Survivor in Death (In Death 20)

“That’s none of your—”

“Joshua.” Roxanne shook her head. “I need to sit down. Let’s just sit down.”

She turned into a living room showing the chaotic debris of young children, the comfortable wear of family. Roxanne sat, gripped her husband’s hand. “How do you know he did it? He’s gotten away with so much for so long, how do you know?”

“We have evidence linking him to the crimes. Those children, their parents, and a domestic were all murdered in their beds. Grant Swisher was your sister’s attorney in her divorce and custody case.”

“Six years ago,” she replied. “Yes, he could wait six years. He could wait sixty.”

“Do you have any idea where he is?”

“None. He leaves us alone now. He leaves us alone. We’re not important anymore. We don’t want to be.”

“Where’s your sister?” McNab demanded, and Roxanne jerked.

“She’s dead. He killed her.”

“We believe he’s capable of doing so.” Peabody kept her eyes level on Roxanne’s. “But he hasn’t. Not yet. What if he finds her before we find him? What if you have some information and refuse to cooperate with us, impede our investigation long enough for him to hunt her down?”

“I don’t know where she is.” Weary tears filled Roxanne’s eyes. “Her, my nephew, my niece. I haven’t seen them in six years.”

“But you know she’s alive. You know she got away from him.”

“I thought she was dead. For two years. I went to the police, but they couldn’t help. I thought he’d killed them. And then—”

“You don’t have to do this, Roxie.” Her husband drew her closer. “You don’t have to go through this again.”

“I don’t know what to do. What if he comes here? What if he does, after all this time? Our babies, Joshua.”

“We’re safe here.”

“You’ve got a good security system.” McNab drew Turnbill’s attention back to him. “So did the Swishers. The nice family on the Upper West Side he slaughtered. Their good security system didn’t help them.”

“We’ll help you,” Peabody assured them. “We’ll arrange for police protection for you, for your family. We took private transpo out of New York, under the radar. He doesn’t know we’re here. He doesn’t, at this time, know we’re looking for him. The longer it takes to find him, the better the chance he’ll know.”

“When will this be over?”

“When we find him.” McNab shut down on compassion as the tears slid down Roxanne’s cheeks. “We’ll find him sooner with your help.”

“Joshua. Please, would you get me some water?”

He studied her face, then nodded. “Are you sure?” he asked as he rose. “Roxie, are you sure?”

“No, but I know I don’t want to live like this.” She took slow breaths as he left the room. “It’s worse for him, I think. Worse. He works so hard for so little. We were happy in New York. Such an exciting city, full of so much energy. We both had careers we loved, we were good at

. We’d just bought a townhouse. Because I was pregnant. My sister . . .”

She trailed off, managed a smile when her husband came in with a glass of water. “Thanks, honey. My sister was damaged, I guess you could say. He damaged her. Years of abuse, physical, emotional, mental. I tried to get her to leave, to get help. I’d talk to her, but she was too afraid, or too entrenched, and I was the little sister who didn’t understand. It was her fault, you see. I did a lot of studying on battered syndrome in those days. I’m sure you’ve seen your share of it.”

“Too much,” Peabody agreed.

“He was worse than anything, than anybody. Not just because she was my sister. It’s not that he likes to cause pain, to harm. It’s that it means nothing to him. He might snap the bone in her finger for having dinner on the table two minutes late—according to his schedule—then sit down and eat a hot meal without a single flicker of emotion. Can you imagine living like that?”

“No, ma’am. No,” Peabody repeated, “I can’t.”

“She was property to him, Dian and the children. It was when he began to hurt the children that she was able to pull out of the mire. He’d already damaged them, too, but she thought she was protecting them, keeping the family together. He brutalized them, punishments, his brand of discipline. Solitary confinement, he’d call it, or he’d make them stand in cold showers for an hour, deny them food for two days. Once he cut off all of my niece’s hair because he said she’d taken too long brushing it. But then he began to beat Jack, my nephew. Toughen him up, he claimed. One day, when Roger was out, she found her son with Roger’s army-issue stunner. He’d put it on full, he was holding it here . . .”

She pressed her fingers to the pulse in her throat. “He was going to kill himself. This eight-year-old boy was going to end his own life rather than face another day with that monster. It woke her up. She left. She took the kids, nothing else. She didn’t even pack a bag. There were shelters I’d told her about, and she ran to one.”