New York to Dallas (In Death 33)

She used the wrist unit her husband had given her, engaged its communicator. “Carmichael, I want you and Sanchez to cover the rear of the building. Uniforms on the way for backup. Baxter, you and Trueheart will go in with me and Peabody. Body armor. He’ll be expecting us.”

She shook her head, ripped through the narrow opening between two Rapid Cabs. “He won’t be there. No way he’s going to trap himself. He knows I’ll come, and won’t come alone.”

“Maybe that’s what he wants you to think, and it’s a trap.”

“We’re about to find out.”

She studied the building, one of the cavernous homes that had survived the Urban Wars, and had been converted into apartments. It had seen better days—its better days had passed a century before—but it held up with its faded pink bricks and ornately grilled windows.

Its main entrance opened directly onto the sidewalk and had minimum security. Working-class neighborhood, Eve thought, as it had been during McQueen’s reign. Most of the residents came home at the end of the day, settled back with a brew and some screen, and minded their own business.

So McQueen had been able to mind his for nearly three years. And the lives of twenty-six girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen had been forever scarred.

“He’s got the privacy screen up,” Eve said. “If he’s up there, he knows we’re here. He’d have made contacts, friends, in prison. He’s charming, engaging, sly. It’s possible he got his hands on something more long-range than a knife. Keep down. Move fast.”

She checked in with Carmichael, gave the go.

Blanking out memories, she moved, taking point up the stairs, weapon drawn. Throat dry, mind cold.

“Let me scan the door.” Peabody pulled out her PPC. “He might’ve rigged it.”

“It opens on a living area, kitchen behind, eating area to the right. Two bedrooms, one right, one left. Bathroom attached to the one on the right. Half-bath left of the kitchen. It’s a big unit, about five hundred square feet.”

“Scan reads clear,” Peabody told her.

“Baxter, straight back. Trueheart, Peabody, go left. I’m right.” She nodded to Trueheart and the battering ram. Counted from three down with her fingers.

The door crashed on its hinges, locks snapping. Eve went in low and fast, focused on the now, not the then. She heard the rush of feet as her team poured into the room.

She shoved open the bedroom door, swept with her weapon. She saw the figure on the bed, but continued to clear—left, right, closet, bath as she heard her team members call, “Clear!”

“In here,” Eve shouted, and now moved to the bed.

“You’re okay. It’s okay. We’re the police.”

She loosened the gag around the woman’s bloody, swollen mouth. The sounds she made were incoherent moans and whispers.

He’d stripped her; his pattern there hadn’t changed. Before Eve could give the order, Trueheart, his young, handsome face radiating compassion, lifted the thin bedspread from the floor to cover her shaking body.

“You’re going to be all right now,” he said gently. “You’re safe now.”

“He hurt me. He hurt me.”

Peabody moved in, pulling the knotted sheet McQueen had used to bind the woman’s hands from the hook screwed into the wall. “He can’t hurt you now.” Then she sat, drawing Julie against her to let her weep.

“He swore he wouldn’t hurt me if Tray did what he said, but he did. He did. He raped me, and he hurt m

e. And he did this to me.”

Eve had already seen it, tattooed in bloody red over Julie’s left breast, caged in a perfect heart.

“Bus is on the way,” Baxter told Eve. He angled away from the woman sobbing in Peabody’s arms, spoke quietly. “They’ll have a rape counselor on the other end. Do you want me to call the sweepers to go through the place?”

It wouldn’t matter, she thought. He wouldn’t have left anything behind he hadn’t intended to. But she nodded. “Let the boyfriend know she’s safe. He can go with her to the hospital. You and Trueheart step out, please. Peabody, get Julie some clothes. You can’t put them on yet.” She stood at the foot of the bed, waited until Julie met her eyes. “They’ll have to examine you first, and we’re going to have to ask you questions. I know it’s hard. You should know Tray did everything he could to get to me as fast as possible, to get me back here.”

“He didn’t want to leave. He begged him to let me go instead. He didn’t want to leave me.”

“I know. His name is Isaac McQueen. He told you something, Julie, something he wanted you to pass on to me.”