by J. D. Robb
Tears shimmered in his eyes as he turned toward Eve.
“I’m Lieutenant Dallas.”
“I remember.” The mother stood up. “You were at the mall when . . . I remember. We’re so grateful, my husband and I, and Darlie.”
“I saw you. You came in the room.” Darlie’s gaze fixed on Eve. “You came in, and you said we were safe.”
“You are safe now.”
“Melinda said you’d come.” Her fingers fretted with the hospital sheet. “Where’s Melinda?”
“She’s right across the hall.”
“Did you find him yet? Did you find him and put him back in jail?”
“Working on it.”
Darlie took a little sobbing breath that had her father’s face crumbling, and her mother moving in to take her hand.
“I’d like to speak with Darlie alone.”
“She’s already gone over everything,” Mr. Morgansten began. “She really needs to—”
“It’s okay. It’s okay, Daddy. I want to talk to her. Melinda said. It’s okay.”
“We’ll give you a little time.” Mrs. Morgansten stood up, hovered a moment. “Let’s go outside,” she suggested to her husband.
“I . . . We’ll go get you that ice cream,” he said to Darlie. “How’s that?”
“Okay.”
“Fudge Sludge, right? Your fave. You’re a slave to your fave.”
“That’s the best.”
“We won’t be long.” He bent down, kissed her. When he turned to go, the look he sent Eve was a painful morass of guilt and grief and terrible hope.
“My dad’s been crying,” Darlie said when they were alone. “He tries not to, but he can’t help it. He’s trying to make it better, but he can’t.”
Faced with the girl’s misery and exhausted pain, Eve missed Peabody like a limb. Her partner would know what to say, how to say it, how to reach both the child and her parents.
“I can’t tell my dad what he did to me. I can’t talk about it, not to my dad. I want to tell my mom, but I don’t know how. I was stupid, so it’s my fault. I can’t tell them.”
“How were you stupid?”
“I’m not supposed to talk to people I don’t know, like that woman. If I hadn’t—”
“She was nice,” Eve began. “She looked nice, normal. And you were right in the store, with lots of other people around, your friend right in the dressing room.”
“She said she was going to buy a present for somebody—I can’t remember. It was a really mag dress, and she just wanted to ask me if I liked it. It’s all mixed up.”
“I bet your parents taught you to be polite to adults.”
“Sure, but—”
“And you were in a store you know, with other people, the salespeople, your friend. And a nice woman asked you a question. You weren’t stupid to answer it, and she counted on you being polite, being raised well. It’s not your fault she wasn’t nice. None of it’s your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to you.”
“You don’t understand.” The tears started, slow, thick drops sliding down her cheeks. “The other police don’t understand. You can’t.”
“Yes, I can.”
Darlie shook her head, fierce now. “You can’t. You don’t know.”
“I do know.”
Eve’s tone had Darlie swiping at tears, staring at her. Then her lips trembled. “Was it him? Was it Isaac?”
“No. It was someone like him.”
“You got away? They came and saved you?”
Blood on her hands, her face, her arms. Wet and warm. “I got away.”
“How are you okay? How can you be okay? I’m never going to be.”
“Yes, you will. You’ve already started. You told your father you wanted ice cream, but you don’t. You said it because you didn’t want to hurt his feelings, because you want him to be all right.” She picked up a brush from the table beside the bed. “I bet you let your mother brush your hair, because she needed to do something for you.”
“It felt good when she did.”
“You’ve already started,” Eve repeated. “It won’t be quick and it won’t be easy. You’ll want it to be. They’ll want it to be. It won’t. The ones who tell you it will are the ones who can’t understand. I guess that’s not their fault, but it’s annoying and . . . it hurts some, too.”
Tears spilled as Darlie nodded her head, quick and hard.
“You’ll be pissed, you’ll be scared,” Eve continued in the same easy, matter-of-fact tone. “Now and again you’ll go back to thinking it’s your fault, which is bullshit.”
“Everybody’s going to look at me different.”
“Probably, for a while anyway. They’ll feel sorry for you, and sometimes you’ll hate that. Really hate it because you just want everything to be like it was. It’s not going to be.”
“I can’t ever go back to school.”
“That won’t fly, kid,” Eve said, and made Darlie blink. “Nice try though. You’ve got plenty of people to get you ice cream, brush your hair, hold your hand, and dry your tears. That’s good, because you’ll need them. I’m going to give it to you straight. You’ll learn to live with what happened to you. What you do with that life is up to you.”
“I’m afraid he’ll find me.”
“It’s my job to see he doesn’t.” Monster slayer, Eve thought. Maybe that would do, for now. “I’m good at my job. You don’t have to tell me what he did to you. But if you could tell me anything you remember about him and the woman, what they said to each other, or about the apartment, whether they talked to anyone else.”
“She said he should give her a tattoo, to give her a heart with his name in it. He laughed, and that made her mad. He was . . .” Like Melinda, she touched her heart. “I couldn’t move. It hurt. It burned, but I couldn’t move.”
“You were awake?”
“I could see them and hear them, but it was like I was dreaming. She said he could go ahead and stamp his little whores. She’d go get a real pro to give her a tat. He said not to do that. He didn’t want anybody marring her skin. She liked that.”
Darlie took an unsteady breath when her lips trembled. “He didn’t have any clothes on, and when he finished with the tattoo, she started . . .” Darlie’s color came up, rode high on her cheeks. “She started touching him, you know, down there. And he started touching her, but he was watching me. I felt sick, and I closed my eyes because I wanted it to be a bad dream.”
“Is there anything else about the room, or what they talked about?”
“He told her to stop, you know, the touching, and she got mad again. He said it was time for a threesome. Time to set up the camera.”
“Camera?”
“He made her get it out of the closet. It was on a stand, a vid cam on a stand. He made me drink something, and I could move. But my hands. They were tied.” She held her arms up and back. “I screamed. I was crying and trying to get away and she slapped me. Really hard. She told me . . .” Darlie glanced toward the door. “She said, ‘Shut the fuck up.’ But he told her he liked hearing the bad girls scream. And then . . .” Tears flowed again.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to think about that or talk about that, unless you’re ready. Tell me about the camera.”
“Um . . . He had it so he could take a vid of what they were doing. When—when he was—” She shut her eyes, reached up. Understanding, Eve stepped closer, gripped her hand.
“When he was raping me,” Darlie said, eyes still closed, “he told me to scream ‘help,’ to scream, ‘Help me, help me.’ I did, but he didn’t stop. He said to cry, cry, sweetheart, and to scream ‘Dallas’ over and over. I did, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop.”
So, Eve thought, sickened with rage, he’d thought of her when he’d raped Darlie. Even then he’d thought of her.
“Were you ever alone with him? Did the woman ever leave the room?”
“I don’t—yes. I t
hink. It was after the first time, or the second. It gets mixed up.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I didn’t think I could scream anymore. It hurt to scream. They were lying on the bed with me. She said she was hungry, and she wanted some candy, so he told her to go help herself. When she went out, he said maybe he’d keep me, his first new bad girl. Maybe he’d take me with him when he was done.”
“Where? Did he tell you where?”
“He wasn’t really talking to me. He was looking up at the ceiling, sort of talking to himself, I think. He said he’d find us another mommy, and we’d live it up for a while with Dallas at our feet. But he missed New York and all the bad girls. Couldn’t wait to go back home.
“Then he turned the camera back on.” Her breath started to hitch. “And he got on me. I could still scream.”
“Give it a rest awhile. You gave me a couple of things I might be able to use to catch him.”
“I did?” Darlie swiped at her cheeks. “Really?”
“What’s the point of telling you if you didn’t?”
“To make me feel better.”
“Hey, you’re getting ice cream. You’re already going to feel better.”
Whether it was surprise or genuine humor, a smile ghosted around Darlie’s lips. “You’re funny.”
“I’m a barrel of monkeys, kid, though mostly I figure monkeys stuck in a barrel are just going to be pissed off.”
The laugh tripped out, a little rusty, a little weak, but it fell into the room just as Darlie’s parents came back in. At the sound of it, Mrs. Morgansten’s eyes filled.
“Good timing.” Eve got to her feet. “We’re just finished here.”
“We got you a cone.” Mr. Morgansten lurched forward, holding out a cone topped with a scoop of chocolate goo.
“Now you’ll feel better, too,” Darlie told her.
“Looks like. Thanks.”
“Lieutenant Dallas?” Darlie took the cone her father gave her, but continued to stare at Eve. “Will you tell me when you catch him and put him back in jail?”
“You’ll be the first. That’s a promise.”
She stepped outside, leaned against the wall a moment, just to breathe. She studied the door across the hall, but just couldn’t face going back in. Enough, she told herself. Just enough for now.
She took out her ’link, noted the goo dribbling down the cone. What the hell, she thought, and licked at it.
Roarke came on screen.
“I’m done here, and have a couple things to follow up on. Where—”
“You have ice cream?”
“Yeah, it was a gift.”
“I wouldn’t mind ice cream.”
“Anybody who does is just sad. I’m heading back to the car, so—”
“Why don’t I walk with you,” he said, coming out of a room on the right as she walked to the elevator. “And share your ice cream.”
“I think it’s Fudge Sludge.”
“An unfortunate name.” He leaned down, sampled. “But tasty. How’s the girl?”
“Wounded, fragile, and stronger than she thinks she is. Between her and Melinda I got matching brown leather shoes and belt—both with silver buckles, a leather knife sheath, monogrammed I.M., and a vid cam with tripod. He never used a cam before. None of the other vics mentioned being recorded.”
“A recording can be found, and would incriminate. From what I read in his file, he didn’t need that kind of thing. He doesn’t have to relive what he can simply live again.”
“Exactly. He had the girls. If he wanted a replay, he could just pick one. He didn’t document because he’s smart.”
“But he’s not attempting to hide what he’s doing this time. He’s already convicted. So he needs the vid to relive the moment, at least between victims?”
“I don’t think so. He made it for me. This thing’s dripping.”
Roarke took out a spotless white handkerchief, sacrificed it by wrapping it around the cone. And took payment in ice cream before handing it back. “For you?”
“He made her scream for me while he was raping her.”
“Christ. That’s it for my appetite.”
In agreement, she tossed the cone in a recycler. “I’m going to check the evidence list, but I didn’t see any cam or tripod on it. So he took it with him, which says he means to use it again.”
“Another girl?” At her hesitation, his jaw tightened. “No, you’re saying he means to use it with you, not for you. To record you, once he has you. Perhaps for me, perhaps just for himself.”
“It demonstrates he’s still confident. And she gave me another tidbit that confirms—in my mind—he’s still here.”
She opened the car door, slid inside.
“When his partner left the room for a snack and a hit, he talked about keeping Darlie. Not to her, she said, and I think she was right about that. This was thinking out loud, not indulging in his sick version of pillow talk. He talked about getting them a new mommy, and that reinforces the profile. The partners are Mommy, in his very, very sick version. He mentioned having Dallas at their feet. I can’t pin down whether he meant me or the city. Maybe both. But he did talk about going back to New York. Later.”
“You believe he already had his backup location set here.”
“I think he had it set for a long time. I’ve got to work it out in my head. I need to filter some of the excess out of my head and get to it.”
She pushed a hand through her hair. “Anyway.” She contacted Lieutenant Ricchio, relayed the data.
“I should go back to his place, get a better feel for it, for what he took, what he left. What he—”
“And how is adding yet more helping you sift through the extra crap in your head?”
“Shoving more in there gives me more to work through, and with. I couldn’t get a feel for the place before. It was too crowded, and . . . I wasn’t at my best.”
He said nothing for a moment. “Mira’s at the hotel.”
“I’m not ready for Mira. I’m not ready to yank my mind and guts open. I need to feel I’ve done all I can. I need to do what I’d do under any other circumstances. What I’d do is go back to the scene.”
“All right, we’ll go back to the scene. Then that’s enough, Eve. That’s bloody all for the day.”
Not if they got any sort of a hit, she thought, but didn’t argue.
“Park in the garage,” she told Roarke when they approached the building. “That’s the way he’d have gone in and out routinely.”
She got out of the car. Minimum security, but still it was there. He’d have jammed the cameras when he brought Melinda, then Darlie in. Dallas EDD would work with the discs. If they pulled anything out, she’d take a look. But for now . . .
“You know he may have kept the second ride here, right under her nose. How would she know? Why pay to store it somewhere else, and have to go get it? Plus, it’s just like him. He loves screwing with people, pulling the con, making them a fool.”
“I asked for copies of the building security. We can review them.”
“Yeah, you never know.” She studied the area, the setup, and yes, began to get the feel of it. “He’d bring them in late, reduce risk of running into another resident or visitor. But he’d jam the elevator. No one up or down but him until he was inside. He puts them in a kind of twilight sleep. Walks them right up. Uses the stairs, that’s why he likes a lower floor.”
She started up. “Quiet. Quick. Confident, but excited, too. Especially this time because it’s been so long. The partner goes out first, clears the hall.”
Roarke obliged.
“And they walk the vic right in,” Eve said, stepping out, using her master to uncode the police seal.
“Melinda, straight into the holding room. But Darlie, into the bedroom.” She crossed to it. “Put her down a little deeper, secure her hands to the headboard. It’s a form of paralytic. The vic is aware, but immobilized. He can’t have her squirming around when he does
the tat. He’s a perfectionist.”
She visualized it. Stripping the girl, touching her—but just a little, not too much now. Removing his clothes, putting them away. Neat and tidy. Then the tools, the tat.
“Camera’s in the closet.” She walked over, opened it. “He took the brown shoes,” she noted. “The ones Melinda remembered. He took time to select what he’d pack. Nothing rushed or spur of the moment. Nothing carelessly discarded. Except the shirt with his partner’s blood on it.”
She studied the ties again, the duplicates, thought of Melinda’s statement. Just stood there—indecisive.
Considering, she fingered the sleeve of a jacket, a shirt. “Nice. Nice material. He must’ve hated leaving some of this, especially since he couldn’t have had time to wear a lot of it. He’ll want replacements. Will he wait until New York? I don’t know. Can’t say.”
She stepped out of the closet.
“Dallas at their feet. If he means the city, he’s got a place posher than this. He’s tired of the middle-class scene. He bought too many swanky clothes to suit this neighborhood. Not just a few select pieces like before. So, he’s planning, he’s thinking it’s time to move up, where he belongs. He’ll need to bring me there now, so it’s either set up for that or he needs to do it.”
She walked into the bath, stood there, studied, moved out and on, back into the living area where her mother’s blood stained the floor.
Did she believe herself unaffected by it, Roarke wondered. Didn’t she realize she looked at everything but the blood?
“He spends a lot of time out here. He likes the space. A cage is so confining. He can watch Melinda, then Darlie on the monitor, or catch up with some screen, listen to music, read. But he’d get itchy. He needs to be out and about. He needs the city. He’ll go out, seek out places with people. Shops, restaurants, galleries, clubs. After he sends the partner away, he’d go out. He’d want to go out, get the smell of her out of his nose. Put on a new persona, sit at a bar or a table in some trendy club. Strike up conversations, flirt with some woman. If he could run a game, so much the better. Then he’d come back, lock up, check on his ‘guests.’ Maybe have a drink while he counted up his take. Then he’d sleep like a baby.”
