Devoted in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Hanks’s woman’s son. No cohab on record because he didn’t want to go that route, but they’ve been together for about ten years. Darryl worked for him at the garage. Good mechanic, lazy asshole – or that’s Hanks’s opinion. Took off when he was about sixteen, landed in Texas. Did time in juvie in there – boosting rides – came back home, went to work for Hanks. In July 2057, he took off again, this time in the ’52 Bobcat he stole from the garage, about six thousand in cash, tools, an antique bowie knife and so on. His mother begged Hanks not to report it, so he didn’t to keep the peace.

  “James did another stint in the Oklahoma State Pen. Four years for attempted robbery, armed – he had the bowie knife on him when he tried to shoplift a diamond engagement ring.”

  “For the woman. True freaking love.”

  “Maybe. Got busted in December of ’57, got out early August of this past year. Time off, good behavior.”

  “Timing works. Do they know his whereabouts?”

  The elevator doors opened; a trio of uniforms started to board.

  Eve snarled, laid her hand on her stunner.

  They backed out again.

  “He says no, and I believe him. No love lost there, LT. He took the loss on the truck and the tools for his woman, but when we said the M word, he spewed like a geyser. Carmichael’s talking to the mother now, but it doesn’t look like she knows anything much. She claims she hasn’t spoken to him since midsummer, right before he got out, and it rings true. But she did say something about a woman before she got hysterical. No name, just he’d hooked up with some woman somewhere, and it was all her fault – according to the mother.”

  Santiago managed an eye roll and a smirk at the same time. “Carmichael’s working it.”

  “Get me her name, get all you can, then get home.”

  “I’m so ready for that. Yippee-ki-freaking-yay.”

  “Peabody,” Eve said as she clicked off, and stepping out this time when the doors opened and other cops piled on.

  “James, Darryl Roy, age twenty-five, single, one offspring.”

  Eve’s head snapped around to her partner. “Offspring?”

  “He’s listed as the father of a baby, Darra Louise James, born in April of last year. The mother is listed as Ella-Loo Parsens, age twenty-six.”

  “That’s going to be her. That’s got to be.” Revved, Eve jogged her way up the glides. “How the hell are they doing all this with a baby in tow?”

  “Jeez, poor baby. Not even a year old.”

  Eve yanked out her ’link again, contacted Carmichael. “Ask the mother if she knows about a baby. Does she know she’s a grandmother?”

  “Holy hell. I’m betting no. Hang loose a minute.”

  Eve waited, pushing her way up to Homicide. When Carmichael came back on, Eve could hear the wailing from Oklahoma.

  “She didn’t know. I’m going to calm her down again, Dallas, but she didn’t know about a kid, she doesn’t know the woman’s name. She only knows Darryl told her he was in love – had met his soul mate. Called her his Juliet, but he was into the Shakespeare thing, star-crossed lovers, Romeo, and all that. This was during visitation in prison.”

  “Settle her down, work her some more. You and Santiago hang there until I get back to you. You may be out there a little longer.”

  “Then I’m buying some damn cowboy boots.”

  “If you buy pink ones, I’ll hurt you, Carmichael. Work the mother. She may know more than she thinks she knows. Peabody.”

  Peabody read off her PPC. “Parsens, Ella-Loo, born Elk City, Oklahoma. Couple of pops for possession, low-rent stuff. No marriages, no cohabs on record. Lots of short employment history, with the last one picking up in January of ’58 through last August – her longest on record. A bar called Ringo’s, McAlester, Oklahoma. That’s where the prison is, Dallas. The Oklahoma pen.”

  “Wanted to be near her man, waited for him. Close to four years – that’s devoted. Go back over the employment.”

  “The next is short-term. March to July, 2057, the Rope ’N Ride, Dry Creek, Oklahoma.”

  “And Darryl boosted Hanks’s truck, stole the cash, the tools, the knife in July, set out from there, and you bet your ass into the Rope ’N Ride in Dry Creek.”

  She stepped into Homicide, held a hand up to stop anyone from asking her anything, and tagged Santiago again.

  “NYPSD West,” he answered.

  “Ha. Wrap it up there, asap, and head to someplace called Dry Creek.”

  “Ah, man.”

  “A bar called the Rope ’N Ride. Show the photos, Santiago. Get everything you can get on Ella-Loo Parsens – she worked there – and James. From there, it’s Elk City and Parsens’s mother.”

  “Janelyn,” Peabody provided when Eve turned to her.

  “Janelyn. Peabody’ll send you the data. Last stop, as of now, is McAlester. Talk to the warden at the prison, and check out a bar called Ringo’s where Parsens worked while James was in a cage. See who knows what. I’m going to bag these two, Santiago, and what you and Carmichael pull out of Oklahoma’s going to sew them up tight.”

  “Light a candle for me, LT.”

  “What?”

  “I lost a bet with Carmichael, and she gets to drive. The speeds you can get up to out here? She’s pretty damn scary.”

  “But you’ll get there fast. I know when you know, Santiago. It’s busting wide now.”

  “We’ll bang the hammer here. NYPSD West, out.”

  “Peabody, get them all the data they’ll need. Anybody has anything for me that can’t wait, say it now,” she told the room at large. “Otherwise, I need ten.”

  She gave it five seconds, turned and went into her office. Shut the door. After tossing her coat aside, sat down and wrote everything up.

  Updated her board with all the fresh data.

  Sat down again, put her feet on the desk, and let herself think.

  A guy walks into a bar, she thought, only there was no lame punch line to this one.

  Something sparks between these two – two people, aimless, low-rent as Peabody said. Without that meet, without that spark, maybe they just stay low-rent and aimless. But that spark lit up something vicious inside them.

  They like the vicious, she concluded, it’s part of what binds them together.

  Eve studied the board where she now had Darryl and Ella-Loo front and center.

  She’s the smart one, Eve decided. As far as smarts went. He’s the romantic. Gets busted for trying to cop a traditional engagement ring.

  “I bet you found that stupid but touching, right, Ella-Loo? He did that on his own, a surprise for you. But you got yourself another crap job and waited for him. Three and a half years, that’s love, of its kind. That’s devotion. Must’ve gotten knocked up on a conjugal. Another tie that binds? I bet you timed that one, too.”

  She rose, paced.

  How the hell were they traveling, abducting, torturing and killing with a baby to deal with? Ditch the kid? Couldn’t just dump it on a doorstep – why have one if you’re going to toss it to fate or strangers?

  She circled around that, wondered if Ella-Loo subscribed to the Stella school of motherhood. You have a kid because it may be useful or profitable, and keeps your man locked to you.

  Then she let it slide away as she couldn’t see how it applied, for now, to the investigation.

  Wait for your man. Head east when he’s sprung. In the same truck he boosted from Hanks. A truck that’s showing its age now, and Darryl hasn’t been able to maintain it in those three and a half years.

  Does what he can when he gets out, but it gives up on that quiet road over the Arkansas border.

  And that’s where it really began, she thought. That’s when the spark went off like a rocket.

  “I know you now,” she murmured. “We’ll get more, but I know you. And I’m going to find you.”

  Soon, she thought, it had to be soon, or it would be too late to save Jayla Campbell.

  17

&n
bsp; She’d lost track of time again. The pain, beyond imagining, woke her. But the ferocity of it radiating everywhere let her know she was still alive.

  Jayla Campbell, she thought, fighting through the haze of pain. I’m Jayla Campbell, and I’m alive.

  She turned her head, very slowly, as even that had agony raging. They hadn’t hurt him again – Mulligan, Reed Mulligan. When they’d found him unconscious on the floor, they’d hauled him back onto the makeshift table. They’d treated his broken wrist with some ice, even given him some sort of meds.

  He had to be strong enough, she’d heard them say, to rape her again.

  They’d discussed it, giggling over some of the details. They’d ease back on hurting him – for now, and maybe up the dose of Erotica so he’d last longer.

  They’d given her something that made her nauseated and weak, but she’d heard them discussing her as if she were an animal.

  She stank, in Ella-Loo’s opinion, and needed to be cleaned up if they were going to keep her for another day or two.

  She tried to fight when Darryl hauled her up. The pain rose up in a hot flood, took her just under the surface, but she tried to fight. Tried not to weep when she heard them laughing at her.

  They weren’t human. The drugs, dehydration, shock had her seeing them as monsters, demons with red eyes and flicking tongues. The gag choked her screams as they dropped her into a tub of water so hot it scalded.

  Someone pushed her head under; someone pulled it up again by the hair. Again and again while she swallowed water, gagged, and finally prayed for it just to end.

  She woke on the table again, naked, shivering with cold and drowning in the pain.

  And listened to the quiet.

  “I think they’re asleep.”

  This time when she turned her head, Mulligan’s eyes were open and on her.

  “They tried to wake you up, but you wouldn’t come around enough, so they went out for a while. I don’t know how long. They gave me something, I kept passing out. And then I heard them laughing and having sex. Then it got quiet. I think they’re asleep.”

  She tried to lick her dry lips, but it was like sand against sand. “You don’t know how long?”

  “I don’t know. They gave me something. I just don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to the knife. I tried again, to get loose and get it, but I couldn’t.”

  She’d nearly forgotten. That moment of hope felt like weeks had passed. “Your hand.”

  “It doesn’t hurt as much. If I can get loose again, I might be able to get something.”

  “They’re not going to hurt you, or not as much. They want you strong enough to rape me again.”

  He shut his eyes. “God. Oh God. I don’t want to —”

  “It doesn’t matter. I told you it doesn’t matter. But more, I heard them. They cleaned me up because they want to keep me alive for a couple days more, so you can rape me. They get off on it. I want to stay alive, so you have to do whatever they tell you to do to me. But I’m going to scream and try to struggle. I’m going to make them think it matters. You’ll know it doesn’t. They’ll keep us alive as long as they get off.”

  A light came into his eyes, fierce and dark against the pallor and bruising. “I want to kill them.”

  “Maybe you will.” There was a glimmer of hope in that ugly wish. “Make them think you’re weak and scared.”

  “Jesus, I am weak and scared.”

  “Not as much as they think. And next time you’ll get the knife.”

  “Next time,” he said. “Do you have somebody? I mean, are you with somebody?”

  “Not now.” She thought of Mattio. He seemed like another lifetime. She thought of Luke, and that was a comfort. Just a little comfort.

  “But there’s this guy I should’ve paid more attention to. I wish I had. I want to have a chance to pay attention. He lives across the hall from me. Do you have somebody?”

  “Not now,” he said and tried to smile. “But there’s this girl. I’m crazy for her, but I haven’t had the guts to make the move. I want a chance to try.”

  Tears burned at her eyes. Hope hurt. “We’re going to go on a double date, right? Deal?”

  “Yeah. Deal. They’re looking for us. Our friends, our family. The cops. They have to be.”

  “Yeah, they’re looking for us. We’re going to do whatever it takes to stay alive until they find us. Double date,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  When her time was up, Eve went back into the bull pen.

  “I’m open.”

  “Two minutes, Lieutenant.” Jenkinson pushed away from his desk, went to her. Today’s neckwear sported long-eared white rabbits with orange carrots on a purple background.

  “Where are you getting those?” she demanded.

  “You’d be surprised how easy it is. We caught one this morning.” He ran it through briefly. A bludgeoning, the lead from a CI they only half trusted and a seedy pool hall in Chinatown.

  “Snitch says the guy we want frequents that establishment, but we go in asking about him, they’re going to clam it or cover him. And we get a feeling the snitch is maybe playing both ends on this. We figure we’ll go in, soft clothes, play some pool, see what’s what.”

  “Do it, but don’t wear that tie. Do you know where to find the CI?”

  “Oh yeah, he’s easy to find.”

  “Send a couple uniforms out, have him picked up on anything they can make stick for a few hours. Keep him inside while you play pool.”

  “Nice. On it. Santiago and Carmichael still fishing in Oklahoma?”

  “They’ve caught a few. They should be on their way back in a few hours.”

  “We could use them. Got two new and open right now.”

  She glanced at the main board, shoved her hand through her hair. So many. There were always so many.

  “I can pull Baxter back.”

  “Ah hell, Dallas, that man’s like an expectant father with his boy in exam. He’s better off where he is. We got it here. I figure the kid’s good for it. You?”

  “We’ll know soon enough. Go play some pool. Peabody, I’m going to work the maps again. Jenkinson and Reineke are working a bludgeoning. Take a look at what else is new and open, see what you can put together, then pass it off to Baxter when he and Banner get back.”

  “You want me to pull off our investigation?”

  “Juggle, Peabody. And throw these new balls in the air. The APB on the van’s out, we’ve got detectives looking into backgrounds and timelines out west, Baxter and our guest cop wearing out shoe leather here. We’ve got names, faces. I’m going to try to narrow the location. Unless you start going door-to-door in that sector, and it damn well may come to it, there’s nothing we can do for Campbell and Mulligan until the next crack widens.”

  She pointed to the banner over the break-room door.

  NO MATTER YOUR RACE, CREED, SEXUAL ORIENTATION OR POLITICAL AFFILIATION, WE PROTECT AND SERVE. BECAUSE YOU COULD GET DEAD.

  “That goes for everybody, all the time. Do what you can, pass to Baxter, and maybe he puts a bad guy away before the day’s over.”

  She went back to her office, scrubbed her hands over her face. Then brought the map on screen.

  And began to calculate.

  A half hour later, she’d refined the area of interest, considered focusing the APB there. But if she was wrong, off by even a block, it could cost lives.

  Instead she boosted the search to parking garages. Maybe they kept the van off the street, at least when they weren’t hunting. Having cops cruise through garages, parking lots, undergrounds might net them the vehicle.

  And that was one step closer to Parsens and James.

  She flipped to the ’link when it signaled incoming from Santiago.

  “Give me something good.”

  “How about a bouncing baby girl?”

  “She dumped the kid on her mother.”

  “Oh yeah. Mother hadn’t seen or heard from her in nearly a year, and
she shows up, baby in tow, last June. Spun a story about falling for some guy, thinking they were going to get married, then he took off when she got knocked up, left her flat and with two black eyes. Lots of drama.”

  “Yeah, she’s the smart one,” Eve mused.

  “Claimed she realized how she needed family, how little Darra deserved a good start. Maybe she’d go back to school, get a good job, if they’d let them stay – that’s the mother and stepfather.”

  “She knows what tune to play.”

  “Played it like a virtuoso. Less than two weeks in, she’s gone, so are valuables and cash, and the baby’s still here. Not a word since, and they’re not covering, Dallas. They’re both scared we’re going to take the baby from them. They talked to a lawyer just last week, trying to see if they could legally adopt so the daughter can’t come back and take the kid. They’re nice people, doing the best they know how.

  “And FYI? Ella-Loo was driving the Bobcat.”

  “Did she have any friends there, anybody she might’ve told the truth to?”

  “Carmichael’s getting that data. The mother doesn’t think there’s anyone Ella-Loo hadn’t pissed off before she left the first time around, but we’ll make some contacts before we head out to the next stop.”

  “Who’s driving?”

  His face went grim. “Just let me warn you. Don’t do bets with Carmichael. You might as well draw to an inside straight.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Just to play it safe, talk to the locals, see about getting access to their ’links in case the daughter’s contacted them.”

  “They already offered, but we’ll breeze by the local badges, see what we can suss out.”

  “Good work. Keep it moving. Tag me from the next stop.”

  She’d barely clicked off when she got an incoming from Baxter.

  “We got two hits, boss, bang-bang. Nothing, nothing, nothing, then two. Pawnshop and pizza joint, both on Hudson. Pawnshop between West Houston and King, pizzeria between Charlton and Vandam.”

  Her attention went straight to the map. “Fucking A.”

  “After some friendly persuasion, the pawnshop ID’d James. He was in twice last week. Pizza place nailed both of them. Takeout, two visits. We’re going to try this Chinese place, and there’s a souvenir shop one block over.”