“Contact your cousin.” Eve gestured to the desk ’link. “I’d like to speak with him.”
“I don’t know how to contact him. I don’t know where he is.”
“When’s the last time you saw or spoke to him?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure.” She sat, hugged her elbows. “I barely knew him. He spent more time with Nash. Kyle’s a nomad, he travels. He stayed with us, worked with us for a short time years ago when he was between missions. My brother Monty went to Africa, Lieutenant. He died there.”
“No, he didn’t. Your brother Monty fit in nowhere, was troubled, was shy of people, and could never compete with either you or Nash. He developed an attachment, an unhealthy one, for Shelby Stubacker, one she probably initiated, one she certainly exploited.”
She didn’t pause when Peabody slipped in.
“And when she’d gotten what she wanted from him—his assistance in getting her cleanly out of the system—she cut him off. Being a kid, being a tough kid, she probably did or said something that hurt him, that pissed him off, that made him feel worthless.”
“No, no. No. He would have talked to me.”
“Talked to his sister about the thirteen-year-old giving him blow jobs? I don’t think so. Now he’s ashamed. He knows he’s done something bad, something against the code, against all of his upbringing. And it’s her fault. It’s Shelby’s fault. One of the bad girls,” she added, thinking of what Lonna remembered.
“She needs to be punished, or saved, or both. He needs to make it right, to . . . wash it away. And the night he plans to do this, she comes in—to his home, to The Sanctuary—because this place, this bright, clean, new place isn’t his—he’s waiting. She thinks it’s hers, that she’ll have her bad girl club there, but she won’t. Even though she comes in with another girl, she won’t make it hers.”
“You can’t know this, believe this. You can’t.”
“I can see it,” Eve countered. “I can put together everything I know, and see it. She probably tells him to get lost, but he’s ready for that. Probably put the sedative in some brews. He knows she’ll barter for that, let him stay if he gives her something in return.”
Yes, she could see it. The big, empty building, the young girls, the man with his offering. And with his mission.
“They’ll take the beer. They’ve got snacks they bought at the market next store, so they eat, they drink, Shelby probably shows off the place, talks about her plans with this other girl, this pretty Asian girl. They start to feel off, and by the time they understand, if they ever did, it’s too late. They pass out.”
“Please stop.” Tears rolled. “Please.”
“Over the next couple weeks, other girls come, or he brings them in himself. He knows his avocation now, his mission now. He knows enough carpentry to build the walls. I imagine he took pride in it, made sure he did good work. He’d never be alone. They’d be with him, in the home he made. Something of his.
“But the night DeLonna sneaks out, and comes there looking for Shelby, it doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to. Nash comes, Nash sees. Nash doesn’t understand.”
“DeLonna. She never—”
“Yeah, she did.” Eve placed the flats of her hands on the desk, leaned in. “She wanted to see Shelby, so she climbed out her bedroom window one September night and went to the old building. I found her, and she remembers most of it. She’ll remember more. That night your older brother found your younger brother in the building. They shout, they fight, your brothers, when Nash finds DeLonna, drugged, naked, the tub filled and waiting for her. You tell me what Nash would have done if he found his brother about to drown a young girl, a young girl in your care.”
“It couldn’t—it would have broken his heart. I’d have known.”
“Not if he didn’t want you to know. He’s supposed to protect you, he’s in charge. This terrible thing was happening when he was in charge. His brother is the one who’s broken. He brought DeLonna, still unconscious, back when he’d taken care of Monty, dressed her in her nightclothes, closed her window. And he said nothing to you.”
“No, she has to be mistaken.” But both doubt and horror crept into Philadelphia’s voice.
“He never told you. How could he? You could never know the terrible thing your brother had done, the terrible thing he’d had to do to the youngest of you. So he told you he’d sent Monty to Africa.”
“But no. No. Monty told me he was going to Africa.” Hope rose in her voice, into her eyes. “You’re wrong, you see? Monty came to me, said Nash was sending him. He was afraid, and he cried, asked me to let him stay. Nash and I argued about it.”
Eve’s eyes sharpened. “When was this?”
“Just days before. Just days before he left. Nash was absolutely unyielding, so unlike himself, and pushed it all through so quickly. He said Monty had to go, for his own sake. Something about it being the only way, the only choice. He wouldn’t even let me go with them when he took Monty to the transpo center.”
“Was Kyle still here?”
“No. No . . . ah . . .” Little hitches of fear came back to bounce in her words. “I think he’d left a day or two before, but I don’t really remember. It was an upsetting time. I felt we were sending Monty off to strangers, to a place he
didn’t know, to try to be something he couldn’t be. But he did so well. Nash was right. He—”
“It was never him. It was Kyle. You didn’t tell me any of this, the argument, the upset about leaving.”