Devoted in Death

by J. D. Robb

  But would it be soon enough?

  He’d wept while he raped her.

  No, no, that wasn’t right, Jayla thought. She couldn’t and wouldn’t call it rape. Not when they’d beaten him first, and cut him.

  And her.

  Not when they’d forced the sex drug into him, and held a knife to his throat unless he’d crawled on top of her. She’d tried to talk to him with her eyes. Tried to tell him to just do it, it didn’t matter, she didn’t blame him.

  His tears had fallen on her. She wondered she didn’t drown in them.

  They’d put a knife to her throat, too, when forcing him to push into her wasn’t enough. And Ella-Loo had pulled the gag off, told her to scream, to beg.

  Beg him, beg him to stop. Scream!

  So she had, though her screams were hoarse and weak, she’d screamed and begged. And all the while her eyes told the weeping boy it didn’t matter. It wasn’t his fault.

  Once she’d believed, absolutely, rape was the worst that could happen to a woman. The ultimate violation. She knew better now. This – what they made him (Reed, she remembered. She would think of him as Reed) do to her was nothing compared to what they’d already done.

  What she feared they could do. What they would do.

  Everybody said rape was about power, control, and not about sex. Maybe that was true, but for Darryl and Ella-Loo, sex was part of it, too.

  They pawed each other with their free hands while the boy did what they made him do. And they told each other what they’d do to each other.

  And they were in such a hurry to fuck, they dragged the boy off, trussed him up again right on the floor where he fell, left him there. They raced away because Ella-Loo said she wanted the bed.

  They forgot to gag her again. It took Jayla a minute to realize it, to understand the raw sounds she made were actual words.

  “Can you hear me? Reed? Can you hear me?”

  He kept crying, flat on his face, his hands taped behind his back, his legs bound from calves to ankles.

  “I’m Jayla. Jayla Campbell.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t your fault. I don’t care about that.” Maybe she would later, maybe she would never be able to be touched again. Maybe they’d kill her and none of it would matter anyway.

  But now, this minute, she was alive. And she wasn’t alone.

  “Please. I’m Jayla. Can you talk to me?”

  “I’m sorry.” Finally he turned his head so his swollen, blackened eyes met hers. “They made me —”

  “I know. They might’ve killed me, both of us, if you hadn’t done it. I don’t care about that. If they make you do it again, remember I don’t care. Do you know what day it is? I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”

  “I… I think Thursday. Or Wednesday. I can’t think. I feel sick. Why are they doing this?”

  “I don’t know. They’re the sick ones. Can you move around at all? Do you see the knives, or anything sharp?”

  “I don’t know. Everything hurts. I think they broke stuff. My hand…” But he tried to turn. “Who are they?”

  “Darryl and Ella-Loo.” The words scraped her throat, like nails on dry wood, but she needed to speak. “You have to remember their names. That’s what they call each other. We have to try to get away. They’re going to hurt you more than they already have. They like it.”

  “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know, but an apartment, I think. Close to the street because when they open the door the traffic’s right outside. If you can get to the door, or a window, maybe you can get it open. Or find something sharp. They’ve got me tied to this table or board.”

  He tried. She could hear his hisses of pain, his choked sobs and harsh breathing as he inched his way toward her.

  When he managed to get to his knees, she saw his face again, gray from the effort, his eyes glazed from the pain and the remnants of what they’d forced down him.

  His skin was shiny with sweat, and blood from where they’d cut him. He shivered like a man cased in ice.

  “There’s a knife – I see a knife on that table. If I can get over to it, maybe I can knock it down to the floor.”

  “Try. Try, Reed.”

  He did, scooting on his knees. She saw his hand, bone-white and badly swollen, and more blood from more slices and gouges on his back.

  Pity stirred somewhere deep inside her, but heavy over it was a fierce and violent hope. If he could get to the knife…

  He swayed, nearly went over. “Dizzy. Need to —”

  “Stop a minute. Catch your breath.”

  But it was too late. He tipped to the side, tried to pull himself back. Overbalanced, he fell backward, landed on his broken hand.

  His scream was thin as wire before he passed out.

  15

  When Feeney arrived, Eve gestured to the buffet table, and what was left.

  “Still food.”

  “I’ll take it.” He looked at her board as he grabbed a plate. “How long have they had this one?”

  “About eight hours.”

  He nodded, piled on bacon, uncovered the eggs on the warming plate, helped himself. “Could be trying a twofer.”

  “I’m hoping, as that keeps Campbell alive. I just sent in a report, and I’m going to talk to Mira about it. It could be the next escalation. One for each of them. Carmichael and Santiago may have a lead in Arkansas. But the best bet we have now is the feed from the loading dock.”

  “Dallas.” Peabody held up a hand, held her comm in the other. “We may have a little more. A café in the snatch location just opened. A beat droid’s sending over their feed. Image is spotty, but we may have the male unsub on it.”

  “It’s cracking.” Eve turned to Feeney. “A couple of good whacks, and it breaks.”

  “Send it onto Roarke’s comp lab. I’ll go join the boys. Deputy,” he added with a nod to Banner. “Looks like you had the scent all along.”

  “We sure got it now.” He waited till Feeney stepped out. “I’ve got the souvenir places, Lieutenant. None of them are open yet. And I’ve got a chunk of places that do takeaway. Just getting going on the pawnshops, but none of them are open yet, either.”

  “Send me what you’ve got, and we’ll start pushing through it.” She checked the time. “If Mira isn’t up by now, she’s about to be.”

  Eve started toward her desk when her ’link signaled. “Santiago,” she said, answered. “Give me something.”

  “We cut the son out of the herd, and started working him. He’s in this somewhere, LT, or knows something. But the father swooped in before we pried it out of him. They’re all pretty jumpy now.”

  “Get the local law into it. Pull them in, work them in whatever they have for a cop shop down there.”

  “That’s the thing.” Santiago’s dark eyes shifted to the side, narrowed in annoyance at something – someone – off screen. “Bubba’s brother-in-law’s a lawyer, and he’s putting up roadblocks on this. He’s also the local law’s fishing buddy, and the connections are playing hell with any cooperation. It’s a stall, Dallas. We can play the game, but it’s going to take some time.”

  “Time’s the problem. How sure are you about this Bubba – and it embarrasses me to say that name out loud.”

  “Guilt’s oozing out of the son – name’s Jimbo, and I’m sorry about that. And Bubba’s getting sweaty. The mother – she’s Maizie, and bakes one hell of an apple pie – we think she’s clear. But Bubba and Jimbo, they’re lying, Dallas. They know something, and they’re lying. Any of us could get Jimbo in the box for twenty minutes, he’d fold like an accordion.”

  “Is that a colorful metaphor?”

  He flashed a grin. “I’m working on them.”

  “Take one for the team, Santiago.”

  The grin faded fast. “Ah hell, Dallas, Bubba’s got hands like sides of beef. That’s not just a colorful metaphor, it’s next
to literal.”

  “Toughen up. Get him to take a swing at you, in front of witnesses if you can manage it. And have Carmichael stay on this Jumbo.”

  “Jimbo.”

  “Whatever. Keep the lawyer and the law centered on Bubba, and I’ll get the son into the box. Holographically speaking.”

  “I’m going to get punched in the face, and you guys are going to have all the fun.”

  “Make it look good,” Eve advised, and ended transmission.

  Instead of Mira, she woke up APA Cher Reo.

  “I had ten more minutes coming, damn it.”

  “I need you to strong-arm whoever you know who can strong-arm somebody in Monroe, Arkansas. I need a search warrant for a place called Bubba’s Body Shop, Towing and Pies.”

  “Is this just a bad dream?”

  “Fast, Reo. For the facilities, for the books, for the works. It ties in with the spree killings, and they got another last night.”

  The rustling signaled Reo was pulling herself out of bed. “Give me the data again, and give me some probable cause.”

  “Bubba’s about to assault one of my detectives.”

  “  ‘About to’?”

  “Anytime now. If you have to wait until that happens, you could get the rest set up. The latest vic turned twenty-one the day after Christmas.”

  “Don’t hang that on me. Hell. Give me a few minutes. I used to sleep with a guy who knows a guy.”

  Eve smiled when Reo clicked off.

  “It doesn’t work so different,” Banner commented. “Where I’m from? Smaller scale, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t work so different from here.”

  “Cops are cops. Peabody, hold the fort here. Banner, you’re with me. It might be handy to have you on the interview.”

  “You’re going to be good cop,” Peabody warned him.

  “With a little good old boy tossed in?”

  Eve nodded. “That’ll work.”

  She took the elevator down to the holoroom, working out the strategy in her head on the way.

  “How many rooms in this place?” Banner wondered.

  “I don’t have a clue. I keep finding ones I’d swear weren’t there before.”

  “How long you lived here?”

  “Three years. Three years,” she repeated with some wonder of her own. “Jesus, how did that happen?”

  “You mind me asking something?”

  “Didn’t you just?”

  “Another something. Was Roarke really… well, what you’d call a thief?”

  Eve kept her voice mild, her face inscrutable. “I never caught him stealing anything.”

  Humor danced into Banner’s eyes. “Neither did anybody else from what I hear.”

  He stepped out with her into the blank slate of the holoroom.

  “I thought he’d be different.”

  “Different than what?” Eve asked as she puzzled over how to program what she needed.

  “Than he is. I didn’t expect him to be so amiable.”

  “  ‘Amiable.’  ” She glanced back with a half laugh.

  “I figured he’d be more… stiff, I guess. And what you’d call highfalutin. Not somebody I’d be easy having a beer with. Can I ask what you’re looking to do here?”

  “He’s got it in here,” Eve muttered. “He would. I want one of my interview rooms. We’re going to pull Jambo into it.”

  “Jimbo.”

  “Right – why would anybody tolerate being called Bubba or Jimbo?”

  “It’s geography, I reckon.”

  “We’re going to haul him in once his father’s busy being arrested for assaulting an officer, and the lawyer’s busy trying to say Santiago incited his client and blah-blah-bullshit-bollocks. We get him in here, and if Santiago’s right, and he will be, we’ll crack Benjo like an egg.

  “There! I knew he’d have it programmed.”

  It still took her twice as long as it would’ve taken Roarke, but she keyed it all in.

  And the familiar dull walls, the scarred table, creaky chairs and long two-way mirror of a standard Cop Central interview room shimmered into being.

  “Whoa.” Eyes wide, Banner turned a circle. “Never did one of these officially. Just at carnivals and such. And once at a… never mind about that.”

  Sex club, Eve deduced. “They have those never minds in Silby’s Pond?”

  “They got them in Little Rock.”

  “I need to check in, but when this goes down, we go fast, so I want you to play sympathetic, to a point. That good-old-boy bit, yeah, that’ll work.”

  She put the file she’d brought in with her on the table. “You’re going to soften him up. I’m going to scare the shit out of him, and what’s in this file will finish it.”

  She pulled out her ’link. “Carmichael.”

  “Working on it,” Carmichael muttered, looking away rather than into the screen. “Santiago’s just… ouch.” She hissed through her teeth, and Dallas heard the shouting off screen. “That’s going to leave a mark. Give me five minutes to go to my partner’s assistance, and I’ll be back at you.”

  “Fast work.”

  Eve nodded at Banner. “Faster the better. However this is set up, Banner, it’s fucking serious. It’s all going on record. There are three smart geeks up in the lab sweating to get us something we can use, and they will. Meanwhile, these two bozos knew something that might have led to the unsubs, might’ve saved lives. They knew since Jansen’s body was found, and they kept it shut to cover their own asses. That doesn’t sit with me.”

  “Doesn’t sit with me, either. It ain’t right. Ain’t none of it right.”

  “Then give me some room, and step in when you think you can do some good.”

  Gauging the time, she contacted Mira.

  “Sorry it’s so early, and I’ve only got a couple of minutes. I sent you a report.”

  “I haven’t read it yet. I’m just —”

  “Soon as you can,” Eve interrupted. “They grabbed another last night. Male, twenty-one. About midnight. Probability’s going to go by the pattern, and give me strong odds Campbell’s dead. I want your take.”

  “Give me a second. They could have gone too far, too fast, or her body simply gave out. We can say with absolute certainty this hasn’t happened before, so, yes, the probability is high she’s dead.”

  “What are the chances they decided they wanted to try two at once? A dump and snatch, the same night? Maybe. But a snatch, maybe impulse, it plays, too.”

  “It would be a logical escalation. It’s certainly possible, but —”

  “Would you read the report as soon as you can? I’ve got some scenarios in there, some speculation. We’ve got a couple of good leads working now. I have to go deal with one, but I’d like some input once you’ve read the report.”

  “I’ll go over it now, and I’ll give you what I can before I go to Dr. DeWinter.”

  “Thanks. That’s my lead,” she said as her ’link signaled an incoming. “Later. Dallas.”

  “With some regret, our sheriff arrested Bubba for assaulting a police officer. The lawyer’s so pissed he hasn’t noticed – as yet – I’ve stepped out. Santiago’s bleeding and causing a serious stink. If it was real I’d tell him not to be such a drama queen. I can snag Jimbo pretty easy.”

  “Do it. I’m going to use your ’link to bring you both in, on your signal. Then I’m sending you back – keep them busy as long as you can. Unless the son calls for a lawyer, we can work him on this.”

  “On it. I’ll send you a flag when I’ve got him.”

  It didn’t take long, and hoping she didn’t screw it up, Eve used the signal to coordinate. Carmichael’s image winked in, as did the big – “Jumbo” wasn’t off – guy next to her.

  He wore coveralls on a frame designed for a career as a defensive lineman. His hair, the color of bleached corn, stuck straight up from a wide, square head.

  Eve figured he weighed in at an easy two-sixty, and every ounce of him was sca
red shitless.

  “Thank you, Detective. Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve and Banner, Deputy William in interview with… your full name, sir?”

  “Um. Ah.”

  “Dorran,” Carmichael supplied. “James Beauregard.”

  “Have a seat Mr. Dorran.”

  “I really gotta look after my ma. My pa’s in trouble.”

  “Detective, go… look after Mr. Dorran’s ma.”

  “Yes, sir. You’re going to want to cooperate with Lieutenant Dallas, Jimbo. Your ma doesn’t need you in trouble, too.”

  She nodded at Eve, and Eve cut her image away.

  “Mr. Dorran —”

  “Maybe you could call me Jimbo, ’cause nobody calls me ‘mister.’  ”

  “All right, Jimbo. Sit.”

  “I don’t know nothing ’bout nothing. Or about nobody neither. My pa said —”

  “I’m not talking to your pa.” Voice, eyes, went frigid, and sharp with it. “You are now talking to me. I run the Homicide division for the NYPSD. You know what homicide is, Jimbo?”

  “Um, yeah, sort of.”

  “It’s murder.”

  His eyes wheeled. And, yeah, Eve thought, even holographically, she could smell the guilt pumping off of him.

  “I never killed nobody. Pa neither. My uncle Buck said how we didn’t have to say nothing.”

  “Your uncle Buck isn’t looking at being charged with accessory to murder, after the fact, obstruction of justice, and a whole fucking slew of other charges I can come up with if you don’t tell me the truth.”

  “I never killed nobody. And ladies don’t use bad words like that.”

  “Do I look like a lady?”

  “You’re a girl.”

  “I’m a cop. I’m a murder cop, and I eat assholes like you for breakfast. I’ve got a prosecuting attorney chomping at the bit to have you extradited to New York and tossed in a cage.”

  “I didn’t do nothing!”

  “Jimbo.” Banner’s voice was cool water from a country stream against Eve’s urban flash. “Now, I expect you didn’t mean to do anything wrong. Didn’t really know you did.”

  “I don’t hurt people. You can ask anybody. You from Arkansas, sir?”

  “Sure am. Silby’s Pond.”