by J. D. Robb
“Don’t worry about that. Come in and sit.” She gestured them in. “Let me get you something. Have you eaten?”
“Not thinking about food for some time yet. But wouldn’t say no to a chair.”
“And some tea, I think.”
“She could use it,” Roarke said before Eve could speak. “We both could.”
“Just give me a minute.”
She hurried away on bare feet with her lounging robe floating around her ankles. “Peabody?” she asked from the kitchen.
“She’s pretty good, considering. In a regular room—well in the hospital palace Roarke finagled for her. She’ll need a couple more days in anyway, then maybe she can switch to at-home care until she’s a hundred percent again.”
“I’m so glad to hear it. I don’t know if you’ve talked to Mira, but we made more progress today, and I think I could work with a police artist tomorrow.”
She carried a tray back in, hesitated when she saw Eve’s face. “What?”
“We ID’d him this afternoon. We got him.”
“My God.” Celina set the tray down with a little thunk and rattle. “You’re sure? I can’t believe it.”
“We’re sure. It’s one of the reasons we came by. Guess you haven’t had the screen on.”
“No, I haven’t. Clearing the mind, and all that. How? When?”
“I figured I’d left you out of the loop, but everything moved fast once it started moving.”
“That’s not even an issue. He’s locked up? It’s done.” She breathed out slowly, then reached for the teapot. “I don’t even know how to think, or feel. It’s such a relief. How did you find him?”
“Witnesses who saw him assault Peabody got a decent look at him, and his ride. We worked from there. Picked him up. He broke in Interview in less than an hour.”
“You must be not only exhausted but very pleased.” She passed cups of tea around. “It came down to straight cop work, after all.”
“And some luck.”
“I guess I didn’t contribute much, at the end of things.”
“Not so. You did quite a bit.”
“You have a gift,” Roarke continued. “You’ve utilized it.”
“It’s not something I have a choice over.”
“Oh, I disagree.” Eve sipped tea. “You certainly chose to use it when you murdered Annalisa Sommers.”
“What?” Celina’s cup rattled in her saucer. “What did you say?”
“You must’ve been watching John Blue—visioning him—for months. Did you see him kill his mother, Celina? Did it go back that far? Is that when you started to plan how you could get rid of your competition?”
As she stared, her face went stark white. “This is horrible. This is hideous and horrible. You’re accusing me of murder? Of killing poor Annalisa? You have the man responsible. How could you say this to me?”
“I have the man responsible for murdering fifteen women. Fifteen, Celina. He had their eyes on display. Over the past few hours we’ve been disinterring bodies from the backyard on his mother’s place upstate. Bet you know about that place, too. We have thirteen bodies. Thirteen—including his mother whose remains have been positively ID’d. Thirteen women he practiced on.”
Eve’s face wasn’t pale. It was hard as stone, cold as ice, but a faint flush of rage tinged it. “Did you watch him kill them, too? Add Elisa Maplewood, add Lily Napier, and you’ve got your fifteen.”
Celina’s hands fluttered up, crossed over her breasts. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I think you must have pushed yourself over some edge.”
“Right up to it, but not over. If I’d gone over, I’d be breaking your face right now, the way Blue broke my partner’s.”
“You’d accuse me, after I came to you, after I’ve tried to help, because you have one too many bodies to fit your case? For God’s sake. I want you to leave my house. I want you—”
When she started to rise, Roarke simply reached out, shoved her back into place. “You want to sit quietly, Celina.” And his voice was deathly calm. “We’ve both had a miserable few hours and may be less courteous than you’re accustomed to. So I’d sit still if I were you.”
“Now you’re threatening me. I’m calling my lawyer.”
“Haven’t read you your rights yet, so you don’t get any. I’ll read them to you, Celina, and you can call your lawyer, but right now, we’re just having a conversation.”
“I don’t like the tone of this conversation.”
“You know what I don’t like? I don’t like being used. I don’t like being hosed by some selfish bitch with a sixth sense so she can kill her boyfriend’s new woman.”
“Listen to yourself! I was at home, all night, when she was killed. I took a tranq. I never left the house.”
“Not at all true,” Roarke commented. “Oh, you’ve got the security discs that’ll prove you didn’t go out the front, use the elevator. But interestingly enough, you’ve no tenants down below and haven’t for the last few months.”
Summerset’s little contribution, Eve thought. “You didn’t renew their lease.”
“It’s certainly my choice—”
“And that made it very simple,” Roarke went on. “You went out the door there—where you shut down the security cams—down the stairs, into 1-A, and out the emergency evac. I checked it myself, and you didn’t think to seal up first. We’ve your prints on the door, on the window, on the evac mechanism.”
“It’s my property.” But her hands were moving restlessly now, from her lap, to her throat, to her hair. “My fingerprints might be anywhere.”
“Annalisa didn’t fit. She was close,” Eve considered. “In the ballpark, but she didn’t quite fit Blue’s vision. Hair’s too dark, too short. Then there’s the kitten. He didn’t use props with the others. But you needed that moment of distraction. You’re not a two-hundred-eighty-pound man. You needed to distract her, to get her down so she didn’t have time to fight.”
“For heaven’s sakes. He raped her. In whatever fantasy you’ve dreamed up, for whatever reason, you can hardly accuse me of raping another woman.”
“Couldn’t have been pleasant for you. What appliance did you use? They make all kinds. Some of them are so realistic, you can hardly tell them from the real McCoy.”
“Please.”
Eve patted Roarke’s knee. “Sorry.”
“You’ll never prove this.”
“Oh, Celina, I will.” Eve leaned forward so Celina could look directly into her eyes. “You know I will. Just like you knew I’d get John Blue, with or without you. You wanted me to, just not before Annalisa. You have the right to remain silent,” she began.
“This is insane,” Celina said when Eve finished the Revised Miranda. “Why would I come to you, to help?”
“Always better to be in the inner circle, closer to data, if you can. That was clever of you.”
“I’m going to call a lawyer.”
“Go ahead.” Eve gestured toward the ’link. “Once you do, I’ll make it my mission in life to take you down harder. I’m tired. I want to close this down. Because I’m tired, I’m inclined to work with you on this, see what we can manage.”
She saw speculation, just an instant of it, flicker over Celina’s face. “Blue’s got no reason to lie, Celina. He knows how many women he killed, and what he did to and with every one of them. The number is fifteen. He wasn’t in Greenpeace Park the night Annalisa was killed. He’s alibied.”
“Then it was—”
“Someone else?” Eve suggested. “Yes, it was. Someone who knew the details, details not released to the media. Someone who could use them, copy them. But that someone wasn’t a man. Because there was no man that night. Only you. He left you. Lucas left you, and ended up with her.”
“We left each other, and he wasn’t seeing her when we were together.”
“No, he wasn’t. Decent guy, honest guy. He didn’t two-time you. But he’d met her before you split. He confirms that, by the
way. He’d met her, and he’d felt something click. I bet you knew he was interested, maybe before he really knew it himself. I bet you read him every chance you got.”
“I told you I don’t intrude.”
“You’re a liar. Up till now, your gift’s been more a game to you than anything else. Entertaining, interesting, lucrative. You told me once you were shallow, and that’s one absolute truth. Lucas wasn’t in love with you anymore, he was pulling away. Had to save your pride and make it seem amiable. And now, look at this, his new lady meets with a terrible death, and there you are, arms open to comfort. Did you weep a few tears when you went over to comfort him this afternoon?”
“I had every right to see Lucas. Decency—”
“Don’t tell me about decency.” The whip of Eve’s voice had Celina’s head snapping back. “You knew what John Blue was, where he was, what he was doing long before you came to my office. You watched him kill, over and over again. And you used them, used him, used me. One of the clerks uptown—you were smart to go uptown—at a craft shop remembers you, Celina. You’re a striking woman, and she remembers you coming in four months ago. Four months ago, and buying three yards of red corded ribbon.”
Her cheeks weren’t pale now. They were going gray. “That—that doesn’t prove—”
“You think it’s all circumstantial, and maybe. But it adds up so nice. Means, motive, opportunity.” She flipped out three fingers. “You knew the victim, you knew the details of the other murders, you had the murder weapon in your possession. We can trace it back to that uptown shop. It’ll take a little time, but we can do it. When we do, it’s as good as around your neck.”
She waited a beat to let that factor sink in. “You’re the only one who could have killed her. You’re boxed. Stand up to it, Celina. One thing you’re not, is weak.”
“No, I’m not.” She picked up her tea, wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I’d rather a brandy, I think. Would you mind?” She gestured vaguely. “On the shelf by the kitchen. A double.”
Roarke obliged her, walked across the room.
“You love him very much,” Celina said to Eve. “We could say outrageously.”
“You can say whatever you like.”
“What would you do, how would you survive if he fell out of love with you? If you knew you’d become an obligation, a duty he didn’t quite know how to avoid, because being a decent man, he didn’t want to hurt you. To hurt you. How could you stand it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I let him go.” She closed her eyes a moment, and when she opened them again they were clear. Steady. “I tried to let him go, to be reasonable and sophisticated. But it hurt.” She pressed a fist to her heart. “So much. Unbearably. Worse when he fell in love with her. I knew he’d never come back to me, there was no chance he’d love me again as long as he loved her.”
She looked up at Roarke as he brought her the brandy. “Men enslave us, even when they don’t mean to. I sought the first vision. I was grieving, and I sought it out. I don’t know what I intended to do, but I was so unhappy, so angry, so lost, and I opened myself up. And I saw him, as clearly as I see you. John Blue. I saw what he did.”
She swirled brandy, sipped. “It wasn’t his mother. It wasn’t the first. I didn’t know how many before. It was Breen Merriweather. I didn’t see him take her from the city. But I saw him lifting her out of a van. It was dark. Very dark. Her hands and feet were bound and she was gagged. I could see her fear. He took her inside, and all the lights, so many lights came on. So I saw everything he did to her in that horrible room, and I saw him bury her in the backyard.”
“And you started to plan.”
“I don’t know. That’s sterling. I didn’t know what to do, what I would do. I almost went to the police. It was my first instinct, I swear it. But I . . . didn’t, and I wondered who he was and how he could do the things he did.”
“So you watched him,” Roarke finished. “To find out.”
“Yes. I was fascinated and repelled, but I was able to link to him, and I . . . studied him. And I wondered: Why doesn’t he kill Annalisa? Everything would be the way it should be again, if he’d kill Annalisa. I wondered if I could pay him to do it, but that was too risky. And he’s mad, so he might’ve hurt me. And I realized, maybe, there’d be a way for me to do it. Then he killed Elisa Maplewood. Right here in the city, and I knew how it could be done.”
She let her head fall back. “I didn’t just come to you for information,” she said to Eve. “I needed to know how you would handle the investigation, how quickly you would find him, what you thought of me. And a part of me, I swear to you, a part of me hoped you’d find him quickly, before I . . . But you didn’t. I gave you information hoping, in some part of myself, that you’d find him, stop him, before . . .”
“So you could put the blame on the investigation, on me, when you killed her.”
“Maybe. I agreed to the hypnosis before Annalisa,” she reminded Eve. “I volunteered for it. I asked Mira to start it right away, but she was so cautious.”
“Her fault, too.”
“It plays in, certainly. If any one factor had gone differently, it all would be different. I told myself if the information I gave you led you to him quickly, that was what was meant. If she, if Annalisa didn’t walk into the park that night, I’d stop the whole thing. If she didn’t take the shortcut, I’d walk away from her, that I was meant to. I’d tell you everything I saw. But she did. She did, so it seemed that was meant, and I let myself become him, in a way, so I didn’t have to think about what I was doing. I let myself become him so I could stand apart and watch, with a kind of horror. Then it was too late to go back.”
She shuddered, drank more brandy. “She saw me, just for an instant. And she was so confused. But it was too late to go back. I couldn’t stop myself. Well.” She breathed out. “When did you know?”
“When I learned her connection to Lucas Grande.”
“Please.” She waved that away. “You’re a very clever woman, but you had no idea at that point. I read you in Mira’s office, and after the attack on Peabody just to cover myself.”
“You’re not the only one who can block.” Eve angled her head. “I told you Mira has a daughter who’s Wiccan and a sensitive. She gave me a few pointers.”
“You played me.”
“That’s right. But not well enough, not fast enough, or my partner wouldn’t be in the hospital.”
“I didn’t know he’d go after her. By the time I did, it was too late. I tried to contact you. I like Peabody.”
“Me, too. Guess you didn’t have the same sensibilities about the other women he butchered.”
She lifted her shoulders a little, let them fall. “I didn’t know them.”
“I do.”
“I did it for love. Whatever I did, it was for love.”
“Bullshit. You did it for yourself. For control, for power, for selfishness. People don’t kill for love, Celina, they just like to pretty up the mess they’ve made by saying so.”
Eve stood. “On your feet.”
“I’ll make a jury understand. It was a kind of madness, that’s all. And that madness took me over—my gift makes me all the more susceptible—until what he was got inside of me and killed Annalisa.”
“You go on believing that. Celina Sanchez, you’re under arrest. Why don’t I give you a rundown of the counts?” She nodded to Roarke who moved to the elevator. “First degree sexual assault, first degree murder, mutilation of Annalisa Sommers, a human being. Accessory to sexual assault, murder, and mutilation, before and after the fact. Fifteen counts.”
“Fifteen . . . You can’t blame me for what he did.” She tried to swing around when Eve snapped on the restraints.
“Oh yeah, we can. We do. And I’ll bet mine against yours we’ll make a jury understand why.” Eve looked over as McNab and Feeney got off the elevator. “Additional counts, accessory before and after the fact, attempted murder, assault and battery on a poli
ce officer. Take her in, Detective. Book her.”
McNab took Celina’s arm. “My pleasure.”
“List Detective Peabody as arresting officer, in absentia.”
He opened his mouth, then cleared his throat. “Thank you, sir.”
“Go home, kid,” Feeney told her as he took Celina’s other arm. “We’ve got it from here.”
Eve listened to the elevator start down. “Should get a team in here tonight, see what we can dig up. Add a few bars to her cage.” Then she rubbed her tired eyes. “Screw it, we’ll lock it down. Tomorrow’s soon enough.”
“Music to my ears.” He recalled the elevator. “That was well done, Lieutenant. Giving the collar to Peabody.”
“She earned it. I’m still buzzed.” She rolled her shoulders and stepped into the elevator. “My eyes want to close, but my body’s still jumping.”
“I believe we can fix that when we get home. You can close your eyes.” He leaned down, kissed her, long and deep. “And I’ll jump your body.”
“Sounds like a deal.”
She walked outside, fixed a police seal to the door. “Rain’s stopped,” she commented.
“Still a bit misty yet.”
“I like it.”
“You liked her,” he added.
“I did.” She stood in front of the door, looking out at the street, the wash of puddles as a Rapid Cab slewed through. “I did like her. Still do on some level, even knowing what she is.”
He slung an arm around her shoulders, she hooked hers around his waist. “Do you think she loves him? Lucas?”
“No.” She knew what love was now. “But she thinks she does.”
Eve dropped into the passenger seat this time, yawned comfortably when Roarke took the wheel. She leaned back, closed her eyes, trusting he’d get her home.
Yes, she knew what love was.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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