Survivor in Death

23

AS SHE REACHED THE STEPS, EVE EASED HER communicator out of her pocket. She keyed in a code, ordering Baxter in as backup. When there was no response, she let the curses roll in her head. She tapped into Dispatch, keyed in for officer-needs-assistance. If it was kids playing hide-and seek upstairs, she'd live down the humiliation.

She backed down, made her way quietly toward the rear of the house. She'd call Baxter again, and she'd use the domestic's steps.

She'd reached the kitchen when the lights shut off.

She crouched in the dark, and though her heart gave three solid bumps, her mind stayed cool. They'd sprung a trap before she did, but it didn't mean she'd wouldn't take the cheese and walk away.

She keyed her communicator again, intending to order armed response, and found it dead in her hand.

Jammed all electronics. Smart. Goddamn smart. Still, they had to find her before she found them. She thought briefly of Baxter, and blocked emotion. He was down, no question. The cops out front, too.

Just me and you, then. Let's see who brings it first.

She stayed low, and with her eyes adjusting to the dark, slipped toward the domestic's quarters. A movement from behind had her swinging around with her finger trembling on the trigger.

She recognized Nixie by scent almost before she recognized the small shape of girl. Biting off curses, she slapped her hand over Nixie's mouth and dragged her into Inga's parlor.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Eve whispered.

“I saw them, I saw them. They came in the house. They went up the stairs.”

No time for questions. “You listen to me. You hide in here, you hide good. You don't make a sound, not a fucking sound. You don't come out until I say so.”

“I called Roarke. I called him on the 'link.”

Oh Christ, what was he walking into? “Fine. Don't come out until one of us says so. They don't know you're here. They won't find you. I've got to go up.”

“You can't. They'll kill you.”

“They won't. I've got to go up, because my friend's hurt.” Or dead. “Because it's my job. You do what I tell you, and you do it now.”

She half-carried Nixie across the room, shoved her under the sofa. “Stay there. Stay quiet, or I'm going to beat the crap out of you.”

Eve eased open the door to the stairs, breathing again when she found the housekeeper had kept the hinges well-oiled. Take it to the second floor, she thought. Away from the kid. Take it to them.

Roarke would get backup, she could trust him for that. Just as she could trust he was already on his way-fighting back worry for her. And he might not fight it off well enough.

She slipped up the steps like a shadow, and listened at the door.

Not a sound, not a breath. Night-vision, certainly. They'd spread out now, looking for her. Cover the exits, sweep room by room. She'd lied to Nixie. They'd find her. They'd find her because they were looking for a cop, and they'd look everywhere.

Unless she showed herself.

They thought she was looking for kids, so they wouldn't expect she'd have her weapon out-or even so, that she'd be primed.

Time she gave them a surprise.

She rolled her shoulders and, laying down a stream right and left, went through the door.

There was answering fire from her left, but it was high and she was already down and rolling. She was blasting in the direction of the returning stream.

She saw the shadow, heard the thud of it when the blast kicked it back against the wall.

She leaped forward. One of the males-she couldn't tell which. Good and stunned. She ripped off his night goggles, grabbed both his blaster and his combat knife. And was running for cover when footsteps pounded up the stairs.

She fixed on the goggles, and it was light, that faint green tinge that made everything look surreal. She slipped the knife into her belt, gripped both blasters, and came out firing.

She barely made the movement behind her, was able to pivot, but not quickly enough to avoid the knife. It sliced through the leather of her jacket, missed the vest, and ripped into her shoulder.

Using momentum and pain, she swung, back-fisted, and heard the satisfying crunch of cartilage.

She blasted toward the main steps again-keep him off me!-as her assailant leaped at her again.

The kick landed in Eve's sternum, stole her breath, and had the blasters squirting out of her fingers like soap.

She could see Isenberry, blood streaming out of her nose, grinning. Her blaster was holstered, her knife in combat grip.

Likes to party, she thought. Likes to play.

“Unfriendlies approaching!” Isenberry's cohort shouted from downstairs. “Abort!”

“Like hell. I've got her.” The grin widened. “I've been looking forward to this. Get up, bitch.”

Drawing the knife out of her belt, Eve pushed through the pain and rose. “Lieutenant Bitch. I broke your fucking nose, Jilly.”

“Going to pay for that now.”

She came in with a swipe, spun, and missed Eve's face with a vicious back-kick by a breath. The knife slashed down toward Eve's chest, ripped cloth, and skidded over shield.

“Body armor?” Isenberry spun back, planted her feet. “Knew you were a pussy.”

Eve feinted, jabbed, then rammed her fist into Isenberry's grin. “Sticks and stones.”

In fury, Isenberry reached for her blaster. Eve rose on her toes to leap. And the lights flashed on, blinding them both.

Roarke came in the front like lightning, rolled to his left an instant before the blast hit-two instants before Summerset engaged the lights.

He saw the man ripping off goggles, pivoting behind a doorway.

He could hear the sound of combat up the stairs. She was alive, and she was fighting. The cold fear that had squeezed his heart loosened. He sent out another blast, rolled in the opposite direction.

“See to Eve!” he ordered Summerset and bolted through a doorway to intercept his quarry.

The lights were bright now, and he listened for any sound. There might have been sirens, far off yet. It was best to wish for them, he knew. But there was that cold, hard center of him that wanted the fight, and the blood.

Leading with his weapon, he started to ease around a corner when the scream, the sound of tumbling bodies, broke his concentration for an instant.

In that instant the blast seared across the top of his shoulder, singeing skin, tearing pain. He smelled blood, burned flesh, and-gripping the weapon in his left hand now-shot out streams, somersaulting under them.

Glass imploded. Shards flew. He saw a blast knock his opponent back, and was on him like a dog.

Eve lay at the base of the steps in Inga's parlor, body vibrating with pain, hands slick with blood. The knife was still in her hand, gripped as if her fingers had welded around it. Isenberry was beneath her, their faces so close Eve could see the life drain out of her eyes.

She heard the child under the sofa whimpering, but it was like a dream. Blood, death, the knife hot in her hand.

She heard footsteps rushing down the stairs and forced herself to roll off Isenberry.

Pain screamed through her arm, her shoulder, so her vision wavered. She saw a room washed with red light, heard herself pleading for mercy.

“Lieutenant.” Summerset crouched until she saw his face. “Let me see where you're injured.”

“Don't touch me.” She lifted the knife, showed him the blade. “Don't touch me.”

She saw the child huddled under the sofa, face white. White so that some of the blood that had spilled on the fall dotted it like red freckles.

She saw the eyes, glassy with shock. Somehow they were her own eyes.

She pushed herself up, stumbled into the kitchen.

He was alive. Blood on him, too. Well, there was always blood. But Roarke was alive, standing up now, turning toward her.

She shook her head, dropped to her knees as her head spun and her legs trembled. And crawled the last few feet to where Kirkendall was sprawled.

Blood on him, too. But he wasn't dead. Not yet. Not yet. She turned the knife in her hand, gripping it blade down.

Was her arm broken? Had she heard it snap? The pain was there, but it was like a memory. If she put the knife in him, if she drove it through him, again and again, knowing what she did, feeling what she did, would the pain go away?

She watched the blood drip from her fingers and knew she could do it. She could, and maybe it would end.

Killer of children, raper of the weak. Why was a cage good enough?

She laid the point over his heart and her hand shook. It shook until her arm shook, until her heart shook. Then she drew it back.

Pushing up to her knees, she managed to shove the knife into her belt. “I've got men down. We need the MTs.”

“Eve.”

“Not now.” There was a sob-or it might've been a scream-trying to claw out of her throat. “Baxter went around back. He's down. I don't know if he's still alive.”

“Cops out front were stunned. I don't know how bad, but they were alive.”

“I need to check on Baxter.”

“In a minute. You're bleeding.”

“He-” No, no not he. “She caught me a little. The fall was worse. I think I dislocated the shoulder.”

“Let's have a look.” He was gentle, helping her to her feet, and still she went pale.

“Get a good hold,” she told him.

“Baby, you'd do better with a blocker first.”

She shook her head. “Get a good hold.” She got a strong grip on him as well, hissing out three readying breaths as she stared into his eyes.

Wild blue eyes, concentrate.

And with a jerk, one that brought her stomach to the base of her throat, turned her vision bright white, he snapped the shoulder back in place.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” She caught her breath, nearly nodded, and was grateful he was holding her upright. “Okay. That's okay. It's better.”

And she'd needed the jolt, she thought, not just to dull the pain in the shoulder, but to bring her back, fully, to where she was.

“The kid,” she began.

“Summerset.”

He came out with Nixie clinging to his neck. “She hasn't been hurt.” There was the faintest of tremors in his voice. “Only frightened. She needs to be taken out of here.”

“I want to see him.” Nixie's voice was thick when she lifted her face from Summerset's neck. Her cheeks were wet, her eyes still streaming. But they met Eve's. “I want to see who killed my family. Dallas said I could.”

“Bring her over here.”

“I don't think-”

“I'm not asking you to think.” Eve crossed over herself, and when she wiggled down, took one of Nixie's hands in her bloody one. “The woman's dead,” she said flatly. “Neck snapped when we took that header down the steps.”

Not my arm, Eve thought, though it ached like a rotten tooth.

“There's another upstairs.”

“He's unconscious, unarmed, and restrained,” Summerset said.

“This one's hurt bad,” Eve went on. “But he'll live. He'll live a long time-the longer the better-because he'll never be free again. He'll eat and piss and sleep where and when he's told. Where he's going… you getting this, Kirkendall?” she demanded. “Where he's going, it's like death. Only you live through it, day after day after day.”

Nixie looked down, and her fingers tightened on Eve's. “She's going to put you in a goddamn cage,” she said, clearly now. “Then, when you die, you're going to hell.”

“That's quite right.” Summerset went to Nixie again, picked her up. “Now let's go outside and let the lieutenant do her job.”

Peabody rushed in, a few strides ahead of an army of cops. “Jesus loving Christ.”

“Baxter's down. Out in the back most likely. See if he's alive.” She turned to a uniform as Peabody raced out. “One suspect down on the second floor, unconscious and restrained. A second in that room over there, dead. This one makes three. I want MTs, CSU, the ME, sweepers, and Captain Feeney from EDD.”

“Sir, you don't look so good yourself.”

“Get that going, I'll worry about how I look.” She started to go out to check on Baxter herself, and saw him being helped toward the house byPeabody.

Her knees trembled in relief. “Should've known the sick bastard wouldn't be dead. Where the hell was my backup, Baxter?”

“Got me dead in the shield. Must've.” He pressed a hand to the back of his head, showed the smear of blood. “Gave me a whale of a kick. Cracked my head on the frigging patio. Got the mother of all headaches.”

“Concussion,” Peabody said. “Needs a health center.”

“See he's transported.”

“What the hell happened here? Anybody dead?”

“One of them,” Eve told him.

“Okay then. Tell me later. Peabody, my beauty, get me drugs.”

Roarke touched her lightly on the back. “Let's have a look at that arm then, and the rest of you.”

“Got a couple of jabs in past my guard. I got a couple of sticks into her. Tit for fricking tat.”

“Your nose is bleeding.”

Eve swiped at it. “I broke hers. See who's the pussy now. Kicked her ass right through the door, but she was just quick enough to take me on a ride down that flight of stairs with her. Fall-I think it was the fall- snapped her neck. She was dead when we landed.”

She wrapped a hand around her bloody shoulder, turned toward him. And really saw him for the first time. “You're hit. How bad?”

“He got a couple of streams past my guard,” he said, and smiled. “Hurts like a bitch, too.”

She touched his cheek with her bloody fingers. “Got a black eye coming on.”

“He got worse. Why don't we-oh, well now, that's extreme,” he said when she ripped away the tattered sleeve of his shirt.

“It was trashed anyway.” She poked and prodded at his wound and made him curse in two languages. “Shoulder's nasty.”

“As is yours.” He lifted his brows as two MTs came through. “Ladies first.”

“Civilians first. And I ain't no lady.”

He laughed, and kissed her solidly on the mouth. “You're mine. But we'll suffer through the first-aid together.”

It seemed fair enough, and she could bitch at the MTs, threaten them with violence if they so much as thought of tranqing her. She could coordinate the various teams, get her report on record, and watch three killers-two live, one dead-hauled away.

She'd take her shot at the live ones in the morning.

“I'll go in, take care of the paperwork,” Peabody told her. “There are too many cops volunteering to handle it. One of them's bound to try to get in some kicks for Knight andPreston.”

“We'll take them in separate interviews tomorrow.”

“You might want to send a team over to secure this address tonight. One on West Seventy-third.” Roarke handed her a memo. “I believe you'll find their headquarters.”

She took the memo, and standing in her bloody shirtsleeves now, grinned. “I \new it. Peabody, find uniforms you can trust and have them sit over Kirkendall and Clinton. Call in the team and screw the OF. We're moving on this tonight.”

“Hot damn!”

“E-men first,” she added. “And I want, let me think, I want Jules and Brinkman from Bombs and Explosives. We don't know how they may have that place wired, or what booby traps they might've set inside. I want body armor on everyone, full riot gear. These three may not be it. I'll contact the commander and clear it.”

She turned to Roarke. “You're in if you want it.”

“I can't think of a more entertaining way to spend the evening.”

“Give me five.” She walked away, yanking out her communicator. “That's my weapon, you putz,” she snapped at one of the Crime Scene techs as he bagged it. “Give it back.”

“Sorry, sir, it has to go in.”

“Goddamn it, do you know how long it takes to get-Commander, we have two suspects in custody and one suspect DOS.”

“I'm on my way to the scene now. I'm told four officers, including yourself, are injured.”

“MTs treated on-scene, three are being transported to the hospital. The suspects are secured. We have what we believe is the location for their base of operations. I've called in my team, as well as two members of B and E. As it's more efficiently located to both this scene and the suspected base, I'll be coordinating the maneuver from my home office. With permission, sir.”

“I'll meet you there. How extensive are your injuries, Lieutenant?”

“I'll do, sir.”

“Yes, you will.”

“Okay then,” she muttered when he clicked off. “I want the evidence from this scene so clean I could eat off it,” she told anyone from CSU within hearing. “I want this scene secured so tight a fucking flea couldn't squeeze under a doorway. Any screwups, I'll be eating asses for breakfast.”

She nodded to Roarke, who fell into step beside her. “I love when you snarl. Stirs me up.”

“You'll be plenty stirred before the night's over.” She stepped out, amused when he draped her ruined jacket over her shoulders.

And the smile fell away when she saw Summerset sitting in one of Roarke's vehicles with Nixie in his arms. The window rolled down as she approached.

“I had to promise we wouldn't leave until she'd spoken to you.”

“I don't have time to-” She broke off when Nixie lifted her head. “What?”

“Can I talk to you, just you, for a minute? Please.”

“Sixty seconds and counting. Come on then.”

When Nixie climbed out, Eve started to walk down the sidewalk. Gave a snarl Roarke would've enjoyed as she stared down the gawkers already pressed against the barricades. She detoured to her vehicle, gestured Nixie in.

“You hid in the backseat?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I ought to pound every square inch of you. I won't because my arm still hurts, and because-maybe-by being a stupid ass you helped. I could've taken the three of them.” She pressed a hand to the throb of her shoulder. “But it was handy having Roarke pull down the third.”

“I wanted to go home.”

Eve laid her head back on the seat. Taking down three armed and dangerous was easier than picking through the minefield of a child's emotions.

“You did. What did you find there? It sucks wide, the widest, but that's not home anymore.”

“I wanted to see it again.”

“I get that. It's just a house, building materials. It's what you had there before the bad stuff happened that counts. That's how I see it.”

“You're going to send me away.”

“I'm going to give you a chance, the best I've got to offer.” She lifted her head, shifted in the seat. “You got kicked hard. You can get up, or you can stay down. I'm saying you're going to get up. Elizabeth and Richard are good people. They know about getting kicked hard. They want to give you a place, give you a family. It's never going to be what it was, but it can be something else. You can make it something else and never forget what it was like in that house there, before the bad stuff happened.”

“I'm afraid.”

“Then you're not as stupid an ass as I thought. Another thing you're not is a coward. You've got to give this a chance, see how it goes.”

“Is Virginia really far away?”

“Not all that much.”

“Can I see you and Roarke and Summerset sometimes?”

“Yeah, I guess. If you actually want to see Summerset's ugly face again.”

“If you promise, I know you mean it. You said you'd find them, and you did. You keep promises.”

“I promise, then. I have to go, finish this.”

Nixie knelt on the seat, leaned over, and kissed Eve's cheek. Then she laid her head on Eve's good shoulder, sighed once. “I'm sorry you got hurt helping me.”

“No big.” She found her hand lifting to stroke over the soft, pale hair. “Just part of the job.”

She sat where she was when Nixie got out. Sat and watched the little girl walk to Roarke, and him bend down as they spoke. The way he gave the child a hug when she kissed him.

Summerset put her in the car, secured her himself, brushed those bony fingers gently over her cheek. As they drove away, Roarke got in beside Eve.

“All right?”

She shook her head. “Need another minute.”

“Take all you need.”

“She'll be okay. She's got guts, and heart. Scared ten years off me when she came running in, but she's got guts.”

“She loves you.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“You found her, you protected her, you saved her. She'll love you more for it as her life heals. You were right to let her see his face.”

“I hope, because I wasn't thinking clear yet. The fall down the stairs-” She broke off, hissed. “Not just the fall. The blood, the knife, the pain. I heard her neck snap, and it was like an echo in my head. When I came out and saw you, there was this dull relief. Distant, in another part of me.”

She drew a long breath. “You'd have let me do it. You'd have stood back and let me put that knife in him.”

“Yes. I'd have stood back and let you do what you needed to do.”

“Even cold-blooded murder.”

“Nothing cold-blooded about it, Eve.” He touched her face, turned it to his. His eyes weren't wild and blue now, she thought, but calm and deep and sure. “You couldn't have done it.”

“I nearly did, I could feel the way it punched through his body.”

“Nearly did. And if something had snapped that clean inside of you, we'd have dealt with it. But what's inside of you, what you are down to the bone, wouldn't have allowed it. You needed to kneel there with that knife in your hand, and to know that.”

“Guess I did.”

“Tomorrow, you'll face him, both of them, in Interview. What you do will be worse to him than a knife in the heart. You beat him, you stopped him, you caged him.”

“Cage him, and another crawls out from under the next rock.” She pressed her shoulder, gave her arm a testing turn. “So I guess I'd better get back in shape, so I can go after the next one.”

“I love you, madly.”

“Yeah, you do.” She smiled and, praying nobody was watching, touched her lips to his burned shoulder. “Let's go clean up, and get back to work.”

She flicked a glance in the rearview as they drove away. Just a house, she thought. They'd clean up the blood, sweep out the death. Another family would move in.

She hoped they had a nice life.