Echoes in Death (In Death 44)

While her head banged from the crying jag, it was a comfort to rest it on his shoulder. “I have so much to do.”

“And you’ll do it. You’ll tell me how I can help.”

“If I’d caught this case three years ago. February, three years ago, right before you? I think it would have broken me. I think it might have been the end of me. Now it just … Maybe it bruises some, but it won’t break me. It won’t because you hang on when I have to let go.”

“Tell me what you can.”

“There’s a lot. Starting with the victims this morning. What he did to them … Well, it’s right there, on the board. Reveled in it, I think. More than before, even more. Because taking those lives, that was the grand finale—isn’t that the term—he’d missed that before. He didn’t realize he’d missed that, and now he knows.”

She started to get up, settled back when he held her against him. Yes, she thought, stay for now.

“He’s made moves—virtually and face-to-face—with other women. Before the first assaults, between assaults. It fed the beast just enough.”

She ran it through for him, through to the trip with McNab to the destroyed drop ’link while she sat in his arms with the fire crackling.

“He may be able to salvage something,” Roarke said. “But isn’t the question: How was it all timed so very well?”

“Yeah, that’s the question. It’s arrogance. It’s finding himself in the spotlight, feeling invincible. He likes to taunt—and that taunt was for me—for the cops, but I think for me. Female cop.”

“All that’s difficult, but it’s not altogether what tied you into knots.”

“The finish was Daphne Strazza.”

She closed her eyes, told him.

“Nobel’s right. She’s dangerously fragile right now, struggling just to get through one day to the next. She’s so damaged she doesn’t know how to make a decision, is so indoctrinated she can’t make one without being told. I know what it’s like. I remember what it’s like when you’re so terrified of making the smallest mistake you do nothing. And still it’s not right. I saw her face when her sister came in. Her first reaction was raw fear. Not of her sister. Maybe for her, not sure.”

“You think Strazza threatened to hurt her family, used that as another level.”

“I think it’s possible—probable. The fear was the first reaction, instant, ingrained. Then she flinched, jerked back like she’d been slapped when the sister said Strazza was dead. Period. It’s almost as if she didn’t completely understand it or believe it until that moment. Then she let go. What I saw in the sister was someone who knew how to hang on, to hold on.”

She turned her face into his throat. “I saw myself, and you. What it is to have that, to be stunned you do. I saw love, and a chance to heal.

“It took brutality to give her that chance. It took brutality to give me mine. Fighting that understanding, that mirror I see when I look at her, is exhausting.”

“Why would you fight it?”

“I have to be objective to do the job, and if I don’t do the job, do it right, another couple could end up on that board.”

“Darling Eve.” He stroked her hair, pressed his lips to it. “It’s the blend of your objectivity, observations, instincts, and your empathy for the victim that makes you what you are. It’s that very blend that’ll lead you to the answers, lead you to him.”

“I hope to Christ you’re right. Because they’re leading me. In a couple of directions, but they’re leading me.”

“Then we’ll follow. But first, you’ll eat.”

She started to dismiss that as a matter of course, then realized she felt steady again. And surprisingly hungry.

“Actually, I could. I had the worst pocket of something earlier.” She eased back, smiled at him. “I could eat actual food of pretty much any kind.”

“That’s quite an opening. I’ll surprise you.” He shifted, pulled a little case out of his pocket, flipped it open. “Take a blocker for that miserable headache, and don’t be a baby about it. Then, half a glass of wine, I think, to smooth out the edges. You’ll work better for it.”

She took the blocker, deciding to reserve judgment on the wisdom of the wine when he wandered back into his office.

And came out with a box wrapped in silver paper.

“I think this is the right time.”

She looked at the box, at him. “Come on. Wasn’t it just Christmas?”