“Record on,” she began.
“This is some sort of ridiculous mistake. I haven’t asked for a lawyer—yet—because I don’t want to make it more complicated. Now, I demand to see my son.”
“No. Shut up and listen, because this really isn’t going to take that long. And I’ve got things to do. We’ve confiscated all your electronics, and we already have all the data you accumulated on Deena MacMasters, Karlene Robins, Charity Mimoto, Elysse—well, you know who they are. You kept excellent records of your research, your video documentation. Oh, just for the hell of it, we’re throwing in the ID fraud charges and all that. We brought your workshop in, too. Plus, there’s the illegals. It just keeps piling on, Vance.”
“Look, you don’t understand.” He spread his hands, a man of perfect reason. “I have to see my boy. I have to make sure he’s all right. You . . . something’s wrong with him. I’m afraid he might have done something. He might have done something horrible. I’ve tried to take care of him, but he’s been—”
“Do you think I’m going to buy that bullshit?” She let her fury go, just go, and hauled him out of the chair. “You disgusting fucker. You made him, and now you’d let him fry. Just like you let her. To save yourself.”
She all but threw him back into the chair. “You have no idea what I’d like to do to you, with my bare hands. So don’t fuck with me. You made a monster out of him. You raped his mind, filled it with hate and loathing and lies. What makes people like you, fathers like you who’d do that to their children?”
She stepped away, stared at herself in the two-way mirror. Her heart beat too fast, and her hands wanted to tremble. It was getting away from her, she thought. She couldn’t let it get away from her.
She lifted one hand, laid her palm on the glass. A mirror on one side, a window on the other. And she imagined Roarke’s palm pressed to hers.
He knew her, she reminded herself. All there was. He was there, and he’d keep being there. She could handle this. She could handle anything.
Okay, she thought. I’m okay.
For another moment, she stared into her own eyes. “She didn’t love him either, or not enough. He was . . . secondary to her. It was all about you.” Steady again, she turned back. “She protected you and didn’t spare him a backward glance. And when you got over your head with the Stallions, you offered her. She was secondary to you, after your own ass. She was someone to be used. That’s all she was to you. A bargaining chip.”
“That’s not true.” He said it slowly, his voice thickening, his eyes taking on a sheen. “I loved my son’s mother.”
“You can’t even say his name. You don’t know which name to use. He never really had one,” she added. Neither had she. They hadn’t named her so she’d remain nothing.
“He told us everything.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh yes, he would.” Some of her fatigue came through, so she used it and angled it toward a kind of boredom. “In his twisted way, he was making you a hero.” She walked back, leaned down. “He was bragging about you, Vance. How you taught him everything, told him everything. How you found your targets together. How you did the stalking, the research, shared that with him. How you planned it all out.
“And even if I didn’t have all that—on the record . . .”
She began pulling items out of the box. “Discs—with data on the two people he murdered, the woman he tried to kill just today, on the one he planned to kill next week, and so on. On their families, their habits, their work, their friends.
“Very thorough.”
She pulled out stacks of photos. “Visuals of same—including the ones he took of Deena and Karlene after he’d finished with them, so he could share the triumph with you. There’s more. There’s so much more. It’s just a freaking banquet of evidence. I know an APA who’s going to be shedding tears of joy.”
“I can make a deal.” He gestured with his hands, like a politician, she thought, emphasizing a talking point. “There’s a lot you don’t know. I’ll give you information.”
“Gee, that’s some offer. But, no thanks. I’ve got more than I need, and jeez, it’s been a long day already. Your prints are all over this stuff. All over it.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I’m showing remorse. He pulled me into it. He’s my son, and he needed my help. I raised him on my own, just him and me. And losing his mother the way we did, it . . . marked us. I was going to talk him into turning himself in, to get help.”
“Would that be after he killed Judge Mimoto’s mother today, or maybe just one or two more?”
“I didn’t know about today. About Mimoto. I . . . thought he was at work. He consults for Biodent, he’s a data analyst. I thought he was at work.”
“Jesus, Vance.” She paused, let out a belly laugh. “You’re so completely screwed. You have today’s hit marked on your freaking datebook like a dentist appointment.”
“I couldn’t stop him.”
“Are you just going to keep throwing this shit at the wall until something sticks?”
“I never killed anybody. That has to mean something. I helped him, sure. Okay, I helped him set it all up, but that’s all. And I’m remorseful. You can cut me a break. I never killed anybody.”
“Yes, you did.” The fatigue vanished, the boredom flipped into icy rage. “And if I could, I’d charge you with the murder of Illya Schooner, and with a kid of about four who died and became what you wanted him to be. The only break you’ll get from me is the recommendation you be placed in a cage in another sector of Omega, so you never have contact with your son. Because he’ll figure it out sooner or later, I gave him a start on that today. And once he does, he’ll turn his talents on you. So the break you get, Vance? You live.”