Faithless in Death: An Eve Dallas Thriller (Book 52)

by J. D. Robb

  “I never would’ve thought that of her. I don’t really know her anymore, but—Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  “Grab a little downtime. And stay sharp.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do?” Roarke asked as the room emptied. “Grab some downtime?”

  “I’ve got too many irons in the fire for that. And why did I say that?” Baffled, she dragged a hand through her hair. “Why would anybody put irons in a fire?”

  “To keep them hot, I’d say.”

  “Oh.” She considered. “All right, I’ll accept that one. I need to keep my irons hot. I’m too revved,” she added before he could object. “And I need to debrief Lowenbaum. I’ve got more data on Mirium Wilkey, and I need to prep for interviews with her and her father. Tonight. Hot iron—you strike then, right?”

  “You do indeed.”

  “I need to get my gear. So do you. You need to hit Requisitions for black, and other shoes, and—”

  Roarke stopped her by tapping a finger to her lips. “I’ll have something appropriate brought in for both of us. I’m not wearing what I can finesse from your cop shop. Even in this, I have standards.”

  “That’s your iron to fire.”

  “I’ll have appropriately stealthy attire here for both of us by half-eight. I’ll meet you then in your office.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Alone, she looked at the board.

  “We’re coming to get you, Ella. Hang in.”

  When she turned to leave, Lowenbaum, still in full gear, stepped inside.

  “Quick work, LT.”

  “No weapons,” he told her. “A couple of the women—Poole being one—tried kitchen knives or skillets. No injuries. Three of the women and five of the kids had those goddamn tracker-slash-shockers on. We had MTs transport one, one really pregnant one, to a medical facility.

  “So.” He sat, rolled his shoulders. “I’ll run it through for you, and copy the recordings to you. But before we get to that, my teams want in on the HQ. We’re wound up, pissed, and want in. You need to make room.”

  “I’ll make room.”

  By the time she dealt with all the irons, it was after nine. She stopped at the door to her office. Roarke sat at her desk, his pricey shoes up on it, the chair kicked back, and his eyes closed.

  She started to step back out, ease the door shut.

  “Your stealthwear’s on your miserable chair,” he said. “You’re late.”

  “Couldn’t be helped.”

  He grabbed her hand, pulled her into his lap.

  “Jesus! Knock it off.”

  “You’ll have noted those remaining in your bullpen are doing exactly this. The others found somewhere else to snatch a bit of sleep.”

  “I also smelled pizza in there. Not a crumb in sight, but I smelled pizza.”

  “They ate, as you should. But since you’ve been going for near to twenty hours with barely any sleep, you need this more. One hour,” he said. “Just shut it off for an hour. You’ll be sharper for it.”

  “Maybe. Let me shut the door.”

  He just snuggled her in. “None of them care, Eve. Take an hour, then we’ll drag those bastards to the ground.”

  She’d covered everything, she told herself. Gone over every step, again and again. Consulted, briefed, answered, questioned.

  She could take an hour.

  She dropped into sleep like a rock in a well.

  When he woke her, she unwound herself, locked the door. Even before she turned back she smelled the coffee—and the pizza.

  “One slice,” he said. “You’ll say you don’t want to feel full.”

  She drew in those blessed scents as she stretched out the kinks. “You think of everything.”

  “I think of you.”

  She met his eyes. “I know you do.”

  Loose again, she ate the slice, drank the coffee. She had to admit as they changed clothes she did feel sharper.

  She strapped on her weapon, her clutch piece, a combat knife.

  “I assume you have your own.”

  “I do—and to make you feel better, Whitney authorized the stunner.”

  And because she thought of him, because she knew him, she eyed him. “You’ve got more than a stunner on you.”

  “Well, the stunner’s authorized, so we have that.”

  He wore black, as she did, a long-sleeved tee, pants, thick-soled black boots. He handed her a thin cotton cap. Then put on one of his own, tucked his hair up into it.

  It shouldn’t have amazed her he looked ridiculously sexy.

  “So this is how you looked when you robbed people blind.”

  “We’ll say this is often how I dressed for certain activities.”

  She handed him a vest, took her own. “Let’s move.”

  As she passed through the bullpen, Peabody and some of the squad walked out of the locker room. They fell in line, got in the elevator.

  “Anybody else thinking breakfast beers after this bust?” Baxter slipped his hands in his pockets. “We could hit the Blue Line looking like a team of cat burglars.”

  “Bust now, beer later,” Eve said.

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  In the garage, it surprised Eve to see Mira in the same cat-burglar black. “You’re not going in until—”

  “No, of course not. But it would be foolish to wear a suit and heels at such a time.”

  “You’re with the commander, the chief, Reo. Everyone else, into your assigned vehicles.”

  She got into her own, settled on one of the drop seats. Ignoring the chatter, she went over every step again on the drive to Connecticut.

  She tapped her earbud. “Inspector Abernathy, we’re at target.”

  “We’re ready here.”

  “Special Agent Clyburn?”

  “On your go” came the response.

  “Breach teams, move into position.”

  She got out, studied the wall. “No lights on in the gatehouse. Roarke and I secure that first.” She gave him a nod.

  He did what he did with his device while she ticked the seconds off in her head.

  “This point’s clear.”

  To her astonishment, he scaled the wall like a damn lizard, then reached down a hand for her. “Up you come, Lieutenant.”

  She took his hand, and the boost from one of the backup team.

  Roarke leaped down, agile and quiet as a cat. She dropped beside him. Sidestepping to the gatehouse, she waited for him to deal with the locks. Weapons drawn, they slipped inside.

  In the dim backwash of the security lights she saw equipment, screens, a table, and some chairs.

  Clearing back, she scanned a small bathroom, a refreshment center.

  “It’s clear. We move on.”

  “Thirty seconds more.”

  “Breach teams, first go. We’ll be fifteen feet ahead.”

  Slow and steady, she thought as they moved through the dark, stayed in the shadows, thirty feet, then forty-five.

  Roarke took a moment in the next timed gap, shut off their recorders.

  “What the—”

  “I have to say it. My Christ, what a pair we’d have been.”

  The absolute delight in his voice tickled her soft spots.

  “You move like smoke, smoke with nerves of steel and unshakable focus. We’d have romped the globe, you and I, plucking every precious thing we wanted. What a pity we didn’t meet in some lovely alternate world where you weren’t a cop.”

  Though amused, she gave him a dour stare. “I’m a cop in all of them.”

  “You’re likely right. And still.” He sighed, reengaged their recorders. “And there’s the mark. Moving on.”

  Sixty feet, seventy-five, ninety.

  “Not a sign—not from any team—of guards.”

  “They trust the system.” Roarke shrugged. “As really, under other circumstances, they should.”

  By the time they’d crossed more than a football field with their backup team behind them,
Eve had the main house in view. “Lights off there, too. Off in every building so far.”

  “It’s past one in the morning now, heading toward two. You were right to wait until midnight to start this.”

  “We’ve got teams that have reached their targets, others approaching same. Takedown teams, move in. Move into target, and hold.”

  When they reached the second gate, Roarke shut down the system, eased it open enough for them to slide through single file.

  She could smell buoyant spring on the air from the flowers, and thought of the woman and the two girls working. We’re coming, she thought as she had with Ella. Nearly there.

  When they reached the veranda, she realized the humming in her head wasn’t a brewing headache, but anticipation. Like an engine idling fast for a race.

  In the silence Roarke worked on the locks. She used hand signals to order the teams behind her to hold.

  And used them again to signal she and Roarke entered first—to hold.

  He eased both doors open, barely a whisper of sound.

  Nothing moved in the grand, wide entranceway.

  Ahead stairs curved up, then split into a double staircase.

  “We’re in the main target.” She kept her voice low as she moved forward. “Feeney, shut it down. Abernathy, you’re a go. Special Agents, you’re a go. Bust teams, go, go. All teams go. We’re full green.”

  Air support flooded the compound with light.

  She took the stairs two at a time while teams cleared the main level. At the break, Roarke split off with his team, she with hers.

  He to Wilkey, she to the daughter.

  She wanted the daughter.

  Down the hallway she signaled cops to the left or right to clear other rooms, to take occupants into custody.

  When she reached what she believed was Mirium’s door, she found it locked.

  “Oh yeah, this is yours, you bitch.” She considered picking the lock. Then, as the first sounds—not alarms, but shouting—came from outside, she stepped back. Getting a running start, she kicked it open.

  Lights flashed on in the room beyond a plush little sitting area. When Eve charged in, Mirium was out of bed and reaching into a drawer of her nightstand.

  “Pull a weapon out, and I drop you. Please, pull a weapon out.”

  “What are you doing? Are you out of your mind?”

  Eve recognized the red nightshirt as silk when she spun Mirium around to cuff her.

  “Get your hands off me! Get out of my house!”

  “Mirium Wilkey, you’re under arrest for the murder of Ariel Byrd, for the abductions of a number of human beings who will be named in this warrant. For the forced imprisonment of human beings, for accessory to rape, and other charges that will be included in your booking.”

  “This is persecution for our faith.”

  “Faith my ass. Officer Shelby, please read Ms. Wilkey her rights, and see that she is taken to one of the wagons we have waiting.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She rushed out, listening to the reports through her earbud.

  She spotted Roarke’s team dragging Wilkey out of his room. Behind them, Roarke had his arm around the shoulders of a woman.

  “My girls, please. My girls.”

  The hat had obscured her face when she’d gardened, but Eve saw enough to recognize her. “You’re safe now. They’re safe now.”

  “He keeps them in the other wing, upstairs. The children are locked in at night. They’re Cassie and Robbyn. Please, don’t hurt them.”

  “No one’s going to hurt them, or you. Your name?”

  “Fiona Wil—No, no, he makes me use his name, but I’m Fiona Vassar. He says I’m his breeding wife. My God, my babies.”

  “We’ll get them out,” Roarke murmured to her. “We’ll bring them to you.”

  “He’s a monster.”

  “Get her to Mira. Cassie and Robbyn,” she said, looking into Fiona’s eyes. “I’m going to bring them to you. He’ll never touch you or them again.”

  “I have a son, but they took him. He’s two now. I don’t know where—”

  “We’ll find him. We’ll find him.”

  “Come now, Fiona, we’ll get you away from this place. You and your girls. Come with me now.”

  Roarke led her away, murmuring to her all the while.

  “Clear it,” Eve ordered. “Top to bottom. I want e-men to start on the electronics once it’s cleared.”

  Wilkey, wearing only a long white robe, struggled against his restraints. His eyes, feral and wild, latched on to Eve’s.

  “You won’t bring down the order. Our faith will remain unbroken, our numbers will rise up and—”

  “Save it,” she snapped. “Get him out. He can spout his bullshit from a cell.”

  She left them to it, went outside to check on the progress.

  “Dallas!” She stopped when Detective Carmichael called out. And Eve waited while she led the woman to her.

  “She was pretty insistent about seeing you,” Carmichael said. “We got her out of a room behind the kitchen. The shrieking hag of a bitch with her fucking stabbed Santiago.”

  Eve held up a hand. “How bad?”

  “Opened up his arm pretty damn good, boss. MTs have him, and we got her—Gayle fucking Steenberg. I want to check on my partner, but I wanted to bring her over first.”

  “Ella Alice Foxx,” Eve said, and held out a hand.

  “You know me. You know me. You came.”

  “I know you, Ella, and we’re here because you didn’t give up.”

  Ella threw her arms around Eve. “There are so many of us. So many like me.”

  “I know. We’ve got you now.”

  22

  It took just under two and a half hours to fully contain the compound. It would take days, very likely weeks, to fully process all the people inside, to record or confiscate the evidence, to interview, to find shelters for those held against their will, to do medical and psych evals, to deal with the minors.

  And the one hundred and six—at current count—women in various stages of pregnancy.

  She toured the torture chamber—the term fit—of what had been the prison. Exam and treatment rooms held tables fitted with restraints, with two containing shock therapy devices. One room offered a sensory deprivation chamber. Locked cabinets contained drugs—legal and illegal—pressure syringes and surgical tools, test kits. And shock sticks.

  On the floors above, ten-by-ten rooms served as cells. Windowless, a single steel door, a single cot fitted with restraints, a toilet, a sink, a wall screen.

  She stood in one of those rooms now. She knew what this was like. Richard Troy had tied her to the bed sometimes, had often left her in the dark.

  She knew what it was like to lie there shivering, helpless, hopeless.

  When Roarke found her there, he put his hands on her shoulders, kissed the top of her head. She didn’t bother to object.

  “At least I usually had a window. The teams got nine people out of here. Six women and one man in the cells, two guards—one male, one female. The female’s the Mother Catherine Gina told me about. Catherine Duplay. She grabbed a shock stick and resisted. In the struggle, she got a good taste of her favorite form of torture.”

  “You’re a little disappointed you weren’t the one to give her that taste.”

  “I can’t deny it. We’ve cleared the buildings, the housing units. Most people just gave up. Sure, there was some running and screaming, but most just put their hands in the air.”

  “When you’re woken from a sound sleep by law enforcement pointing weapons in your face, hands up is survival.”

  “That, and most didn’t have weapons. It’s going to turn out you had to reach a certain level to get one of those fucking shock sticks or a stunner. A few had knives.”

  “And how is Santiago?”

  “Twenty-two stitches—some muscle involved there—and a couple weeks of desk duty. He’s the worst of it. Some nicks, some bruises. We got lucky
.”

  “No.” It annoyed him enough to turn her around to face him. “Lucky my ass, Lieutenant. You did the job, step-by-step. This could’ve been a war zone. You made sure it wasn’t.”

  “The war’s not over. Abernathy reports the island is mostly contained, but mostly isn’t all. It’s a lot bigger than this compound. Same goes for the farm system.

  “On the other hand,” she added as they walked out, “the Huffmans are in custody, so are Po and Harstead, Wexford. I’m having Gwen brought in for another round. I’d really like to work something on her that sticks, but I don’t see that happening. We’ve got the Pooles.”

  “You have the Wilkeys.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got the fucking Wilkeys.” Her face went fierce. “Every one of them.”

  Outside, lights lit the compound like noon. Cops swarmed everywhere, clearing buildings, searching for hidey-holes, grid-searching the grounds. She signaled to the Crime Scene van.

  “It’s all yours.”

  “I expected to find you exhausted,” Roarke commented. “And you’re the opposite.”

  “Got another wind. I don’t know which number wind this is, but I’ve got it. Teasdale and I worked some things out. I get to interview Wilkey before she takes him. I get Mirium Wilkey, then she’ll toss in the federal charges, but I get her first. I get Piper, the Huffmans, Po, Harstead, Wexford, the Pooles, and so on. Everyone will do their federal rounds, but first they’re mine.”

  “The FBI wouldn’t have this without you.”

  “I wouldn’t have it without them, so that’s a wash. Our sweepers and EDD will work with the feds to process this place, and the facilities outside the complex. Our PA will work with federal prosecutors. Then there’s the international aspect, but right now, I’m focusing on two murders and the abductions and enforced imprisonment in my city.”

  Medical vans worked on-site to treat and evaluate. Police wagons loaded prisoners. Eve spotted the gate guard—in restraints, sporting a black eye—and felt another little lift to her spirit.

  He spotted her, too. He elbow-jabbed the cop loading him into the van, and rushed Eve like a bull.

  She didn’t bother to reach for her weapon, held up a hand to stop anyone else from stunning him. And let him come.