?
?I will.” She sat at the conference table and used both hands to lift the mug. Her rings clinked lightly against the cheap stoneware. “I took a soother after we spoke last night. Didn’t help very much. I took another right before I came in. That doesn’t seem to be doing the job either. What I’d like to do is tranq myself into a coma. But I’m not sure that would help either.”
“It wouldn’t help Lily Napier.”
“That’s her name?” She drank. Paused. Drank again. “I didn’t turn on the media reports this morning. I was afraid I’d see her.”
“You saw her last night.”
Celina nodded. “It was worse than the last one. What I mean is, for me. I’m not equipped for this.”
“It’s very difficult for someone with your gift to witness or experience violence,” Peabody said, and was rewarded with a grateful smile.
“Yes. God, yes. It’s not that I experience the same extent—the full physical extent of the violence as the victim, but enough. And if . . . when you’re linked, psychically, the emotions reverberate in you. I know how she suffered. I’m alive. I’m alive and whole and drinking coffee, while she’s not. But I know how she suffered.”
“Tell me what you saw,” Eve ordered.
“It was . . .” Celina held up a hand, as if halting everything until she gathered herself. “The other time, it was like a dream. A vivid and disturbing dream, but something I could dismiss as just that. Until I saw the media reports. This was more. I wouldn’t have, couldn’t have mistaken it for anything but a vision. One of the most powerful I’ve ever had. It was like being there. Walking alongside her.
“She walked quickly, with her head down.”
“What was she wearing?”
“Ah, dark skirt—black, I think—short. A white shirt. Long sleeves, open collar, and a little cardigan-style sweater over it. Flat shoes with thick soles. Gel-soles, perhaps. She barely made a sound. She had a bag. A small purse she wore on a strap over her shoulder.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Dark. I don’t know. She didn’t know he was there, waiting, inside the park. In the shadows. He was dark, everything about him is dark.”
“Skin? Is he black?”
“No . . . I. No, I don’t think. I see his hands when he strikes at her. They’re white. Glossy and white and big. Very big. He struck her in the face. There was horrible pain. Horrible, and she fell, and the pain went away. She . . . passed out. I think. He hit her, kept hitting her even when she was unconscious. In the face, in the body.
“ ‘See how you like it. See how you like it.’ ”
Celina’s eyes went glassy, the pale, pale green of the irises nearly translucent. “ ‘Who’s the boss now? Who’s in charge now, you bitch?’ But he stops, he stops beating her, slaps her cheeks lightly with those big hands. Bringing her around. She needs to be awake for the rest. There’s such pain! I don’t know, don’t know if it’s his or hers, there’s so much pain.”
“It’s not your pain,” Peabody said quietly and shook her head before Eve could speak. “You’re a witness, and you can tell us what you see. It’s not your pain.”
“Not mine.” Celina breathed in deep. “He tears her clothes. She can’t fight, barely struggles. And when she tries to push at him, he yanks her hand away. Something in her breaks. She’s confused, the way an animal’s confused when it’s caught in a trap. He rapes her, and it hurts. It hurts deep inside. She can’t see him. It’s too dark and the pain is overwhelming. She goes under again. It’s safer there, there’s no pain there. She doesn’t feel when he kills her. Her body reacts, convulsing. And that . . . there’s a thrill in that for him. Her death throes bring him to orgasm.
“I’m sick.” Celina pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m sick. I need to—”
“Here, come on.” Peabody was up, drawing Celina to her feet. “Come with me.”
As Peabody helped her out of the room, Eve pushed away from the table. She walked to one of the windows, shoved it open so she could lean out. Lean out and breathe.
She understood the nausea all too well. What it was like to see, again and again. To feel, over and over. And the sickness that came with it.
She let the air and the noise, the life of the city, push it out of her again. She watched an airtram crammed with commuters streak by, and an ad blimp hover, spewing out its announcements for sales, events, tourist packages.
Her legs felt watery yet, so she stayed where she was, listening to the click of chopper blades, the blast of horns from the street below, the rattle of an airbus.
It all teemed together, a cacophony that was a kind of music to her. A song she understood, and one that gave her a sense of place.
She was never really alone in the city. Never helpless with her badge.
Remembering pain, knowing its source, could make her stronger. It was good to know that.