by J. D. Robb
“Sylvia. We’ve got you now. Look right here. Can you tell me what day it is?”
“It fucking hurts! Make it stop. Give me something.”
“Just hang on now, we’re going to take care of you.”
“Give me something for the goddamn pain, you fuck.”
“Classy,” Eve said mildly. “She’s an addict.”
“Keep that fucking cunt of a cop away from me. She tried to kill me.”
“She’s lucid.” The doctor cut his eyes toward Eve. “Is she on anything now?”
Eve kept her eyes on the bruised, bloodied face. “Can’t say, probability high.”
“What did you take, Sylvia? How much did you take?”
“Fuck you. I’m dying. She tried to kill me. Give me something.” She lashed out, tried to claw at the doctor’s face.
“Strap her down,” he ordered.
Dispassionately, Eve watched the struggle, listened to the screams, the curses. One of the nurses moved over to her.
“Would you step outside with me? Just outside. She’s secured, and believe me, Doctor Zimmerman can handle her. We’ve got to get her stabilized, access the injuries.”
With a nod, Eve stepped outside the door, but faced the porthole window, continued to watch.
“Do you know what she might have taken?”
“Not at this time. They’ll bring in the contents of her purse, whatever she had at her residence, in her vehicle. You’ll have to run a tox yourself to determine. She’s dangerous,” Eve added. “She’s to be under guard at all times. She is not to be allowed any communications, and must be kept in restraints.”
“What the hell did she do?”
Eve glanced over, saw Annalyn and Bree coming at a fast clip. “These officers will tell you what you need to know.”
“What’s her status?” Bree demanded. “Has she said anything?”
“Nothing helpful. Ask the nurse re status.” Eve went back to watching.
She’d live, Eve thought. She’d damn well live because there were questions to be answered.
Machines and scanners on her now, Eve noted, taking pictures of what was inside her. She’d stopped screaming and turned on the tears.
“Messed up, but not critical.”
Eve nodded at Annalyn’s interpretation of the nurse’s rundown. “EDD’s scanning the duplex for alarms and trips. When they clear it, we’ll go in, take it apart.”
“What about her coms?”
“Last communication was a text.” She pulled out her notebook.
U wore me out last night. Going to salon, some shopping. B there about 3. CU later.
“Gives us some time. Any chance of a trace?”
“If he contacts her, we’ll trap and trace. They’re working on the code she used to send. I don’t know yet.”
“Did the van have navigation? I didn’t see.”
“Disabled,” Annalyn reported. “All her ’links are disposable clones, juiced up with filters. But EDD will cut through.”
“She knows where Melly is,” Bree murmured. “She knows.”
“And we’ll get it out of her,” Annalyn assured her. “He won’t miss her until after three. We’ve got time to work her.”
“Send another text,” Eve said. “After fourteen hundred, send another. It took longer at the salon, she booked a massage, or whatever the hell. Out shopping. Bought him a present. Something. Running late. Might be six. Buy us a few more hours.”
“That’s an idea.”
“I’m full of them,” Eve muttered.
“I got word on the way over. We nailed down the salon. If we need to we can cover that in case he tries to contact her.”
“Cover it,” Eve ordered. “We’re not taking any chances.” She turned away from Annalyn when she spotted Roarke. “Stay on her. If they take her out, stay with her. I need to take care of something.”
She intercepted Roarke. “Let’s go outside. I could use some air.”
He touched the abrasions on her cheek, the cut on her lip.
“Just the air bags. Hers didn’t deploy, so she’s banged up pretty good. She’ll live, but she’s going to hurt for a while.”
“McQueen?”
“She made us, tried to rabbit. So no. Not yet.” She went out, kept walking. Away from people moving in and out. “She didn’t have time to warn him, and we’ve got a window to work her.”
“That’s not what’s wrong.”
“I need you to do something for me, fast and private.”
“All right.”
She pulled the swabs out of her pocket. “I need DNA. Need these two samples compared. I need to know if... One’s mine. One’s hers.”
She saw it come to him, first the shock, then the sorrow. “Christ. Christ Jesus, Eve.”
“I recognized her from the first on some level.” Her voice wanted to shake, but she feared if she let it, it would never stop. “Down deep where I couldn’t—or wouldn’t reach it, I knew her. It made me sick. Then I pulled her out of that van, and she looked at me, and I knew. It was the same look. The same as the day I remembered when I was two or three—who knows—and I’d been playing with her face stuff. She was so angry, hyped, violent. And she looked at me with such hate. Murderous hate.”
She took a shuddering breath. “My mother.”
“You’d just been in an accident,” he began.
“Roarke.” She made herself meet his eyes, made herself let him see. “I know. She was Stella then, but the name doesn’t matter. She sticks with names starting with S. Maybe she’s got monogrammed sheets or some shit.”
She didn’t tremble, not until he touched her. Then she shook, her body, her voice. “I know. I just need it confirmed.”
“I’ll take care of it.” He drew her in. “I’ll see to it, don’t worry about that. Did she know you?”
“No. Why would she? I was nothing to her.” You’re nothing. She’d said it even now, Eve thought. “A potential meal ticket, a punching bag. Just another long con.”
He eased her back, took her face in his hands. “You need to step back from this, from her.”
“Never going to happen.” Reaching up, she wrapped her fingers around his wrists, felt his pulse beat against her palms. “I won’t let who she is, what she did get in the way of finding McQueen. It’s only more important now. I’ll think about that after it’s confirmed. Think about what to do, how to do it. It’s not going to break me.”
“I want to see her.”
“Seeing her’s not what you have in mind.” She drew away to stand on her own, to prove she could. “There’ll be time to deal with her, to figure all that out. She’s going to be caged for the rest of her life. But now, we need her. She’s the solid link to McQueen.”
“Maybe not the only link. I found two of his accounts.”
“You—why didn’t you tell me?” She lifted a hand. “Sorry. Obvious.”
“He tapped one of the accounts on the day he first contacted you in New York. He had two hundred thousand wired to a bank in the West Indies, and from there to one in South Africa, and then here to Dallas.”
She lifted her hand again, needing a minute to sort it through. “You’re telling me you have the name of his bank here, in Dallas?”
“I do. He’s using a South African passport and address for this account, one he tapped yesterday for seventy-five thousand. In person. Prairie Bank and Trust, their Davis Street branch.”
“Let me think, let me think.” Rubbing her head, she paced away and back, away and back. “Too much clutter. Why does he go, withdraw that much in cash, in person? He doesn’t want her to know. He’s about done with her, so he’s stockpiling traveling money. How did he get to the bank? Does he use the van? I don’t see how without her knowing. Public transpo, maybe. Or maybe he’s got another vehicle. One he’ll drive when he puts that traveling money to use.
“We need to get to that bank, check their security cams.”
“I expect so.”
“The other
, that other.” She glanced back toward the ER doors. “It can wait. This is more important.”
“I said I’d take care of it. Don’t worry about that part.”
“I need to update Ricchio and the feds on this. We need to move on it.”
They started back in. She stopped when she saw Detective Price standing just outside the doors, looking lost.
“Detective.”
“Lieutenant. Lieutenant Ricchio wanted to speak with you. He’s here. He’s . . . inside.”
“Roarke, will you find him, give him what you’ve got? I’ll be right there.”
She waited a moment, standing there with Price, saying nothing.
“I know it’s my fault. She would’ve led us right to Melinda, and I fucked up. We had it down cold, and I broke protocol.”
“Do you think any of us wanted to see that kid pancaked on the street, Price? Do you think Melinda would want that?”
“I don’t know. God, we’d have her back by now. We’d have her.”
“If you hadn’t reacted, that kid would probably be dead. Now he’s home and safe and whole. You saved a life today, Detective. You did the job.”
“At what cost?”
“Nothing’s free. We’ve got the partner. We’ve got other leads, and we’ve got some time. So shake it off and keep doing the job.”
She went inside, started back toward the treatment room. This time the nurse stopped her. “We’ve got her stable. She needs some minor surgery. She’s got a concussion, two broken ribs, whiplash—”
“She’s conscious and stable,” Eve interrupted.
“That’s right.”
“I want to talk to her.”
“She needs a little repair. As soon as—”
“No. Now. If she’s not critical, she can wait for her repair. There are two lives on the line, and neither of them are hers. Is she still in there?”
“Yes. She’s being monitored, then she’ll need to be prepped.”
“Prepping can wait, too.”
Eve pushed past, shoved through the doors. She studied the woman on the table for a moment.
“Pay attention,” she snapped, and watched the woman’s eyes open, go feral. Stepping forward, she Mirandized her mother.
14
You get that?” Eve asked her.
“I want a ’link, and I want one now.”
“You’re not in a position to make demands. Give me your name. Your real name.”
“Sylvia Prentiss.”
“The longer you bullshit, the longer it’ll be before a medical’s cleared to come in here and give you a hit. Name.”
“Sylvia Prentiss, and I’m going to sue you inside out. You get me a ’link. I know my rights. I get to tag a lawyer.”
“Fine. Give me the contact and I’ll arrange to have your lawyer come in. What’s not going to happen is you making contact with anybody outside of this room. What’s not going to happen is you tagging McQueen with a heads-up.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t give a shit. You nearly killed me. I’m not going to talk to you. I want a doctor, and I want a ’link.”
Eve stepped closer. She’d changed her eyes, she thought dully, gone a vivid, unearthly green. Once they’d been the same. In her last real flash of her mother, they’d shared the same eyes.
Wondering what else they shared made her sick.
“You know who I am, but you don’t know me. You don’t know me,” Eve repeated, calming herself. “But I know you. Your name doesn’t matter. You’re the same under all of them.”
So many questions, Eve thought, but they had nothing to do with now. With Melinda or Darlie. With McQueen.
“You left a child with a monster.” Again, she thought, but this time it was different because . . . “A child whose parents love and care for her. A child who’ll never be a child again because of what you’ve done. You left her and a woman who tried to help you with this monster. In my book that makes you worse than he is.”
Pale, bruised face coated in a light sheen of sweat, the woman who called herself Sylvia bared her lips in a sneer. “You’ve got me mixed up with somebody else.”
“I know you,” Eve repeated, leaning close so the woman could see the truth on her face. “You’re done. We know Stibble sent you to McQueen in prison. We know you’ve been in contact with McQueen for more than a year. We know you bought the van under your Sister Suzan Devon ID.”
Eve leaned back, kept eye contact. “We know as Sarajo Whitehead you worked at the Circle D bar, faked a rape to draw in Melinda Jones for McQueen.” She saw the blows land, turn the pale face sickly gray. “We know you rented the duplex as Sandra Millford—a slight variation on your New York Sandi Millford. Oh, Civet says hey. We know you rented and outfitted McQueen’s apartment.”
Stella—Sylvia—moistened her lips. “If you know so much you wouldn’t be wasting time hassling me.”
“We’re going to do more than hassle you. I see you as worse than McQueen, but the law looks at you as the same. You’re going down for the kidnappings, for accessory to rape, enforced imprisonment. You’re going down as accessory to murder, aiding and abetting. It’s a smorgasbord of charges that’ll keep you in a cage for the rest of your life.”
“You’ve got nothing.” But fear lived in those unearthly green eyes now.
“We’ve got it all. We’ve got Stibble and Lovett. We’ve got Civet. We’ve got your fake IDs, and witnesses. We’ve got you on the security discs at the mall with Darlie Morgansten—Sandra.
“He used you, left your ass swinging in the wind. And he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what happens to you.”
Fury burst over fear. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know everything about it, and him. I know all the others he used before, and what he did when he was finished with them. I know what he planned to do to you. He’s sitting in the apartment you found for him, furnished for him right now, counting down the hours till he slits your throat.”
The nausea rolled again; Eve forced it down. “You’ve got a chance to help yourself, make a deal so maybe you do your time on-planet, maybe you deal down some of the charges so you see the light of day again.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And you’re the one going down. Believe me, you’re going to pay.”
“For what?” Rage spurted through her so she white-knuckled the safety guard as she leaned closer. “I don’t owe you. I don’t owe you a goddamn thing but pain and misery. You believe me, nobody wants to see you go down, all the hard way down, more than I do. I’m giving you a chance, and the door’s closing. We’ll have him in a matter of hours anyway, we’re that close. Tell me now, tell me where he is, where he’s keeping Melinda and Darlie, and I’ll help you deal it down.”
“You’re a liar, just like all cops. You’ve got jackshit.”
“We found his accounts. All that money, and neither of you will ever see it now. That’s right,” she said when she saw the flicker in her mother’s eyes. “You’ll be tapped out. And tapped out in prison, with nothing to deal with. Did you know he’s pulled out a nice pile for his running money once he ditches you?”
“Liar.”
“He’ll kill you, just like all the others, when he’s done. You’re the one being used now, after all the years of using. With him, you’re dead. With me, you’ve got a chance to live. Where are Melinda and Darlie?”
“Fuck them. Fuck you.”
“He killed his own mother, and all the substitutes who came after. He’ll do the same to you. Slit your throat and toss you in the nearest river.”
“He loves me!”
It shocked Eve to hear that passion, that desperation. Just for a moment she felt something close to sympathy.
“Who’s doing all the work, taking all the risks? Not him. Who’s strapped to a hospital gurney jonesing for a hit? Not him. He won’t even let you stay with him, and if he touches you, it’s just another way to use you. He likes little girl
s. You know about that, don’t you? About men who like little girls.”
“Get the hell away from me.”
“What made you this way?” Desperation scraped at her. God, how she wanted that single answer. “Does it go back even further? Your mother, your father? Is all the blood just poisoned?”
“You’re crazy.” Despite the pain, Sylvia pushed up, strained against the restraints. “He’s going to make you pay, you and that Irish bastard you married. Pay and pay and pay.”
She panted, rearing up, bucking, face contorted. Withdrawal, Eve concluded. Withdrawal, fear, pain, fury.
“How? How will he make me pay?”
“You won’t get to him. But he’ll get to you. Roarke will pay a lot to get you back, but he won’t get you back whole. And I’ll watch while Isaac makes you scream, while he makes you beg.”
“Is that how you get off? Watching? Do you like to watch while men rape children? While they hurt the innocent?”
“Nobody’s innocent! Some are just luckier than others. Get me drugs or I’ll kill you myself.”
“Melinda Jones and Darlie Morgansten. Tell me where they are. It’s your only chance.”
“They’re where you’re going to be. You won’t be so lucky this time. You’ll beg him to kill you. The asshole you married will bleed money every time Isaac cuts you. And we’ll swim in a river of it.”
“If he’s so good, he doesn’t need Melinda and Darlie to get me. Tell me where they are, unless you don’t think he’s man enough to take me on again.”
“I hope they’re dead. Martyr bitch and whiny brat. I hope he lets me kill you when he’s finished.”
Hated me then, hates me now, Eve thought, tired of it, unspeakably tired of it. Had there ever been anything but hate? Even for a moment?
“You’re the one who’d be dead if he had his way. It’s what he does, what he’s always done. What makes you think you’re any different than the others? Or is it you? Are your others no different?”
Risky, Eve calculated. Last ditch. “What pulls you toward men like him? What’s the draw? He’s not your first. You can change your name, your looks, but it’s all the same. Richard Troy, he was the same. Stella.”
