Survivor in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “That’s acceptable. She’ll need you there.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute.”

  “Like it or not, you’re her touchstone. You were there when she last saw them. You’re the one she believes will find the people responsible. She needs you to be there in order to feel safe. We’ll be ready to leave as soon as you arrange secure transportation.”

  Eve sat, too stunned to work up a glare as Mira walked out.

  She decided on Roarke’s jet-copter. It would be fast, and it wasn’t unusual for him to buzz off in it to a meeting. It meant she had to pull him away from the trace as she didn’t trust anyone else to get them there and back without incident. Not only the crashing sort of incidents she tried not to obsess over when zipping along a couple hundred feet above street level, but the assault incident she was risking by following Mira’s edict.

  “Risks are minimal,” he told her as the copter landed gracefully on the lawn. “We’ll engage the privacy shields and the antiscan equipment. Even if they’re watching, they wouldn’t be able to jam—in the amount of time we’ll need—to detect her on board.”

  Eve frowned pessimistically at the sky that was beginning to bruise with Peabody’s predicted rain. “Maybe they’ll just blow us out of the air.”

  He smiled at her dour tone. “If you thought that a possibility, you wouldn’t be sending her up.”

  “Okay, no. I just want this the hell over with.”

  “I’ll be doing my own scans. I’ll know if anyone’s trying to track us or jam the equipment. We should be able to do this in thirty minutes. Not an appreciable delay in your schedule.”

  “Then let’s do it.” She signalled for Mira to bring Nixie out while Roarke exchanged a quick word with the pilot, then took the controls himself.

  “I’ve never been in a copter,” Nixie said. “It’s mag.” But her hand crept over the seat, found Mira’s.

  Roarke looked over his shoulder, smiled at her. “Ready?”

  When she nodded, he lifted off.

  Smoother, Eve noted, than he did when she was the only passenger. He liked to cowboy it, bursts of speed, quick dips—just to make her crazy. But this time, he piloted the copter with the care and grace, despite the speed, of a man hauling precious cargo.

  He’d think of that, she realized. The little things. Is that what she lacked, the ability to consider the compassionate, because she was so focused on brutality?

  Trueheart played with her, Baxter joked with her. Peabody had no trouble finding the right words, the right tone. Summerset—frog-faced demon from hell—he was handling her overall care and feeding without a single bump.

  And there was Roarke being Roarke—no matter what he said about the kid being scary and intimidating. He interacted with her as smoothly as he drove the damn copter.

  And, Eve admitted, every time she got within five feet of the kid she wanted to walk the other way. She didn’t know how to deal with the entity of a child. Just didn’t have the instincts.

  And just wasn’t able to—bottom line—close out the horror of her own memories the kid pushed into her head.

  She glanced down, saw Nixie watching her.

  “Mira says they have to be in places that are cold.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But they don’t feel cold anymore, so it’s okay.”

  Eve started to nod, dismiss it. Jesus, she thought, give her something. “Morris—Dr. Morris,” Eve corrected, “has been taking care of them. There’s nobody better than Dr. Morris. So yeah, it’s okay.”

  “Tracking us,” Roarke said softly and she swung around to him.

  “What?”

  “Tracking.” He tapped a gauge bisected with green and red lines. “Or—more accurately—trying. Can’t get a lock. Ah, that must be frustrating.”

  She studied the dash gauges, tried to decipher the symbols. “Can you track it back to source?”

  “Possibly. I engaged the tracking equipment before we took off, so it’s working on it. It’s mobile, I can tell you that.”

  “Ground or air?”

  “Ground. Clever. They’re attempting to clone my signal. And yes, detected me doing precisely the same to theirs. They’ve shut it down. We’ll call that one a draw, then.”

  Still he detoured, spent a few minutes cruising to see if they’d attempt another trace. His equipment continued to sound the all-clear when he landed on the roof of the morgue.

  As arranged, it was Morris himself who opened the by-air delivery doors. Closing and latching them when everyone was inside.

  “Nixie.” He offered his hand. “I’m Dr. Morris. I’m very sorry about your family.”

  “You didn’t hurt them.”

  “No, I didn’t. I’ll take you to them now. Level B,” he ordered, and the wide elevator began its descent. “I know Dr. Mira and Lieutenant Dallas have explained some of this to you, but if you have any questions you can ask me.”

  “I watch a show about a man who does work on dead bodies. I’m not really supposed to, but Coyle can, and sometimes I sneak.”

  “Dr. Death? I watch that sometimes myself.” The doors opened into the long, cool white corridor. “It’s a little more entertaining than it is accurate. I don’t chase the bad guys, for instance—I leave that in the capable hands of the police, like Lieutenant Dallas.”

  “You have to cut them open sometimes.”

  “Yes. I try to find something that will help the police.”

  “Did you find something with my mom and dad, with my brother?”

  “Everything Morris has done has helped,” Eve said.

  They stopped by double doors, their small, round observation windows screened now. Nixie reached for Eve’s hand, but they were jammed in pockets. She settled for Mira’s. “Are they in there?”

  “Yes.” Morris paused again. “Are you ready to go in?”

  She only nodded.

  She would smell it, of course, Eve thought. No matter what sterilizer they used, it never quite masked the smell of death, the fluids and liquids and flesh.

  She would smell it, and never forget it.

  “Can I see my daddy first? Please.”

  Her voice trembled a little, and when Eve looked down she saw Nixie was pale, but her face was set with a concentrated determination.

  So nor would she forget it, Eve thought. She wouldn’t forget this kind of courage, the kind it had to take for a child to stand, to wait while her father—not a monster, but a father—was drawn out of a steel drawer.

  Morris had masked the throat wound with the magic of his enhancers. He had draped the body with a clean white sheet. But dead was dead.

  “Can I touch him?”

  “Yes.” Morris set a stool by the drawer, helped her climb onto it, and stood by her, his hand lightly on her shoulder. She brushed her fingers—light as a wish—over her father’s cheek.

  “He has a scratchy face. Sometimes he rubs it on mine to make me laugh. It’s dark in the drawer.”

  “I know, but I think where he is now, it’s not.”

  She nodded, silent tears trickling down her face. “He had to go to heaven, even though he didn’t want to.” And when she leaned over, touched her lips to her father’s cheek, Eve felt the hot ball of tears in her own belly.

  “You can put him back now.” She climbed off the stool, took the tissue Mira offered her. “Maybe I can see Coyle now.”

  She touched her brother’s hair, studied his face in a way that made Eve think she was trying to see him alive again. “Maybe he can play baseball all the time now. He likes baseball best.”

  She asked for Inga, touched her hair as well. “Sometimes she baked cookies—the ones with sugar. She’d pretend it was a secret, but I knew Mom told her it was okay.”

  She stepped off the stool again. Her face wasn’t pale now, but flushed from the tears. Eve could see her chest tremble with the effort to hold them back.

  “Linnie’s not here. They took her already. They didn’t let me see her or say good
-bye. I know they’re mad at me.”

  “They’re not.” Eve looked down when Nixie turned to her. “I saw Linnie’s mother today, and she’s not mad at you. She’s upset, like you are. She’s sad and upset, but she’s not mad at you. She asked about you. She wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “She’s not mad? You swear?”

  Her belly churned but she kept her eyes steady. If the kid could maintain, by God, so could she. “She’s not mad. I swear. I couldn’t let you go say good-bye to Linnie, so that’s on me. It wasn’t safe, and it was my call.”

  “Because of the bad guys?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then it’s on them,” Nixie said simply. “I want to see my mother now. Will you come with me?”

  Oh Christ, Eve thought, but she took Nixie’s hand and stepped toward the drawer Morris pulled out.

  Eve knew the face well now. Pretty woman who’d passed the shape of her mouth on to her daughter. White as wax now, with that faint tinge of unearthly blue, and soft as wax as well, in the way the dead go soft.

  Nixie’s fingers trembled in hers as the girl reached down to touch that soft, white face. And the sound she made as she lay her head on the sheet over her mother’s breast was a low, painful keening.

  When it quieted to whimpers, Mira stepped forward, stroked her hand over Nixie’s hair. “She’d be glad you came to see her, proud that you could. Can you say good-bye to her, Nixie?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Oh, baby, I know, and so does she. It’s so hard to say good-bye.”

  “Her heart doesn’t thump. If I sat in her lap and leaned my head here, I could hear her heart thump. But now it doesn’t.” She lifted her head, whispered good-bye, and stepped off the stool for the last time.

  “Thank you for taking care of them,” she said to Morris.

  He merely nodded, then walked to the door to hold it open. When Eve passed behind Mira and Nixie, he murmured to her, “You think you can handle anything in this job.” His voice was thick and raw. “Stand anything, stand up to anything. But my sweet Christ, that child almost had me on the floor.”

  “ ‘Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love.’ ”

  Looking at Roarke now, Morris managed a small smile. “Well said. I’ll get you out.”

  “What was that from?” Eve asked. “What you just said.”

  “Paradise Lost. Written by a poet named Milton. It seemed apt as what we just witnessed was a wrenching form of poetry.”

  She drew in a breath. “Let’s get her back.”

  When they returned, Mira sent Nixie upstairs with Summerset and the promise to be up in a moment.

  Gauging the ground, Roarke excused himself and went back to work.

  “I know that was difficult for you,” Mira began.

  “It’s not about me.”

  “Every case is about you, to some extent, or you wouldn’t be able to do what you do so well. You have the gift of being able to mate your objectivity with compassion.”

  “That’s not the way I hear it.”

  “She needed what you gave her. She’ll heal. She’s too strong not to. But she needed this to begin.”

  “She’ll need a hell of a lot more since the Dysons won’t take her.”

  “I’d hoped . . . well, it may be for the best on all sides. She would remind them of their loss, and they of hers.”

  “It’s not best for her to end up a ward of the court. I may have another possibility. I know some people who’d qualify to take her on. I was thinking maybe we could contact Richard DeBlass and Elizabeth Barrister.”

  “It’s a good thought.”

  “They took that kid, the boy, we found on a murder scene last year.” Eve shifted, not entirely comfortable with the role of family planner. “I figure they decided to foster him because their daughter was murdered. Though she was an adult, and—”

  “Your child is always your child. Age doesn’t factor.”

  “If you say so. Anyway, I guess they wanted another chance to . . . whatever. I know Roarke waded in with that kid, ah, Kevin. Gave them a little nudge to take him in. From what I know, it worked out okay, and like I said, they’re qualified. Maybe they’d consider taking in another.”

  “I think it’s a very good idea. You’ll talk to them.”

  Boggy area, Eve thought. “Ah . . . I need to talk to Roarke because he knows them better. I’m the cop who closed their daughter’s murder case—and uncovered some ugly family secrets. He’s their friend. But if this pans out, I’m going to need you to add your weight with CPS.”

  “You’ve given this considerable thought.”

  “No, but it’s the best thought I’ve had on it since Mrs. Dyson dropped the boomer on me this morning. She’s been kicked around enough. I don’t want her kicked around by the system that’s supposed to protect her.”

  “Once you’ve talked to Roarke, let me know. We’ll work to get what’s best for Nixie. I should go up to her now.”

  “Ah, just one more thing.” Eve got out the photograph Dave Rangle had given her. “Her father’s partner sent this for her. Swisher kept it on his desk. His partner figured Nixie would want it.”

  “What a lovely family,” Mira said as she took the photograph. “Yes, she’ll want this. And it couldn’t come at a better time. She’ll see this, remember this, and imagine them this way rather than as they were at the morgue.”

  She looked back at Eve. “Wouldn’t you like to give this to her yourself?” When Eve only shook her head, Mira nodded. “All right, then. I’ll take it to her.”

  Mira turned toward the steps, stopped at the base. “She doesn’t know how hard that was for you, to stand with her while she said good-bye to her family. But I do.”

  Upstairs, Summerset sat with Nixie in his lap. “They didn’t look like they were sleeping,” she said, with her head on his chest, his heart beating in her ear. “I thought maybe they would, but you could tell they weren’t.”

  His long, thin fingers stroked through her hair. “Some people believe, as I do, that when we die the essence of ourselves—the spirit or the soul—has choices.”

  “What kind?”

  “Some of those choices might depend on how we’ve lived our lives. If we’ve tried to do our best, we might then decide to go to a place of peace.”

  “Like angels on a cloud.”

  “Perhaps.” He continued to stroke her hair as the cat padded into the room, then leaped up to join them on the arm of the chair. “Or like a garden where we can walk or play, where we see others who made this same choice before us.”

  Nixie reached out, petted Galahad’s wide flank. “Where Coyle can play baseball?”

  “Yes. Or we might decide to come back, live again, begin a new life at the very start of it, inside the womb. We may decide to do this because we want to do better than we did before, or right some wrong we may have done. Or simply because we’re not quite ready to go to that place of peace.”

  “So maybe they’ll decide to come back, like babies?” The idea made her smile a little. “Would I know them if I got to meet them some time?”

  “I think you would, in some part of your heart. Even if you don’t realize it, you recognize in your heart. Do you understand?”

  “I guess. I think so. Did you ever recognize somebody who had to die before?”

  “I think I have. But there’s one I keep hoping I might recognize one day.” He thought of his daughter, his beautiful, lost Marlena. “I haven’t found her yet.”

  “Maybe she made the choice to go to the garden.”

  He bent to touch his lips to Nixie’s hair. “Maybe she did.”

  Summerset waited nearly an hour, monitoring Eve’s office until he saw Peabody leave the room. He hoped whatever task she’d been sent to perform took long enough for him to finish what he had to do.

  When he stepped into Eve’s office, she was just coming out of the kitchen with another mug of coffee. Her hand j
erked slightly, lapping hot liquid over the rim.

  “Oh, fuck me. Consider this area police property and restricted to tight-assed fuckwits I don’t want around. Which is you.”

  “I only need a moment of your time. I would apologize.”

  “You would what?”

  His voice was as stiff as hers and only went more rigid. “I would apologize for my remarks earlier. They were incorrect.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, your remarks are always incorrect. So fine. Now make tracks. I’m working.”

  He would damn well finish swallowing this hideous crow. “You brought the child here for safe-keeping, and you’ve seen that she’s been safely kept. I’m aware that you’re working diligently to identify and capture the people who killed her family. It’s visibly apparent that you’re giving this considerable time and effort as you have circles under your eyes and your disposition is even more disagreeable than usual due to lack of proper rest and nutrition.”

  “Bite me.”

  “And your clever repartee suffers as a result.”

  “How’s this for clever repartee?” She jabbed her middle finger into the air.

  “Typical.” He nearly turned and left. Very nearly. But he couldn’t forget that Nixie had told him Eve stood with her when she’d said good-bye to her mother.

  “She had a very hard day, Lieutenant. Grieving. And when I coaxed her to take a nap, she had another nightmare. She asked for you, and you wouldn’t . . . couldn’t,” he corrected, “be here. I was overwrought when you arrived, and I was incorrect.”

  “Okay. Forget it.”

  When he turned to leave, she took a deep breath. She didn’t mind giving as good as she got, when it came to cheap shots. It was harder to give as good when it was conciliatory. But if she didn’t, it would itch at her and distract her from the work.

  “Hey.” He stopped, turned. “I brought her here because I figured it was the safest place for her. And because I figured I had someone on site who’d know how to take care of a nine-year-old girl. Knowing she’s comfortable with you gives me the space I need to do what I have to do.”