by J. D. Robb
Fergus would contact her, and unable to tag her come looking.
But she couldn’t depend on backup. All she had was herself.
“You wanted to see what was in my workroom. I’m going to show you when we’re done. I’ll show you where the bad girls go.”
She threw a lamp at him. Pitiful, she thought, but it gave her a little room.
This time when he sliced, she went in low, plowed her fists into his balls, her head into his belly. She felt the knife catch another piece of her, but came up hard with an uppercut, jammed her knee into his already tender crotch.
She tried a body takedown, and he flung her across the room.
“That hurt!” Outrage reddened his face, stripped away all amusement. “You skinny bitch, you’re going to pay for that.”
Her ears rang. Her vision blurred. She thought, no, she’d be damned if she’d die this way. She was going to make goddamn detective.
She shifted her weight and balance, came up with both feet. When he staggered back she scrambled up and behind a chair. Time to catch her breath. She was hurt, knew she was hurt. Couldn’t think about it. He’d kill the hell out of her unless she evened the odds.
“I’m a cop.” She tasted blood along with the fear. “Dallas, Officer Eve. And you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.”
He laughed. Laughed and laughed with blood running from his split lip. He came forward, passing the knife from hand to hand. “You’re a feisty one, and entertaining. I’m going to keep you alive for a long, long time.”
For an instant she saw two of him and thought, fleetingly, she might have a concussion. Closer, she thought, let him get closer. Let him think she was finished.
Then she shoved the chair hard into his knees, and dived.
She rolled, came up with her weapon. As he leaped toward her, she fired. He jerked back, kept coming. She fired again. “Go down, you fucker!” And again.
She heard herself screaming when the knife dropped out of his hand, when he slid, shaking, to the floor.
“Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch.” She got to her knees, weapon still trained. She couldn’t get her breath. Had to get her breath.
Training, routine. Kick the knife away, get out your restraints. Secure the prisoner.
She straightened, swayed as pain and nausea churned through her.
Jesus, Jesus, I’m hurt.
She couldn’t say why she did it. Even years later she didn’t know why she’d felt so compelled. She searched his pockets, found the key.
She staggered to the locked room even as her mind reeled off procedure. Go out, contact Fergus, call for backup. Officer needs assistance.
Sweet Jesus, officer needs assistance.
Instead, she dragged the bolts clear, managed after three tries to uncode the lock.
And she opened the door to hell.
“There were so many of them. Children, just girls, shackled, naked, covered in bruises, dried blood, God knows what. Most of them were huddled together. Eyes, so many eyes on me. The smell, the sounds, I can’t tell you.”
She didn’t know if she’d taken his hand or he’d taken hers, but the contact kept her grounded in the now, and a desperate step back from the horror.
“He’d put a couple chem toilets in there, some old blankets. There were cams up in the corners so he could monitor them. I didn’t see any of that, not then. All I could see were girls and their eyes. I can still see them.”
“Take a break.”
She shook her head, tightened her grip on his hand. “All at once, that’s better. For a minute I went somewhere else. I’d buried those memories of my father, and that room in Dallas so deep. It was gone, all of that was just gone. But for a moment, standing there, with all the girls, all the eyes, I went back. The dirty red light from the sign flashing against the window glass. The cold, so cold. And the blood all over me. Not me, a child, but the child was me, and the pain was mine. For that moment it just poured back, poison down the throat. I froze. Just stood there with part of me eight years old and covered with blood in that awful room.
“I started to go, just slide away, just slide to the floor, just slide back into that place I didn’t really recognize. But one of the girls started screaming at me. Help us. Do something. You bitch, she said, do something. Her name was Bree Jones. She and her twin sister, Melinda, were the last taken, only a week before. A week in that hell. Well, some of them had endured it for years.”
“As you had,” he murmured.
“I didn’t know, or couldn’t know. Or wouldn’t.” Eve closed her eyes a moment, focused on the warm, firm contact—Roarke’s hand holding hers.
“But she screamed and shouted, yanking at the chains. And it brought me back. Help us. That was the job, to help, not to stand there frozen and shaking and sick. The others started screaming, shouting, crying. It didn’t sound human. I went in. I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t have the keys to the shackles. I had to find the keys.”
She let go of his hand to rub both of hers over her face. “Procedure, routine. I pulled it out, dragged it through the hell. It got me through. I told them I was the police, told them my rank and name, told them they were safe now. When I said I had to go out, get more help, they went crazy. Don’t leave us. Begging me, cursing me, wailing like animals. But I had to. I had to get Fergus, get more cops, get medicals. Procedure, routine. It’s the foundation. I left them. McQueen was coming around. I didn’t even hesitate, just gave him another shock. Didn’t think twice about it. I stepped out in the hall, and got Fergus on my communicator. I told him to call for backup and medicals. A lot of both. Multiple victims, apartment three-oh-three. He didn’t ask questions, called it in while he came on the run. He was a good cop, a solid cop. I heard him running up the stairs when I went back to the room. I heard him say, ‘Mary, Mother of God.’ Like a prayer. I remember that, then it gets blurry for a while.”
She took a breath, another drink of wine. “But we found the keys, and he found some sheets, some blankets for the girls. He stayed so calm, like a good dad, I guess. Soothing. Then procedure. Backup, medicals, getting identification and information. Feeney.”
She looked over the garden with its glimmering lights, drew in the fragrance of flowers she couldn’t name.
“Feeney came in, sat down beside me while the MTs dealt with the cuts. All that controlled chaos around us, and he sits down, gives me a long look. You know how he does.”
“Yes,” Roarke murmured. “I do.”
“ ‘Well, kid,’ he said, ‘you caught the bad guy today, and saved some lives. Not a bad day’s work for a rook.’ I was a little punchy. They’d given me some tranq before I could stop them. So I said, ‘Fuck that, Lieutenant. It’s a good day’s work for any cop.’ He just nodded, and asked me how many girls. I said twenty-two. I don’t know when I counted. I don’t remember counting.”
She swiped at tears she’d just realized streamed down her cheeks. “God. I wouldn’t go to the hospital. Big surprise. He took my oral report right there in McQueen’s apartment. Two days later, I was reassigned as his aide. Homicide, Cop Central. In some twisted way, McQueen got me everything I wanted.”
“You’re wrong. In every way, Eve, you got it for yourself. You saw something in him others hadn’t, and maybe wouldn’t have for a long time.”
She took his hand again, needed his hand again. “I saw my father. I saw Richard Troy. I didn’t know it, but I saw him when I looked at McQueen.”
“And saved twenty-two young girls.”
“For twelve years that was enough. Now it’s not. He’s already hunting, Roarke.”
She brought her gaze back to his. “He’ll have a place. If he doesn’t have his partner already, he’ll soon find one. He’ll have transportation, probably a dark van. He broke out through the infirmary, so he’ll have drugs—tranqs, paralytics. He’ll change his appearance a little. His hair was lighter when I caught sight of him today. He’s too vain to change it muc
h, but he’ll do subtle alterations. He’ll dress well, fashionably, but nothing overdone. He’ll look safe, attractive. And he’ll be eager to start again. Julie gave him a release, but she’s not what he’s after. He’ll need a girl, twelve, thirteen, or a young-looking fourteen or fifteen. If she’s with friends or family he’ll find a way to separate her. He’ll lure her into the van, or give her just enough tranq to make her compliant.”
She needed to work, Roarke thought. To utilize data, logic, pattern, and step away from the emotion.
“How?” he asked. “How would he finance or acquire transportation, a place, suitable clothing, and so on?”
“If it’s convenient or necessary, he’ll steal. Pick pockets. He’s as good as you.”
“Please.”
“Okay, maybe not, and I’m going on reports and history anyway. We presumed he had money or funds stashed. The clothes, the electronics, the food and wine in his place? He had to have money, more than we found. He grifted, and well, a long time, and the e-fraud was lucrative. EDD couldn’t find a trace of an account attached to him, other than the standard he had under his own name with a couple thousand in it. It’s possible they missed it, but we figured he kept a stash, as he’d been trained to do as a kid. Just dig in, take the cash, and go.”
“Multiple caches would be smarter. All the eggs in one basket makes an expensive omelette if broken.”
“You’d know. If he had funds tucked away in New York, he’d have access by now. But . . .”
“But?” Roarke prompted.
“I could see a stash, or a few. Running money, quick cash. But he’s smart, greedy, like I said, he wants good clothes, good wine, all that. He knows his way around electronics.”
“He’d have that account—or likely accounts, you’re thinking. Investments, letting his money make money.”
“Yeah, I figure that. His other priority would be the partner. He needs that attention, support, and someone to run interference.”
“The visitor’s list, communications. She’d be in there, wouldn’t she?”
“Has to be. He might escape on impulse and opportunity, but if he hadn’t had a plan in place, he’d have gone underground until he had one.”
She paused a moment, let herself think it through now that her mind had cleared. “They’re looking for somebody running, hiding, even scrambling. He’s not. He deliberately sought attention, so he’s confident, secure. He’s not on the run. Getting a hit off the BOLO we’ve got out on him would be sheer luck. He kept his first New York victim in that room for three years. She was strong. He lived there in a working-class neighborhood, on the third floor of a well-occupied building, and managed to transport his victims in, and we assume transport the bodies or remains of the ones who didn’t survive out, without anyone seeing him. He won’t go down easy.”
“I don’t question your judgment, but will add that this time it’s more than feeding his need, more than the girls. It’s you. It’s showing you up, paying you back. And payback is a distraction. It adds an element of risk that wasn’t in play before.”
“It’s a factor,” she agreed. “And the break in his pattern complicates things for him more than us. Still, he’s had twelve years to think it through, plan it out, refine the details. I have to catch up.”
“Then we’d better get started.” He rose, took her hand to bring her to her feet. “You didn’t take him down all those years ago just because you were lucky. You were smarter than he was, even then. He was stronger, had the advantage, but you didn’t lose your head or panic. And you didn’t stop. He may have had this time to plan and refine, but you’ve had it to hone your instincts, to build experience. And you have something else now you didn’t have then.”
“You.”
“See how smart you are?” He brushed a kiss over her forehead. “It’ll give me pleasure to use my considerable resources, not to mention skills—”
“You just mentioned them.”
“So I did. In any case, I’ll enjoy using them to help you put him away a second time, and for good. And I can start doing just that by accessing his visitors and communications logs from the prison.”
She opened her mouth, a knee-jerk refusal on the tip of her tongue. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t bent the rules before, but it never sat quite right. “Yeah. Yeah, you do that. They’ve got no business stonewalling until tomorrow while they work on their spin. I don’t care about their spin or the politics. I need to know who he’s talked to, seen. I need it all. A few hours’ jump on this might save some kid from being taken.”
They set up in Roarke’s private office, with the unregistered equipment, shielded from the intrusive eye of CompuGuard. He walked to the wide, U-shaped command center, laid his palm on the security plate. “This is Roarke. Power up.”
And the controls glittered like jewels against the sleek black console. Nothing accessed here could go in any report, not until the data came to her by proper and legal channels. But . . .
One of his shades of gray, she thought. He had more than she did, a thinner and more adjustable line. Still, all she had to do was remember all the girls, all those eyes inside that obscenity of a room, to step over to Roarke’s side of it.
She sat at the auxiliary comp, called up her files. She’d need to set up a board, she worked better with visuals. But for now she’d take the time to refresh herself on all things Isaac McQueen.
She steeped herself in it, in the photographs, the data stream, the psychiatric reports, court transcripts. She surfaced when Roarke set a mug of coffee on the console beside her.
“The medical he killed yesterday had a wife and a two-year-old daughter.”
She nodded. “You think I need to justify what I’m doing, or letting you do. Maybe sometime down the road I will. Right now I’m clear on it. I’m sidestepping politics.”
She looked up at him. He’d tied his hair back—work mode. “I’ve got no problem with that.”
“All right, then. I have his visitors log, and the record of all approved communications. I imagine you’ve considered he communicated with someone outside by non-approved means. If so, he didn’t use any variation of his own ID, or send or receive by anyone using any variation of those on the approved list. I’ll look deeper.”
He leaned on the console, sipped from a mug of his own. “I programmed a search for key phrases, repetitions. So far all the e-coms are innocuous. Answers to messages from reporters, writers, an inmate advocacy group. There’s very little over a twelve-year period, which weighs on the side he found a way to skirt around approval.”
Eve drank coffee and considered. “He’s got the e-skills. He wouldn’t make a mistake there, and he’d be very careful what he put on a hard drive. We stripped down his electronics before. Next to nothing. He’s very careful. The way to the partner, if he’s lined one up, would be through visitation. Face-to-face contact. Privacy rules, thanks to prison advocacy groups—prevent monitoring prisoner visitation. It’ll be a woman, between forty and . . . adding the twelve years in, probably more like between fifty and sixty. Attractive, with some sort of addiction or vulnerability he can exploit.”
“Nearly all his visitors were female. Data’s copied to your unit.”
Eve called it up. Out of twenty-six visitors, eighteen were women, and most of them repeat visitors.
“I get the reporters—after a juicy story, maybe a big book deal or vid. He’d probably string them along awhile, get them to come back, entertain him. Tell them nothing. But the rest? What did they get out of spending time with him, knowing what he’d done, what he is? I don’t—Jesus, Melinda Jones.”
“Yes.”
“August, ’fifty-five. About five years ago. Single visit. I need to run her.”
“I did. She’s a rape and trauma counselor, attached to the Dallas police department, where her sister is a cop who just made detective. They share an apartment, live only a few miles from their parents, and the home where they grew up. She’s single, and she’s clean.
”
“Okay. She’d have been about nineteen when she made this visit.”
“Facing her monster.”
“Maybe. Probably. I’ll have to contact her, see what he said to her. She’s not his type now. Too old for his tastes, too young for partner status. A rape counselor and a cop. They made something out of what happened to them. It’s good to know that.”
She scanned down the list. “Multiple visits would be the highest probability. Not too many. No point in sending up a flag.”
She ordered the computer to separate out names of subjects who’d visited between six and twelve times. “We’ll start with these.”
“I’ll take four.”
They ran them for data, put images on screen.
“Computer, delete subjects three, five, and eight. Too many busts,” she told Roarke. “He wouldn’t work with someone who screwed up that often and got caught. And since subject two is now deceased, we can toss her out of the mix. Down to four,” she said as she paced. “Number one, Deb Bracken, has a New York address, so we’ll check her out in person. The other three are scattered around. Miami, Baltimore, and Baton Rouge. We’ll have local authorities give them a look once we’re cleared.
“There’s something about this one. Number seven.”
“Sister Suzan Devon,” Roarke read. “Recovering illegals addict. Two busts for possession, one for solicitation without a license.”
“Yeah, but the busts are in her misspent youth. Nothing since she hit thirty. She’s the right age. Early fifties, not bad looking. Member of the Church of Redemption, based in Baton Rouge. Lists spiritual advisor as reason for visits. Bogus bullshit.”
“The last visit was more than a year ago.”
“That wouldn’t matter if he managed to set things up, and contact her under the radar. She gives me a buzz, so we’ll look at her, and number six—she hits the notes. So Bracken, because she’s here, Devon and this Verner because they buzz, and the last of the four, Rinaldi, because she made the cut.”