New York to Dallas (In Death 33)

Track and trace.

He jumped out of the car before he reached the hotel door. Dragged out his ’link. He tried her first, on the run, got her voice directing him to leave a message.

“Sir!” the doorman called after him as he bolted toward the doors. “Your vehicle—”

“Contact the police,” Roarke ordered when he’d reached the security station at the elevator. “Lieutenant Ricchio. Now! And send a team, armed, to my rooms. Now, goddamn it.” He flew into the elevator, drew the weapon from the holster at the small of his back.

He might’ve prayed, but only a single word sounded over and over in his head.

Eve.

She screamed. The pain was so huge, filled everything. He struck her, again and again, and pressed against her. Hard against where she knew he would push into her, tear her, hurt her. Again.

And this time he’d kill her. She saw it on his face.

Her father’s face.

“That’s right, scream. Nobody can hear you. You’re going to scream when I fuck you. That’s right, that’s right.” He tore at her clothes. “I’m going to fuck you, then I’m going to kill you. Who’s lucky now, bitch? Who’s lucky now?”

“Please, don’t! It hurts.”

“Beg some more.” He panted it out, thrilled. “Cry like a little girl. A bad girl.”

“I’ll be good! Don’t, please, don’t.”

When he struck her again, her vision doubled. She tried to claw at him, wild with pain and terror. He howled when she raked her nails down his face. Howled, reared back.

In her mind she felt him shove himself inside her. In reality his hands closed around her throat, shutting off her air.

Her free hand flailed out—helpless, hopeless—and closed over the knife.

She brought it down, felt the warm blood run. Coughing, choking, gagging, she brought it down again.

Then she was free, somehow free, kneeling beside him, her injured arm hanging uselessly, and the knife clutched in her hand. The knife poised over him.

“Eve!”

Roarke’s heart stopped. Later he would think that for an instant his heart simply stopped beating in the violent collision of relief—she was alive—and the horror of what he saw in that room.

“Eve!”

Her head whipped toward his, her face bruised, bloody, and the eyes he knew so well feral. Once again the cat, loyal to the last, stood beside her butting his head to her bloody hip. When Roarke stepped forward, she bared her teeth, made a sound like a snarl.

“I know who you are. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.” He prayed now, prayed he wouldn’t have to stun her to save her. “Look at me. See me. He can’t hurt you now, Eve. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. That’s who you are. That’s who you made yourself. Eve. My Eve.”

“He comes back.”

“Not this time.”

“He hurts me.”

“I know. Not anymore. Eve. I’m what’s real. We’re what’s real.”

If she brought that knife down, put it in him, she’d never be able to live with it, never come back from it. They’d have beaten her—her father, her mother, the excuse for a man bleeding on the floor.

“He’s Isaac McQueen. He’s not your father. You’re not a child. You’re Lieutenant Eve Dallas, NYPSD. You need to take charge of your prisoner, Lieutenant. You need to do the job.”

“The job.” She sobbed in a breath. “It hurts. It hurts.”