Delusion in Death (In Death 35)

She rose again, still restless. “I can live with the nightmares. I can beat them. I did it before, and they were worse. But Roarke … I don’t know why, but I think it’s harder on him now. Harder to deal with them, with me.”

“He couldn’t confront her either. And he lived through this experience in Dallas with you. He loves, Eve, and those who love suffer when who they love suffers.”

“I know it. I see it. I’m here because I know it, I see it. And it pisses me off she’s causing me more trouble dead than she did alive. I have faces of so many dead in my head. I can live with them. I did my best by every one of them when they came to me. I can live with her, too. But I don’t want her to have this power, to make me weak.”

And there, Mira thought. “Do you think having nightmares makes you weak?”

“It does. You said it yourself.”

“I said vulnerable. There’s a difference, a considerable difference. Without vulnerabilities, you’d be brittle, inflexible, cold. You’re not. You’re human.”

“I don’t want to be vulnerable to her.”

“She’s dead, Eve.”

“God.” A little sick, she pressed her hands to her face. “I know it. I know it. I stood over her body. I examined it, determined cause and time of death. I worked it. And yes, she’s still …” She searched for the term. “… viable. Enough so when I dream about her, I’m afraid, and angry. She looks at me, she knows me, and something clutches in my gut.

“I’m part of her. That’s how it works, isn’t it? What a woman eats, whatever she puts in her body goes into what’s growing inside her. What’s in her blood. They’re attached until the cord’s cut. She was broken, so wouldn’t something be broken in me?”

“Do you think every child born inherits all the flaws and virtues of the mother?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Sit a moment. Sit.”

When she did, Mira reached over, took Eve’s hand so their eyes stayed level. “You aren’t broken, Eve. You’re bruised, and still healing, but you’re not broken. I’m a professional. You can trust me.”

Though it made Eve laugh a little, she shook her head.

“They did break you, all those years ago when you were only a child—innocent, as you said, defenseless. And you took what was broken and put it back together, made it strong, gave it purpose. And you let it love. You’re more your own woman than any I’ve ever known—that’s a personal and professional observation.”

“I need to end her. I know I need to end her. I won’t have Stella in my head, and I won’t have her bringing my father back.”

“Coming here? You’ve taken steps to doing just that. Tell me, I asked you once before if you knew why you called her Stella, and him your father. Do you know the answer now?”

“I thought about it, after you said something. I didn’t realize I was doing it. But I think … What he did to me, what he did to a child—his own child? I think he was an evil man. I don’t like using that word because it’s sort of clichéd, but he was. But …”

Because her throat was dry, Eve gave in, picked up the tea, and drank.

“I was hungry a lot, but I never starved. I was cold a lot, but I always had clothes. I learned to walk, to talk—I don’t remember, but he must’ve done that. It wasn’t because he cared. I don’t think he was capable of genuine feelings. But he didn’t hate me. I was a commodity to him, a tool he could use and abuse, one he hoped to train to bring in money. I was with him until I killed him. He raped me and fed me, he beat me and he put clothes on my back. He terrorized me and put a roof, of some sort, over my head. He wasn’t my father the way Leonardo is to Belle, or Mr. Mira is to your children, or Feeney or any normal man is. But he was my father, and I accept that.”

“You’ve come to terms with it.”

“I guess. She left me with him, without a thought. And my memories of her are less detailed, less clear. But the ones I have are of her hurting me, in small, sneaky ways. Ugly ways. Slaps and pinches, shoving me into a closet in the dark, not feeding me and saying she had. And her looking at me with naked hate. She was capable of feelings. They might have been selfish and twisted, but she had feelings, emotions. And for me, there was hate.

“If he’d been the one to leave, she’d have killed me. Smothered me or locked me up to starve. She was capable of that, because she had feelings. She was my mother, that’s a fact. But I won’t call her that. Maybe it’s some small way, some little step toward trying to end her.”

“Good,” Mira assured her. “That’s good.”

“I’ve been thinking about them, both of them, a lot the last few days. I should’ve known something was building up. I just wanted to work it out on my own some more first, but I should’ve come to you before.”

“You came when you were ready.”

“Roarke was ready,” Eve replied, and made Mira laugh.

“You might have come for him, but you wouldn’t have talked to me the way you did if you weren’t ready, too.”

“It’s annoying that I feel better. Because he boxed me into this,” she explained. “That makes him right. I have to report to Whitney.”