“Yes. If Elisa Maplewood was symbolic rather than target specific, his work isn’t finished. He’s organized enough to have his next victim in mind already. He’d study her habits, her routines, and strategize the best way to take her.”

“Her father looked like a possibility, for about ten seconds. He’s got a sheet, but reports are he’s out of town. Verifying that, but it doesn’t feel like it was personal on that level.”

“Because of the symbols.” Mira nodded. “Yes, I agree, unless you find those symbols relate between father and daughter. Probabilities would be he didn’t know Maplewood on that personal a level, but only what she symbolized to him.”

“I’m going to run probabilities. We’re tracking down the ribbon. It’s a good lead.” But she brooded. “What do you think of psychics?”

“Well, as I have a daughter who’s a sensitive . . .”

“Oh yeah. Right.” She brooded a moment more while Mira waited patiently. “I had a visit this morning,” she began, and told her of Celina.

“Do you have any reason to doubt she was telling the truth?”

“Other than a reluctance to believe in woo-woo, no. She’s checking out. It’s a little annoying to admit that she’s the best lead I’ve got.”

“You’ll speak with her again?”

“Yeah. Personal prejudices and reluctance don’t belong on the job. If she’s a lead, I’ll use her.”

“There was a time you were nearly as reluctant to consult with me.”

Eve flicked a glance up, shrugged. “Maybe for the same reasons. You always saw too damn much to suit me.”

“Maybe I still do. You not only look exhausted, Eve, you look sad.”

There was a time she’d have shrugged that off as well, and walked out. But she and Mira had come a long way. “Turns out Louise Dimatto knows the psychic. Old pals. I needed to talk to her about it. She’s doing duty at Dochas today.”

“Ah.”

“That’s a shrink trick. Ah.” She set the tea aside, rising to pace the office, to jingle loose credits in her pockets. “And it works. It’s an amazing thing Roarke’s done, and only more amazing—to me—when you get down to the reasons he did it. Some for himself, sure, seeing as he was kicked around plenty as a kid. Some for me—more, for me—because of what I went through. But altogether more for us. Because of who and what we are now.”

“Together.”

“Jesus, I love him more than . . . it shouldn’t be possible to feel this way about someone. And still, knowing what he’d done there, knowing it was important to him I have some part in it, I’ve avoided going there.”

“Do you think he doesn’t understand why?”

“Another thing that shouldn’t be possible is the way he understands me. It’s a good place, Dr. Mira, and the name is right on target. And I was sick the whole time I was there. Sick in my heart, in my gut. Sick and shaky and scared. I wanted to walk out, away from those women with their bruises, those kids with their helpless faces. One of them had a broken arm. One of the kids. A girl, about six. I’m not good with kids’ ages.”

“Eve.”

“I could feel the bone snap. Could hear it. And it took everything not to just go down to my knees and scream.”

“And you’re ashamed of that?”

Shame? She wasn’t sure. Was it shame she felt, or anger, or some nasty brew of both? “You’ve got to get over it, sometime.”

“Why?”

Stunned, Eve turned back, stared. “Well . . . because.”

“Overcoming and getting over are two very different things.” Mira spoke briskly now because she wanted to get up, to go over, to draw Eve into a hug that wouldn’t be appropriate, or understood. “Yes, you should strive to overcome. To survive, have a life, to be happy, to be productive. You’ve done all that, and a great deal more. But no, you’re not required to get over it. To get over being beaten and abused and raped and tortured. You ask more of yourself, Eve, than you ask of anyone else in the world.”

“It was a good place.”

“And in this good place you saw a child someone had tried to break. It hurt you. But you didn’t walk away.”

She sighed, sat again. “Peabody caught a drift. When we’re out, she does the pal thing, offers to listen if I need to dump. So how do I respond to that?”

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net