarke touched a hand to the small of her back, just a bare brush of fingers. “Your move, Lieutenant,” he murmured beneath the swell of music.
Her move, she thought, and took it when the dancers leaped apart.
“Nice jump,” she called out, training her weapon on Sasha. “Now freeze, or I’ll drop you off your twinkle toes.”
She heard Beata’s cry, swore she felt it rip through her soul, but kept her eyes on Sasha.
“You’re interrupting the performance.” He spoke with some heat—as a man would when bumped violently on the street by a stranger.
“Show’s canceled.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He dismissed her with a wave of the hand, then reached it out for his partner. Roarke had already moved in and put himself between them.
Sasha pulled the dagger from his belt. “I’ll kill you for touching her.”
“You can certainly try, and I admit I’d enjoy beating you to hell and back again, but I believe the lieutenant will indeed drop you if you take a step toward this girl.”
“She’s mine.” He whirled back to Eve. “No one takes her from me. She is my Angel, and here she lives forever.”
“I am Beata Varga.” Beata yanked the crown from her head, heaved it. “I’m not your Angel, and you go to hell.”
Sasha lunged for her, and even as Roarke braced to counter the attack, Eve kept her word. She dropped him, stunned and shuddering, to center stage.
As he fell, Beata covered her face with her hands and slid to the floor at the edge of those glittering lights. “I knew someone would come. I knew someone would come.”
Eve moved forward, went to her knees, and wrapped her arms around Beata as Peabody’s team rushed in.
Once again Roarke stepped between. “I think you might want to restrain your suspect before he recovers, and take him out. Give Beata a moment.” He gave the dagger a light kick across the stage. “And there’s your murder weapon.”
“Yeah.” If Peabody thought it strange to see her partner rocking the weeping girl, she said nothing of it. “We’ll clear him out, and I’ll tell Father Lopez and Dr. Mira to stand by.”
“Crazy fucker.” Baxter looked around the room as he locked restraints on Sasha. “All his world’s a freaking stage. Trueheart tagged the MTs. For her,” he added, and with Trueheart’s help, hauled Sasha to his feet.
Eve let the police routine play out behind her—under control, she thought and concentrated on Beata. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”
“Not really, not much. How long? How long have I been here? Sometimes he gave me something that made me sleep, and I lost track.”
“You’re all right now. That’s what counts.”
“He locked me in. In there.” Though she continued to shake, she lifted her chin toward the inner door. “This horrible, beautiful room. He brought me flowers and chocolates, and all these beautiful clothes. He’s out of his mind, out of his mind.” She dropped her head back on Eve’s shoulder.
“Did he touch you? Beata.” She drew the girl back.
“No, no, no. Not that way. I thought he would rape me, kill me, but it wasn’t what he wanted.”
She continued to tremble under Eve’s hands, but even as they streamed with tears, her eyes held fury.
“He said we would be together forever, and I would do what I was born to do: dance. Always dance. And night after night he would come and put on the costume. If I wouldn’t wear mine, he’d give me the drug, and when I woke I’d be in it. So I put it on rather than have him touch me. And I danced, because if I refused or if I fought, he’d tie me and leave me in the dark.”
“You did what you had to do,” Eve told her. “You did exactly right.”
“I called, but no one heard, and I tried to break the door, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”
“Okay. It’s okay.”
“Every day I’d try to find a way out, but there wasn’t one. I don’t know where I am. How did you find me?”
“You’re in the basement of the school where you took classes. We’ll get into all the details later. We’re going to get you out of here now.”
“My family.”
“You can contact them.” Eve laid a hand on Beata’s cheek. “Your family is always with you, wherever you are, wherever you go.”
Beata closed a hand around Eve’s wrist, let her head rest in Eve’s hand. “That’s what my grandmother would say to me whenever I was sad or scared.”
I know, Eve thought, and helped Beata to her feet. “I want you to go with these officers now. They’ll take you out.”
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
“I’ll be there soon. There are things I have to do. Beata, did they know, were they part of this? Natalya, Alexi.”
“No. He said it was only us, our secret—that they wanted him to be calm, to accept, to live without me. Her, Arial, the one whose name he called me. But that he never would. He wouldn’t share me with them or the world. He wouldn’t lose me this time. He told me often.”
“Okay, go ahead now. Go outside. Go breathe the air.”
Eve knew what it was to be locked up, to be trapped and helpless. And to want to breathe free.
Eve shut off her recorder, looked at Roarke. “It’s not done. I hoped, when we found her . . . I have to find the others. I know where they are,” she said before Roarke answered. “They’re pressing on me. The dead. I know where they are, and I think—hope—I know what to do.”
“Then we’ll go find them.”
She turned her recorder back on, reengaged her mic. “I need a unit down here with tools. We need to take down a wall. And I’ll need Morris. I’m on the move. Key in on my location when I get there, and send a team down to process this goddamn prison.
“Let’s go,” she said to Roarke.
She didn’t have to ask him to hold her hand, to keep her close as they walked those dim corridors, or to talk to her quietly, soothingly.
“He must’ve built that place years ago,” she said. “And updated it, maintained it—down here in the bowels of the building. There were tools in that utility room we went through. A sledgehammer and—”
“I’ll get something.” She was pale again, he thought, feverish again. It had to end. “Are you all right alone?”
“I’m not exactly alone, but yeah.”
While Roarke doubled back, she walked straight to the void, the empty room Peabody had reported, stared—her eyes burning dry—at the far wall. Old wood, old brick, so it looked patched and repaired and nondescript. But she felt the misery, the horror, and had to force herself not to attack it with her bare hands.
Morris came in behind her. “I passed Roarke. He
told me to bring this.”
She grabbed the pry bar out of his hands, began to drag at the boards, the spikes and nails.
“Dallas—”
“They’re back there. Trapped in there.”
“Who?”
“The others. All the others. They can’t get out, can’t get to the other side. They need to be seen, need to be shown.” Her muscles trembled with the effort as boards splintered. “They need help.”
“Step back,” Roarke snapped as he strode in. “Eve, step back.”
He slammed the sledgehammer he carried at the brick, exploding dust and shards. As he pounded again, again, she moved in, away from the arc of his swing to rip and pry.
The stench seeped in, one she knew too well. Death entered the room.
“I see her.” Eve grabbed for the flashlight on her belt. “Her—them. Three, I think. Wrapped in plastic.”
As she spoke, Roarke slammed the hammer again. Through the gap he created a skeletal hand reached out, palm up, as if in supplication.
“Careful now.” Morris laid a hand on Eve’s shoulder. “We need to go carefully now. This is for my team and forensics.”
“Let me see your light.” Roarke took it from Eve, shone it in the gap. “Christ Jesus. He’s stacked them, like berths in a bloody train.”
“And when bricks were too much trouble or he just ran out of them, he switched to boards. Can you see how many?” Eve asked him.
“Five, I think. I can’t be sure.”
“Hold off now. It’s enough.” She took out her communicator. “Peabody, we’ve got bodies. Eight, maybe more. I need a recovery team, the sweepers. Morris is calling his people in.”
“Acknowledged. Jesus, Dallas, eight?”
“Maybe more. They’re found now. And Peabody, send down the priest.”
She clicked off, said nothing as Roarke picked up the bar and continued to carefully knock away loose bricks. Instead she reached in, laid a hand on the plastic covering the ruined shell of Vanessa Warwich.
You’re found now, she thought. You’re free now.
She stepped out of the room, just leaned against a wall as she struggled against waves of grief.
And the old woman stepped to her, spoke.