something was and isn’t now, and what it likely would’ve been. Forensic-wise, we’ll have enough to put the bastard away for twice as long as we already did, but nothing right yet to tell us where he’s running.”
“Maybe he said something to one of the vics,” Eve speculated. “Maybe he didn’t figure on them getting out, not alive, and he likes to show his intellect. I’m going in to talk with them, maybe I’ll get something.”
She walked out and up to Roarke who’d found a corner to work on his PPC.
“The feds should be getting the data about now,” he told her. “Feeney and I have a long jump on them, though I’ll do better when I’m back at the hotel office, using that equipment.”
“We’re done here, for now. You can go back, dig into it.”
He tracked his gaze to hers, held it. “I’m with you, Lieutenant. I’ve already made that clear. You need to stop at the hospital, talk with Melinda and Darlie.”
“Yeah, but I want to do something first.” She shook her head to hold off questions. “On the way.”
Outside, she took a scan of the street. The lookie-loos and bystanders had dispersed—by boredom, she expected. Cop work was long and tedious, and most civilians lost interest pretty fast.
But not her civilian.
“Did you pay off the kid, the airboard kid?”
“I did, yes, and someone named Ben for the loan of his truck.”
“Put in a chit for expenses. I’ll make it good.”
“One way or the other,” he said casually as they got in the car. “Where are we going?”
“I need to go back to her place. They’ll have done a search by now, taken the electronics, whatever other evidence they turned up. But people miss things, especially when they’re not sure what they’re looking for.”
“And you do?”
“No, but I think I’ll know it when I see it. I need to go there, for the job. And I need to go there for me.”
“Then why would you suggest I go back to the hotel?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She felt that hard bubble pushing up toward her throat. “I don’t know. Don’t make me think about it yet.”
He took her face in his hands. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go. I’ll be with you wherever that is. All right?”
“Yeah.” She fought for composure and won it when he pulled away from the curb. “I’m sorry about before. I don’t even really remember what I’m sorry about. But just to clear it.”
“We’re not something that needs to be cleared. You wanted to get under my skin so you could be angry with me, find some release there. And so I’d be angry with you and leave you alone.”
“I guess that’s probably it.”
She stretched out her legs, rolled her shoulders, circled her neck. It felt as if her body and everything in it was coiled to the point of aching.
“I did okay with her, with the interview. I handled it okay. I’ve gone back over it, and over it, and maybe I could’ve done better. But you always look back when it doesn’t work out the way you wanted and think you could’ve done it better. It was after, when I was afraid something was going to break, I shored it up by taking a kick at you.”
“Well, I kicked back, didn’t I?”
“I knew you would. I didn’t even mean it, about the stupid money and dying anyway. It was stupid, and I knew it would hurt you. I didn’t even think about it. It was like a reflex.”
He turned his head, looked at her tense, tired face. “You’ve had a miserable fucking day.”
“Yeah, real red letter. I met my mother. I arrested her, put her in the hospital. I grilled her. I found her body, and started the murder book on her. Miserable fucking red-letter day.”
“I contacted Mira.”
She swiveled toward him. “What?”
“I don’t give a rat’s damn if that pisses you off. You need her. She’s on her way.”
“You don’t—”
“I need her, goddamn it.”
Her eyes widened, blinked once at the short, violent explosion. Stupid, she realized, not to have expected it, not to have seen it coming. Stupid not to understand she wasn’t the only one coiled like a spring.
“Okay.”
“I know what I want to say to you,” he said, calmer now. “Do for you, but I don’t know if it’s right. I also know this isn’t about me, but anything that hurts you pulls me in. And this . . . well, that’s for later. You need to handle this, finish it. I understand that. Mira can help you. She can help both of us.”
She didn’t speak for a minute, had to settle the storm inside her—a pretty close twin to his, she imagined.
“You’re right. It’s good she’s coming. It’s just . . . once I start talking about it, it’s real. There’s no more sliding in this block that says it’s a case to be worked. Nothing more, nothing less.”
She sat, studying the duplex, when he stopped.
“It’s a nice place. I was thinking when we were watching for her, how it was a nice neighborhood. Not McQueen’s kind of place. Too suburban, even though it’s one good spit from the action. Not her kind of place either, with kids on bikes and guys fooling with flowers. But he wanted her out of her element, a little off balance. She’d be grateful every time he let her come to him.”
Let her think of it as a case for as long as she could, Roarke thought. A reckoning was coming soon enough.
“Why did she do it? Devote herself to him?”
“It wouldn’t have lasted, even without the knife across the throat. She’d have gotten twitchy, moved on. But he made her feel important. He treated her good—she said. He bought her things, I imagine, and the illegals. I think we may find he set up her source here in Dallas, to keep her happy. Maybe paid for them, or a portion of them.
“Anyway.”
She got out of the car. She saw the door of the neighboring unit crack open, and held up her badge.
A woman Eve pegged as late twenties came out.
“There were other police here. They just left a little while ago. They said Sylvia was arrested.”
“That’s right.”
“I just don’t understand it. Bill up the street said there were cops all over, and little Kirk almost got run over. I was at work, and when I came home it was just crazy.”
“Have you lived here long?”
“Four years. My sister and I. What about Sandra?”
“Sorry?”
“Sylvia’s sister. Sandra Millford. Is she in trouble, too?”
“You could say that. Were you friendly?”
“We try to be, Candace and I. And I guess we thought, when they moved in, being sisters like us, we’d get together a lot. Hang.” She shrugged it off with a glance toward the neighboring unit. “But they were always too busy. We stopped asking them over. They didn’t spend a lot of time at home anyway, not really.”
“Ever have any visitors?”
“I can’t say I ever saw anybody come by and pay a call. But Sylvia was involved with someone.”
“Oh?”
“A woman doesn’t dress like that unless it’s for a lover. And I overheard her talking on the ’link just yesterday, now that I think about it. Sitting outside, and I was, too, having some coffee. The way she laughed, the tone of her voice. There was somebody. What did she do?”
“She aided and abetted in the escape from prison of a dangerous felon. She aided and abetted in the abduction of two people, one a minor female for this dangerous felon who is a violent pedophile.”
Eyes wide, mouth open, the woman rubbed at her throat. “Well, oh my God.”
Eve took out her PPC, brought up McQueen’s photo. “I don’t think he’ll come around here, but if he does, stay inside and contact the police.”
“I saw him on the media reports! Oh my God. Sylvia’s involved with him?”
“She was. He killed her a couple hours ago.”
“Oh. Oh.” She backed up a pace, slapping both hands to her heart. “Sandra? Her sister?”
