“Eve.”
“No, you just listen. There was this girl—you know, sometimes I think fate just slaps something down in front of you and makes you deal. Her arm was in a skincast. Her father had broken it.”
“Oh, Christ.”
“She talked to me; I talked back. I can’t remember exactly. My head was buzzing and my stomach was clenched. I was afraid I’d be sick right there, or just fucking pass out. But I didn’t. I got through it.”
“You don’t ever have to go back again.”
She shook her head. “Just wait. I dropped Peabody at home, saw Mira, came here. I needed sleep. I thought I would just sleep, but it caught up with me. It was bad, you know it was bad. But you don’t know that in the nightmare I was back there, in the shelter. With all those battered women, all those broken kids. And they’re asking me why I didn’t stop it, why I let it happen.”
She held up a hand so he wouldn’t interrupt, though she saw her own pain reflected on his face. “He was there. I knew he’d come. He said there’d always be more. More of him, more of them. I couldn’t stop it. When he reached for me, I wasn’t me anymore. I mean not who I am now. I was a kid. He broke my arm, just like before, and he raped me, just like before.”
She had to pause, had to wet her throat with wine. “But here’s the thing. I killed him, just like before. And I’ll keep killing him, as long as it takes. Because he’s right. There’s always more of them—the brutal and the battered. There’s always more, and I can’t stop it all. But I can damn well do the job and stop some of it. I have to.”
She let out a breath. “I can go back there. I want to go back there, because I know when I do I won’t be scared or sick—or if I am, it won’t be as much, as bad. I’ll go there because I can see what you’ve done, what you’re doing, is another way to stop it. Her arm was broken, but it’ll heal. So will she, because you’ve given her a chance.”
It took him a moment, a long moment, before he could speak. “You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.”
“Yeah.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “We’re a hell of a pair.”
Chapter 6
Eve took a detour to EDD. It was always a culture shock for her to walk into a division where cops dressed like partygoers or weekend loafers. Lots of airboots and neon hues, and as many people walking or trotting around talking on headsets as manning cubes and desks.
Music blatted out, and she actually saw a guy dancing, or she assumed it was dancing, while he worked with a handheld and portascreen.
She made tracks through the bull pen and directly into Captain Ryan Feeney’s office, where she expected to find sanity.
She lost the power of speech when she saw him, the reliable Feeney, with his fading vacation tan, his wiry ginger hair threaded with gray. His face was comfortably creased and droopy, but instead of one of the rumpled shirts he habitually wore, he was decked out in a stiff and spotless one the color of raspberry sherbet.
And he had on a tie. A tie. The closest she could come to describing the color was what you might get if you electrocuted grass.
“Jesus Christ, Feeney. What’re you wearing?”
The look he sent her was that of a man bearing up under a hideous emotional weight. “Wife said I needed to start wearing color. Bought this getup then hung over me, nagged my ears off until I put it on.”
“You look . . . you look like a manager for street LCs.”
“Tell me. Look at these pants.” He shot out a leg so Eve was treated to the sight of that skinny limb wrapped in modified skin-pants in the same electric shade as the tie.
“God. I’m sorry.”
“Boys out there think I look iced. What’re you going to do?”
“I don’t honestly know.”
“Tell me you’ve got a case for me, something that’s going to take me out in the field where I can get bloody.” He lifted his fists, a boxer’s pose. “Wife can’t bitch if these glad rags get ruined on the job.”
“I’ve got a case, but I’ve got no fieldwork in the E area. Wish I could help you out. Can’t you at least take that noose off?”
He tugged at the tie. “You don’t know the wife like I do. She’ll call. She’ll be doing a damn spot-check on me all through shift to make sure I’m suited up. It’s got a jacket, Dallas.”
“You poor bastard.”
“Ah well.” He let out a heavy sigh. “What’re you doing in my world?”
“The case. Sexual homicide with mutilation.”