Visions In Death

CHAPTER 18

In his elegant dark business suit, Roarke circled Eve's new vehicle while it was parked in her slot in Central's garage.

"Haven't had a chance to really examine your upgrade. Long overdue, Lieutenant." "It does the job." "Better, one hopes, than your previous one." He tapped the hood. "Release the hood latch." "Why?" "So I can look at the engine." "Why? It runs. What else is there to know? Looking at it doesn't change anything." He gave her a long, pitying smile. "Darling Eve, your absolute lack of interest and aptitude for mechanics is so female." "Watch it, pal." "Wouldn't you like to know what's under here?" He tapped the hood again. "What's getting you where you're going?" "No." Though he had stirred some mild curiosity. "Besides, I'm getting a later start on this than I'd planned. Let's just move." "Well, let's have the codes." He lifted a brow when she frowned. "If you won't let me play with it, you can at least let me drive it." She supposed it was fair. He was giving her the evening for work. She gave him the codes, then walked around to the passenger side. "The department appreciates your time and assistance, blah, blah." "Please, you're much too effusive in your gratitude." He settled behind the wheel, adjusting the seat to his preference, scanning the dash. He judged the data and communication system to be middle-range. It baffled him that the NYPSD didn't spring for top-of-the-line for their mobile situations.

He engaged the engine and wasn't displeased by the sound.

"You've got more power under you this time, at least." Then he smiled at her. "Sorry I couldn't get here sooner." "It's okay. I kept busy. And Feeney couldn't wiggle loose until about twenty minutes ago, so he and Peabody are getting a late start with this, too." "Then let's catch up." He eased out of the slot, drove at a discreet speed to the entrance. Flicked a glance at the pattern of traffic.

And punched it.

"Jesus, Roarke!" He whipped through, skimming his way around cabs and cars and one-seaters, and nipped through a light a blink before it went to red. "Not bad," he decided.

"If I bung this thing up the first week, I'll never live it down." "Umm-hmm." He went vertical, maintaining it until he'd swung around a corner. "Could be a bit more elastic on the turns, but it handles well enough." "And if Traffic lights you up, I'm not flashing my badge to kill the violation." "Lateral's fairly smooth," he decided after testing it out.

"So, where are we going?" She sighed, long and deep, but at least the question allowed her to relay the first name and address to her map system.

"You want the route displayed on windshield or the dash monitor?" "Dash will do." "On monitor," she ordered and couldn't suppress the smile when it popped on. "I ditched the vocals. It'll only blab at me if I specifically order it to. Too bad people don't come with the same accessory." She rattled off the route.

"How did Celina's session go?" Roarke asked her.

"She handled it. We got a few more details, but it's tough going. Mira won't approve another session without a twenty-four-hour break."

"A slow process." "Yeah, and he's not going to move slow. It's not just women he's after, but women he sees as having control over him." "Symbolically."

"Maybe I pushed him the wrong way, pushed him when I did the interview with Nadine, then the media conference.

He's escalating." "Whether you push or not, he'll continue to kill until you stop him." "Yeah, I'll be doing that. I'll damn well be doing that soon."

Her first stop was named Randall Beam, and he wasn't happy about having a cop at the door.

"Listen, I got a thing. I'm just about out the door already.

What gives?" "If we can come in, Randall, we'll tell you what gives, then maybe you can keep your thing." "Hell. How come a guy has a coupla assaults on his sheet, cops're always yanking him?" "It's a mystery all right." Eve stepped in, scanned the room. It was small, man messy without being revolting. There was the faintest whiff of something in the air that could get Randall a little visit from Illegals, but she'd let it pass unless she had to squeeze him.

There were curtains at the windows, which was a surprise, and a couple of nice-looking pillows tucked into the corners of a sagging couch.

Physically, Beam didn't fit her profile. He was about six feet tall, a solid and muscular one-eighty. But compared to a size fifteen, his feet were almost dainty. His complexion leaned toward jailhouse white, and he sported a long brown ponytail.

Still, she'd need to take the time with him. He might have a friend, a brother, whatever, who fit her needs more closely.

"Need your whereabouts, Randall." She gave him the nights of the three murders, waited while he stood looking put-upon and sad.

"How'm I supposed to know?" "You can't tell me where you were last night?" "Last night? One of them's last night? Last night, after I got off work? I got gainful employment." "Good for you." "So, after work, me and a couple of the guys stopped in at the Roundhouse. Bar on Fourth? Knocked back a few, grabbed some chow, played some pool. LC works the joint.

Name's Loelle? I was flush, so I took her up to one of the privates Roundhouse's got two for a bang. Had a couple more drinks, got home, I dunno, about two? This here's my day off." "Loelle and your buddies going to confirm all that?" "Sure. Why not? Loelle's down there most nights; you can ask her. And you can ask Ike -Ike Steenburg we work together. He was there last night. What gives?" "Let's get through the other two nights." He was clueless about his activities on the night of Napier's murder but he balked on explaining what he was doing on the night of Maplewood's.

"I had a thing. Was there till after eleven. Went out with… with some people after for, you know, coffee. Got home, I dunno, maybe midnight. I really gotta go now." "What's the thing, Randall?" He shuffled his feet, stared at them while color came up on his cheeks. "Why I gotta say?" "Because I have a badge, you have a sheet, I need to know, and if you make me ask again I'm going to be a lot more interested in the Zoner I smell." "Jesus. Cops. You're always hassling a guy." "Yeah. It's the part of the job that gets me up out of bed every morning with a big smile on my face." He blew out a breath. "I don't want the guys to hear about it." Tm the soul of fricking discretion." He shifted his gaze up, ran it over her face, shifted it to Roarke, and hunched his shoulder. "You shouldn't oughta get the wrong idea. I ain't no fairy or nothing. Don't know why guys want to bang each other when there's women around.

But you know, live and let." "That's a touching philosophy, Randall. Spill." He pulled on his nose, shuffled his feet. "Just that… last assault bust, they say I gotta take anger management and shit. So I stop punching people and starting fights. But I never punched nobody didn't ask for it." Eve supposed the flaw was in her, but she was starting to like him. "I know the feeling." "So they, shit, they say I should do some therapy kind of deal. Occupational, recreational, relaxational. What all. I sign up for this class in ah, crafts." "You do crafts."

"Don't make me no fairy or nothing." He gave Roarke a steely look as if daring him to disagree.

"Did you make the curtains?" Roarke asked, pleasantly.

"Yeah. So?" His fists bunched at his sides.

"It's very good work. A nice use, I'd say, of fabric and color." "Well." He eyed Roarke, eyed the curtains. Then shrugged.

"They come out okay. It's constructive and, you know, therapeutic.

I sorta got into it. I was working on the pillows there at Total Crafts, they got clubs and shit, and instructors. That's where I was the night you're saying. They give you a break on the supplies and shit, and you can use their machines you need to. And it's kinda interesting is all. I got a class tonight, on needlepoint. You can make all kinds of shit, you know what you're doing." "Your instructor and classmates verify this?" "Yeah. But, hey, you go down there asking questions, talking about my sheet, it's gonna mess me up. Coupla skirts in there I'm thinking about hitting on, and it's gonna mess me up." "You forgot about me being the soul of discretion, Randall.

Any of your buddies know about your hobby?" His face went to stark, stupefied shock. "Hell, no. You think I'd mouth off about tricking curtains and pillows to the guys? They'd rag me till I had to pound on them. Then I wouldn't be managing my anger issues and all that." "Got a point," Eve agreed.

You knew it wasn't him when he opened the door." Roarke slid back behind the wheel.

"Yeah, but you've got to run the lap. He says his buddies don't know, but it's possible one does. Or somebody he works with, somebody he's played pool with. A neighbor." She lifted a shoulder. "He nips the cord from Randall, or uses his name to buy it. You can't discount long shots. Let's hit the next."

She went through the paces because it had to be done, but she didn't quibble when Roarke announced it was time for a meal.

Nor did she quibble over his choice of a French place with candles on the table and waiters with their noses in the air.

His name got them a corner booth in thirty seconds flat, with the expected fawning service. But the food was choice.

Still, she brooded over it, picked at it, and did more rearranging of it on her plate than eating it.

"Tell me what's troubling you." He laid a hand over hers.

"It's more than the case." "I guess there's a lot going around in my head." "Give me one." "I told Peabody about… I told her about when I was a kid." His fingers tightened on hers. "I wondered if you ever would. It would've been difficult for both of you." "We're partners. You've got to trust your partner. I'm rank, and I expect her to follow an order without hesitation. And I know she will, and that my rank isn't why she will." "That's not the only reason you told her." "No. No, it's not." She looked at him through the candlelight.

"Cases like this, they get into my gut. I can make a mistake because I'm looking too hard, or I'm looking away because I can't stand to look too hard." "You never look away, Eve." "Well, I want to. Sometimes I want to, and the difference is a pretty thin line. She's with me every day, and she's a good cop. She'll see if I'm off, and she's got a right to know why I am, if I am." "I agree with you. But there's still one more reason you told her."

"She's a friend. The tightest, I guess, next to Mavis. Mavis is different." "Oh, let me count the ways." She laughed, as he'd wanted. "She's not a cop and she's Mavis. She's the first person I ever told any part of it to. The first person I could tell any part of it to. I should've told Feeney. We were partners and I should've told him. But I didn't know, didn't remember most of it when we were hooked, and besides…" "He's a man." "I told you. You're a man." "I'm not your father figure," he said and watched her reach quickly for her water glass.

"I guess. I mean, no, you're sure as hell not. And maybe Feeney… in some kind of way. Doesn't matter," she decided.

"I didn't tell him. Telling Mira was almost an accident, and she's a doctor. I've never dumped it, in a big lump, on anybody but you, and now Peabody." "You told her the whole of it then?" "That I killed him? Yeah. She said something about hoping I ripped him to pieces. She cried. Jesus." She dropped her head in her hands.

"Is that what troubles you most about this? That her heart hurts for you?" That's not why I told her." "Friendship, partnership. They aren't just about trust, Eve.

They're about affection. Even love. If she didn't feel pity for and anger over the child, she wouldn't be your friend." "I guess I know that. I'll give you one of the other things on my mind, then we have to finish the list. I watched the whole hypnotherapy deal today. Mira's brought it up before, she doesn't push it, but she's told me it might help bring things back to the surface, clear it out of me. Maybe the more you remember, the more control you have over it. I don't know. But I don't think I can go there, Roarke. I don't know if I can, even if it means getting rid of the nightmares." "Were you considering it?" "I hadn't ruled it out, completely, for later. Sometime later.

But it's too much like Testing. If you terminate somebody on the job, you have to go through Testing. That's SOP, and you deal. You hate it, but you deal. This is like saying, sure, put me through the wringer, take away my control, because maybe possibly it'll make things better." "If you want to find out more, and you're not comfortable with hypnosis, there are other ways, Eve." "You could dig details out of my past for me, the way you dug them out for yourself." She picked up the water again.

"I've thought about it. I'm not sure I want to go there either.

But I'll think about it some more. I guess finding out what we did before, about Homeland surveilling him, knowing about me, knowing what he was doing to me, and letting it happen to preserve the integrity of their investigation-" Roarke said something particularly vile about Homeland and integrity. Something, she thought with dark humor, that didn't belong in snooty French restaurants.

"Yeah, well. It's played on my head some, finding out other people knew. And it's made me ask myself, would I sacrifice a civilian for a collar?" "You would not." "No, I wouldn't. Not knowingly, not willingly. But there are people out there, people who consider themselves solid citizens who would. Would, and do, sacrifice others to get what they want or need. Happens every day, in big ways, in little ways. For the greater good, for their good, for their interpretation of someone else's good. By action, by omission of action, people sacrifice other people all the damn time."

– -**--

Peabody stepped off the subway and stifled a yawn. It was still shy of eleven, but she was beat. At least she wasn't hungry on top of it, as Feeney had been as happy as she to break for food. Her belly was nicely full of fried chicken strips at least it had been billed as chicken, and she didn't want to question what else might have been inside the batter.

Dipped into some sort of bright yellow sauce, they hadn't been half bad.

Of course, they'd crapped out on everything else, but that was life with a badge.

She flipped out her palm-link as she trudged up the steps to street level.

"There she is." McNab's face, split by a big, welcoming grin filled the screen. "Heading home yet?" "Just a couple blocks away. We covered a lot of ground, didn't pick anything up." "That's the way it goes." "You said it. Did you get any more packing done?" "Baby, you're going to give me a really big sloppy one when you walk in the door. It's done, and we're ready to rock and roll out of here." "Really? Really?" She did a little skip-step on the sidewalk.

"There was a lot left, you must've worked the whole time." "Well, I had the really big sloppy one as incentive." "You didn't throw out any of my-" "Peabody, I want to live. I didn't ditch anything, including your little stuffed bunny." "Mister Fluffytail and I go back. I'll be there in five. Be prepared for the sloppy one." "When it comes to sloppy ones, I'm a fricking Youth Scout." She laughed, stuffed the "link back in her pocket. Life was really good, she thought. Her life was really good. In fact, just at the moment it was absolutely mag. All the little nerves about moving into a new place, with McNab signing a lease, blending lives, furniture, styles, sharing a bed with the same guy for… well, possibly forever were gone.

It felt right. It felt solid.

It wasn't as if he didn't irritate her cross-eyed sometimes.

It was that she got he was supposed to. It was part of their thing, their style.

She was in love. She was a detective. She was partnered with the best cop on the NYPSD possibly the best cop anywhere. She'd actually lost three pounds. Okay, two, but she was working off number three even now.

As she walked, she looked up, smiled at the lights glowing in her apartment her old apartment, she corrected. McNab would probably come to the window any minute, to look out, wave, or blow her a kiss a gesture that might've looked silly on another guy, but gave her such a nice little rush when it came from him.

She'd blow one back, and wouldn't feel silly at all.

She slowed her pace, just a bit, to give him time to come to the window, fulfill the fantasy.

She never saw him coming.

There was a blur of movement. He was big bigger than she'd imagined and he was fast. She knew, in that finger-snap of time that she saw his face eyes obscured by black sunshades that she was in trouble. Terrible trouble.

Instinct had her pivoting, reaching for the weapon she wore at her hip.

Then it was like being rammed by a stampeding bull. She felt the pain crazy pain in her chest, in her face. She heard something break, and realized with a kind of sick wonder that the something was inside her.

Her mind stopped working. It was training rather than thought that had her pumping out with her legs, aiming for any part of his mass so she could knock him back far enough to give her room to roll.

She barely budged him.

"Whore." His face loomed over her, features obscured by the thick layers of sealant, the wide, black shades.

It seemed time dripped, slow as syrup. That her limbs were weighed down like lead. She reared up to kick again all in slow, painful motion struggling to suck in air to a chest that burned like fire. Ordering herself to remember details.

"Cop whore. Going to mess you up." He kicked her, so she doubled up in agony as her fingers fumbled for her weapon. Parts of her, separate parts of her went numb, and still she could feel the violent impact of his feet, his fists. She could smell her own blood.

He plucked her up, as if she were no more than a child's doll. This time she heard felt something rip.

Someone screamed. She felt herself hurled into the dark as she fired.

McNab put on music. She'd sounded tired when she'd called, so he went for some of her Free-Ager flutey shit. Since he'd finished packing the lot including sheets they were going to bunk in her sleepbag. He thought she'd get a bang out of it. Last night in the old place, all cuddled up together on the floor, like kids camping out.

It was just totally frosty.

He poured her a glass of wine. He liked doing it for her, thinking how she'd do it for him when he caught a late night.

It was the sort of things cohabs did. He supposed.

It was the first official cohabitation for both of them.

They'd live, he decided, and learn.

He was thinking maybe he'd go to the window, toss her out a noisy kiss as she walked up, when he heard the screaming.

He raced out of the kitchen, leaping over packing boxes and across the living area to the window. And his heart stopped dead.

He had his weapon in one hand, his communicator in the other, without any memory of grabbing either, and was running out the door. "Officer needs assistance! All units, all units, officer needs immediate assistance." He shouted out the address as he bolted down the stairs.

Praying. Praying.

She was half on the sidewalk, half on the street. Facedown, with blood, her blood, staining the concrete. A man and a woman were crouched beside her, and another was huffing toward them.

"Get away. Get away." He shoved blindly at the nearest.

"I'm a cop. Oh God, oh Jesus God, Dee." He wanted to scoop her up, gather her in, and knew he didn't dare. Instead he pressed shaking fingers to the pulse in her throat. And felt his heart hitch when he felt the beat.

"Okay. God, okay. Officer down!" He snapped it into his communicator. "Officer down. Require immediate medical assistance this location. Hurry, goddamn it. Hurry." He touched her hand, struggled not to squeeze it. Got his breath back.

"Be on the lookout for a black or dark blue van, late model, heading south from this location at high speed." He hadn't seen it clearly enough, not enough. He'd only seen her.

When he started to strip off his shirt to cover her, one of the men pulled off his jacket. "Here, cover her with this. We were just coming out, across the street, and we saw…" "Hold on, Dee. Peabody, you hold the hell on." Still gripping her hand, and seeing now she had her weapon in the other, he looked up at the people around him. His eyes went flat and cold as a shark's.

"I need your names. I need to know what you saw."

Eve's heart was knocking on her ribs when she shoved off the elevator and strode double-time down the hospital corridor. "Peabody," she said, slapping her badge on the counter of the nurse's station. "Detective Delia. What's her status?" "She's in surgery." "That's not telling me her status." "I can't tell you her status because I'm not in surgery." "Eve." Roarke put a restraining hand on her shoulder before she simply leaped over the counter and throttled the nurse.

"McNab will be in the waiting area. We should go there first." She struggled to draw a breath, even out her terror and temper. "Get somebody to go into surgery and get her status.

Do you understand me?" "I'll do what I can. You can wait down the hall, to your left." "Easy, baby." Roarke murmured to her, slid his arm around her waist as they went toward the waiting area. "Try to take it easy." "I'll take it easy when I know what the hell's going on." She stepped into waiting, and stopped.

He was alone. She hadn't expected him to be alone. Such places were usually filled with people agonizing. But there was only McNab standing at one of the windows, staring out.

"Detective." He spun around and the grief and hope on his face shuddered into only grief. "Lieutenant. They took her. They took her into… They said… I don't know." "Ian." Roarke crossed to him, laid an arm around McNab's shoulders and drew him toward a chair. "You'll sit a minute now. I'll get you something to drink, and you'll sit a minute.

They're taking care of her now. And in a bit, I'll go and see what I can find out." "You have to tell me what happened." Eve sat beside McNab. He had a ring on each thumb, she noticed. And blood on his hands. Peabody's.

"I was in the apartment. All packed up. I'd just talked to her. She'd tagged me to tell me she was a couple blocks away. She was only… I should've gone out and met her.

That's what I should've done. Gone out, and then she wouldn't be walking alone. I had music on. Fucking music on, and I was in the kitchen. I didn't hear anything until the screams. Wasn't her. She didn't have a chance to scream." "McNab." Roarke turned from the vending AutoChef at the tone of her voice. He was about to step in, draw her away when he saw the change.

She reached out, took one of his blood-smeared hands in hers, held it. "Ian," she said. "I need you to give me a report.

I know it's hard, but you have to tell me everything you know. I didn't get any details." "I… give me a minute. Okay? Give me a minute." "Sure. Here drink… whatever he's got here." "Tea." Roarke sat on the table in front of them, faced McNab. "Have a bit of tea now, Ian, and catch your breath.

Look here a minute." He laid a hand on McNab's knee until McNab lifted his head, met his eyes. "I know what it is to have the one you love, the only one, hurt. There's a war in your belly, and your heart's so heavy it doesn't seem as if your body can hold it. This kind of fear doesn't have a name. You can only wait with it. And let us help." "I was in the kitchen." He pressed the heels of his hands, hard, against his eyes. Then he took the tea. "Hadn't been more than two, three minutes since she told me she was a couple blocks away. Probably just got off the subway. I heard a woman scream, and shouts. I ran to the window, and I saw…" He used both hands to lift the tea, then drank it like medicine.

"I saw her lying, facedown. Head and shoulders on the sidewalk, the rest in the street. Two males and a female were running toward her from the northwest. And I saw caught a glimpse of a vehicle heading south at high speed." He stopped to clear his throat. "I ran down. I had my weapon and communicator. I don't know how, I don't remember. I called for assistance, and when I got to her, she was unconscious, and bleeding from the face and head. Her clothes were bloody, torn some." He squeezed his eyes shut. "She was bleeding, and I checked her pulse. She was alive. She had her weapon out and in her right hand. He didn't get her piece. The son of a bitch didn't get her piece." "You didn't see him." "I didn't see him. I got names and partial statements from the three witnesses, but then the MTs got there. I had to go with her, Dallas. I left the witnesses to the uniforms who responded. I had to go with her." "Of course you did. You get a make on the vehicle? Plates?" "Dark van. Couldn't tell the color, just dark. But I think black or dark blue. Couldn't see the plates, light was out on them. Witnesses didn't make it either. One of the guys – Jacobs he said it looked new, really clean. Maybe it was a Sidewinder or a Slipstream." "Did they see her assailant?" His eyes went flat again, and cold. "Yeah, they made him pretty damn good. Big, beefy guy, bald, sunshades. They saw him kick her, fucking stomp on her. They saw her lying on the ground and the bastard kicking her. Then he hauled her up, like maybe he was going to heave her into the back of the van. But the woman started screaming, and the guys shouted and started running. He threw her down. They said he threw her down and jumped into the van. But she got a shot off. That's what they told me. She got a shot off when he was throwing her down. Maybe it hit him. Maybe he staggered.

They weren't sure, and I had to go, go with her, so I couldn't follow up." "You did good. You did great." "Dallas." And now she saw he was struggling against tears. If he broke, she'd break. "Take it easy." "They said the medicals they said it was bad. We were riding in, they were working on her. They told me it was bad." Tm going to tell you what you already know. She's no pushover. She's a tough cop, and she'll come through." He nodded, swallowed hard. "She had her weapon in her hand. She kept her weapon." "She's got spine. Roarke?" He nodded, and, walking out to gather information, left her and McNab waiting alone.