by J. D. Robb
She closed the lid again, then let out a huff of relief when Roarke joined her.
“They deserted the field, seduced by rumors of cake and pie. You handle this.” She surrendered the spatula. “I might do something that puts Louise and her doctor's bag to work.”
He looked at the sizzle and smoke as she'd often seen him look at some thorny computer code. With the light of challenge in his eyes.
“It's actually satisfying, the grilling business.” He offered the spatula. “I could teach you.”
“No thanks. Eating it's satisfying, and I've already done that.”
He slid the burgers from grill to platter, then used some sort of tongs to transfer the kabobs.
“If I'd known they were done, I could've done that.”
“You have other talents.” He leaned down, the platter of food between them, and kissed her.
A good moment, she thought — the scents, the voices, the hot summer sun. Eve started to smile, then saw Lopez crossing in their direction. He walked like the boxer he'd been, she thought, the compact body light on the feet.
“Ready for another round, Chale?” Roarke asked him.
“The first was more than enough. I want to thank you both for having me. You have a beautiful home, beautiful friends.”
“You're not leaving already?”
“I'm afraid I have to. I have the evening Mass, with a baptism. The family requested me, so I have to get back to St. Cristóbal's and prepare. But I can't think of a nicer way to have spent the afternoon.”
“I'll drive you,” Eve said.
“That's kind of you.” He looked at her — warm brown eyes that to her mind always held a lingering hint of sadness. “But I couldn't take you away from your guests.”
“No problem. They're focused on food, and dessert's coming up.”
He continued to look at her, to search, and she knew he saw something as he nodded. “I'd appreciate it.”
“Why don't you take this?” Roarke handed Eve the platter. “Set it out, and I'll have Summerset box up some of the desserts for Chale.”
“You'd make me a hero in the rectory tonight. I'll just say my good-byes then.”
“Thanks,” Eve said when Lopez moved back to the party. “There's just a couple of things I wanted his take on. It won't take long.”
“Go ahead then. I'll have your vehicle brought around.”
She wasn't sure how to approach it, or even why she felt the need to. But he made it easy for her — maybe that's what men like Lopez did.
“You want to ask me about Li,” he began as she passed through the gates.
“Yeah, for one thing. I see Morris mostly over dead bodies, but I can get a sense of where he is. Just by wardrobe for a start. I know he's coming through it, but . . . ”
“It's hard to watch a friend grieve. I can't tell you specifics, as some of what we've talked about was in confidence. He's a strong and spiritual man, one who — like you — lives with death.”
“It helps — the work. I can see it,” Eve said, “and he's said it does.”
“Yes, tending to those whose lives have been taken, like his Amaryllis. It centers him. He misses her, misses the potential of what they might have made together. I can tell you most of his anger has passed. It's a start.”
“I don't know how people get rid of the anger. I don't know if I'd want to in his place.”
“You gave him justice — earthly justice. From there he needed to find acceptance, and then the faith that Amaryllis is in the hands of God. Or, if not God, the belief that she, too, has moved on to the next phase.”
“If the next phase is so great, why do we work so hard to stay in this one? Why does death seem so useless and hurt so damn much? All those people, just going along, living their lives, until somebody decides to end it for them. We should be pissed off. The dead should be pissed off. Maybe they are, because sometimes they just won't let go.”
“Murder breaks both God's law and man's, and it requires — demands — punishment.”
“So I put them in a cage and the next stop is a fiery hell? Maybe. I don't know. But what about the murdered? Some of them are innocent, just living their lives. But others? Others are as bad, or nearly, as the one who ended them. In this phase, I have to treat them all the same, do the job, close the case. I can do that. I have to do that. But maybe I wonder, sometimes, if it's enough for the innocent, and for the ones — like Morris — who get left behind.”
“You've had a difficult week,” he murmured.
“And then some.”
“If closing cases was all that mattered to you, if it began and ended there, you would never have suggested your friend meet with me. You and I wouldn't be having this conversation. And you wouldn't, couldn't, maintain your passion for the work I believe you were born to do.”
“Sometimes I wish I could see, or feel . . . No, I wish I could know, even once, that it's enough.”
He reached out, touched her hand briefly. “Our work isn't the same, but some of the questions we ask ourselves are.”
She glanced at him. Out of the side window she caught the movement. For a moment it seemed the streets, the sidewalks, were empty. Except for the old woman who staggered, who lifted an already bloodied hand to her chest an instant before she tumbled off the curb and into the street.
Eve slammed the brakes, flicked on her flashers. Even as she leaped out of the car, she yanked her 'link from her pocket. “Emergency sequence, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. I need MTs, I need a bus, six hundred block of 120 Street. First aid kit in the trunk,” she shouted at Lopez. “Code's two-five-six-zero-Baker-Zulu. Female victim,” she continued, dropping down beside the woman. “Multiple stab wounds. Hold on,” she muttered. “Hold on.” And dropping the 'link, she pressed her hands to the chest wound. “Help's coming.”
“Beata.” The woman's eyelids flickered, opened to reveal eyes so dark Eve could barely gauge the pupils. “Trapped. The red door. Help her.”
“Help's coming. Give me your name,” Eve said as Lopez pulled padding from the first aid kit. “What's your name?”
“She is Beata. My beauty. She can't get out.”
“Who did this to you?”
“He is the devil.” Those black eyes bore into Eve's. The words she pushed out held an accent thick as the heat.
Eastern European, Eve thought, filing it in her mind.
“You . . . you are the warrior. Find Beata. Save Beata.”
“Okay. Don't worry.” Eve glanced at Lopez, who shook his head. He began to murmur in Latin as he crossed himself and made the sign on the woman's forehead.
“The devil killed my body. I cannot fight, I cannot find. I cannot free her. You must. You are the one. We speak to the dead.”
Eve heard the sirens, knew they would be too late. The pads, her own hands, the street was soaked with blood. “Okay. Don't worry about her. I'll find her. Tell me your name.”
“I am Gizi. I am the promise. You must let me in and keep your promise.”
“Okay, okay. Don't worry. I'll take care of it.” Hurry, her mind shouted at the sirens. For God's sake, hurry.
“My blood, your blood.” The woman gripped the hand Eve pressed to her chest wound with surprising strength, scoring the flesh with her fingernails. “My heart, your heart. My soul, your soul. Take me in.”
Eve ignored the quick pain from the little cuts in her palm. “Sure. All right. Here they come.” She looked up as the ambulance screamed around the corner, then back into those fierce, depthless black eyes.
Something burned in her hand, up her arm, until the shocking blow to her chest stole her breath. The light flashed, blinding her, then went to utter dark.
In the dark were voices and deeper shadows and the bright form of a young woman — slim in build, a waterfall of black hair and eyes of deep, velvet brown.
She is Beata. I am the promise, and the promise is in you. You are the warrior, and the warrior holds me. We are together until the promise is kept and the fi
ght is done.
“Eve. Eve. Lieutenant Dallas!”
She jerked, sucked in air like a diver surfacing, and found herself staring at Lopez's face. “What?”
“Thank God. You're all right?”
“Yeah.” She raked a bloodied hand through her hair. “What the hell happened?”
“I honestly don't know.” He glanced over to where, a foot away, two MTs worked on the woman. “She's gone. There was a light — such a light. I've never seen . . . Then she was gone, and you were . . . ” He struggled for words. “Not unconscious, but blank. Just not there for a moment. I had to pull you away so they could get to her. You saw the light?”
“I saw something.” Felt something, she thought. Heard something.
Now she saw only an old woman whose blood stained the street. “I have to call this in. I think you're going to be late for Mass. I need you to give a statement.”
She pushed to her feet as one of the MTs stepped over.
“Nothing we can do for her,” he said. “She's cold. Must've been lying there for a couple hours before you found her. Fucking New York. People had to walk right by her.”
“No.” There were people now, crowding the sidewalk, ranged like a chorus for the dead. But there hadn't been . . . “No,” Eve repeated. “We saw her fall.”
“Body's cold,” he repeated. “She's ninety if she's a day, and probably more than that. I don't see how she could've walked two feet with all those slices in her.”
“I guess we'd better find out.” She picked up her 'link, called it in.
Three
After cleaning the blood from her hands, she secured the scene, retrieved her field kit from the trunk. She was running the victim's prints when the first black and white rolled up.
“She's not in the database.” Frustrated, Eve pushed to her feet, turned to the uniforms. “Keep these people back. Talk to them. Find out if anybody knew her, if anybody saw anything. There's a blood trail, and I don't want these people trampling all over it.”
And where the hell were they, she wondered, when the woman was staggering down the street, bleeding to death? The street had been empty as the desert.
“What can I do?” Lopez asked her.
“Peabody's on her way — small slice of luck having a bunch of murder cops a few minutes away. I want you to give her a statement. Tell her everything you saw, everything you heard.”
“She had an accent. Thick. Polish or Hungarian, maybe Romanian.”
“Yeah, tell Peabody. Once you've done that, I can have one of the cops drive you where you need to go.”
“If you need me to stay — ”
“There's nothing more you can do here. I'll be in touch.”
“I'd like to finish giving her Last Rites. I started, but . . . She's wearing a crucifix around her neck.”
She debated. He'd already had his hands all over the body, and his clothes were stained, as hers were, with the old woman's blood. “Okay. You can do that while I start on her. Try to keep contact to a minimum.”
“Your hand's bleeding a little.”
“She dug in pretty hard with her nails. It's just a couple scratches.”
Lopez knelt at the woman's head while Eve got gauges and tools out of her kit.
“Victim is Caucasian or possibly mixed race female of undetermined origin, age approximately ninety. Before expiring, she gave her name as Gizi. Multiple stab wounds,” Eve continued, “chest, torso, arms. Looks like defensive wounds on the arms, the hands. She didn't just stand there and take it.”
“She should have died at home, in her bed, surrounded by her children, grandchildren. I'm sorry,” Lopez said when Eve glanced up. “I interrupted your record.”
“Doesn't matter. And you're right.”
“That's the difference between death and murder.”
“It's the big one. Do her clothes look homemade to you?” As she asked, Eve turned up the hem on the long skirt with its wide stripes of color. “This looks handmade to me, and carefully done. She's wearing sandals — sturdy ones with some miles on them. Got a tattoo, inside left ankle. Peacock feathers? I think they're peacock feathers.”
“She's wearing a wedding ring. Sorry,” Lopez said again.
“Yeah, wedding ring, or in any case a plain gold band, the cross pendant along with a second pendant, starburst pattern with a pale blue center stone, gold earrings. No bag, no purse, but if it were a violent mugging, why not take the jewelry?”
She slid her sealed hand into the pocket on the side of the skirt, closed her fingers over a little bag. It was snowy white, felt like silk, and tied precisely with silver cord in three knots.
She knew what it was even before she untied it and examined the contents. She'd seen this sort of thing before. “Woo-woo,” she said to Lopez.
“What?”
“Magic stuff. Witchcraft or whatever. We got herbs, little crystals. I'd say she hedged her bets. Amulet and crucifix — and a spell deal in her pocket. Didn't help her.”
Though she'd already noted time of death, she used her gauge to confirm. “Damn it, this thing must be broken. It's given me TOD at just past thirteen hundred. She died right here in front of us at sixteen-forty-two.”
“Her skin's cold,” Lopez murmured.
“We watched her die.” Eve pushed to her feet, turning as Peabody jogged up, Morris in her wake.
“This wasn't on the party schedule,” Peabody said as she looked at the body.
“I bet it wasn't on hers either.” Eve took the weapon and harness she'd asked Peabody to bring, and after strapping it on covered it with the jacket her partner held out.
She sat on the curb, changed her skids for her boots.
“You need to get a statement from Father Lopez so we can spring him. Have one of the uniforms drive him back when you're done. You didn't have to come,” she said to Morris. “I notified your people.”
“I called them off. I'm right here, after all.”
“Actually, I can use the head guy. My gauge is wonky. I recorded TOD as the damn TOD, since she died in front of me. But my gauge is putting it almost four hours earlier. Cause is pretty clear, but you might find something else. If you can take over on the body, I want to get on this blood trail, find the kill spot.”
“Go ahead.”
She followed the blood west.
The neighborhood was quiet. Maybe the heat kept people inside, she thought, or maybe most of them were at the sale at the Sky Mall or at the beach. But there was some pedestrian and street traffic.
Had no one seen a staggering, bleeding old woman and tried to help? Even for New York, that was too cold to believe. But the trail continued west for two blocks, right over crosswalks — as if the dying had felt obliged not to jaywalk. Then it headed north.
Buildings older here, she noted, squat towers of apartments and day flops, tiny markets and delis, the 24/7s, coffee shops, bakeries, and bodegas — and more people out and about on their Saturday business.
She continued another three blocks, then jogged north where the trail led into the mouth of a narrow alley between buildings.
And there, without question, was the kill spot.
Deep in the narrow trench, shadowed by overhangs, stinking of garbage from an overfilled recycler, blood splattered the pocked concrete walls, drenched the filthy ground.
She hitched open her field kit for a flashlight and played it over the walls, the ground, the neatly tied bag of trash beside the recycler.
“Did you tie that, Gizi? Bringing out the trash? Do you work here, live here? What were you doing in the alley otherwise? And how the hell did you walk better than six blocks after he sliced you to pieces? And why? Help would have been right around the corner.”
Crouching, she unknotted the trash bag. Fruit and vegetable peelings, she noted, packaging from a small loaf of bread, an empty box of powdered milk, a long, slim bottle that had held some sort of wine . . .
She retied the bag, tagged it for evidence, and shifting it, fo
und the key.
Old, heavy, she noted as she studied it. But then there were old buildings here that might still run to straight lock and key. She turned to the alley door and its keypad. Entrance digitally secured, but inside?
She'd have to see.
She bagged the key, labeled it, then walked back to the alley door and tried to see it.
Wants to take her trash out, comes out with her little bag, walked to the recycler.
Was he waiting for her? Why? Did she walk into an illegals deal?
Puts her bag down, turns — spatter says she'd turned, about three-quarters away from the wall when she was attacked. So he came from behind her, most likely. From the mouth of the alley or through the door behind her.
Eve positioned herself, started the turn from the wall. The first slice ripped the back of her right shoulder with a shock of pain that knocked her against the recycler. She grabbed for her weapon, swung to defend, but somehow the knife plunged into her back, once, twice. Dimly she heard something clink onto the ground, and thought: My key.
Then she was sliding down toward that filthy ground. But hands grabbed her, wrenched her around, shoved her hard against the wall. Through eyes glazed with shock and pain she saw the face of a demon — curling horns piercing the forehead, skin red as hellfire slashed with black and dirty gold. It bared its fierce teeth as the knife tore through her chest.
She put up her hands to fight, and the blade sliced them. She opened her mouth to scream, to curse, but had no voice.
As she fell, the only thought in her mind was Beata.
She came to coated with sweat. The hand holding her weapon shook as she slapped the other over her body looking for blood.
But she stood, unharmed, just as she'd been before she'd felt the first blow.
“What the hell was that?” Dizzy, she bent over, head between her knees until she got her breath back.
“Dallas? Hey!” Peabody rushed forward. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Jeez, you're white as a ghost.”
“I'm fine,” she insisted. “It's the heat.” To prove it, maybe to assure herself of it, she swiped the back of her hand over her sweaty brow. “Who's on scene?”
