Salvation In Death Part 13

Still, he smiled. "And how are you?"

"Okay. Didn't know you were home." She pulled on a robe. "I wanted a workout before I went up.""Then it must be time to go up." He took her hand, brushed her lips with his. Summerset's barometer was, as usual, accurate, Roarke thought.

Something was disturbing the lieutenant.

"I 've got to put a couple hours in."

He nodded, led the way to the elevator.

"The case is a b.i.t.c.h."

"They're rarely otherwise." He watched her as they rode to the bedroom.

"I don't even know who the vic was."

"I t's not your first John Doe."

"No. I t's not my first anything."

He said nothing, only moved to the wall panel to open it and select a wine while she grabbed pants and a s.h.i.+rt from her drawer.

"I 'm going to stick with coffee."

Roarke set her wine down, sipped his own.

"And I 'm just going to grab a sandwich or something. I need to do a search on the records I just got, do some cross-references."

"That's fine. You can have your coffee, your sandwich, your records. As soon as you tell me what's wrong."

"I just told you the case is a b.i.t.c.h."

"You've had worse. Much worse. Do you think I can't see you've got something knotted inside you? What happened today?"

"Nothing. Nothing." She scooped her fingers through the messy cap of hair she hadn't bothered to dry. "We've confirmed the vic isn't Flores, followed a lead that didn't pan, have a couple of others that may." She picked up the wine she'd said she didn't want, and drank as she K drad paced the bedroom. "Spent a lot of time talking to people who worked with or knew the vic, and watched the various degrees of meltdown when I informed them he wasn't Flores, or a priest."

"That's not it. What else?"

"There is no it."

"There is, yes." Casually, he leaned back on the dresser, took another sip of his wine. "But I 've time to wait until you stop being a martyr and let it out."

"Can't you ever mind your own business? Do you always have to stick your fingers in mine?"

p.i.s.sing her off, he knew, was a shortcut to getting to the core. His lips curved, very deliberately. "My wife is my business."

I f her eyes had been weapons, he'd be dead. "You can stick that 'my wife' c.r.a.p. I 'm a cop; I 've got a case. One to which, for a change, you have no connection. So b.u.t.t out."

"How's this? No."

She slammed down her wine, started to storm for the door. When he simply stepped into her path, her fists bunched. "Go ahead," he invited, as if amused. "Take a shot."

"I ought to. You're obstructing justice, pal."

In challenge, he leaned in a little more. "Arrest me."

"This isn't about you, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, so just move and let me work."

"And again, no." He caught her chin in his hand, kissed her with more force. Drew back. "I love you."

She spun away from him, but not before he saw both the fury and frustration on her face. "Low blow. f.u.c.king low blow."

"I t was, yes. Sod me, I 'm a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

She rubbed her hands over her face, raked them back through her damp hair. Kicked the dresser. Coming around now, he thought. He picked up her wine, crossed over to hand it back to her.

"I t doesn't have anything to do with the case, okay? I 'm just p.i.s.sed off it has a hook in me."

"Then take the hook out. Otherwise, aren't you the one obstructing justice?"She took a slow sip, watching him over the rim. "You may be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but you're a cagey one. Okay. Okay. We followed through on some information," she began, and told him about Solas.

"So I find myself thinking, this Lino or whoever the h.e.l.l he is, he may have killed Flores. Murdered him in cold blood for all I know. He was a killer."

"You established that?"

"He was Soldados. Bada.s.ses in El Barrio. He had the gang tat, had it removed before the ID. They were a New York gang back in the day, and his tat indicates he was high up the chain. He had the Soldados kill mark on the tattoo, so he killed, at least once."

"Harder, isn't it, when your victim had made victims?"

"Maybe it is. Maybe. But at least he did something about this, about this kid. He beat the s.h.i.+t out of Solas, protected the kid, when n.o.body else did, would. He got her out, got her away."

No one got you out, Roarke thought. No one got you away. Until you did it yourself.

"So we go to see the mother, get a gauge on whether she or the kidf.u.c.ker might've done Lino." Eve dug her hands into her pockets as she wandered the bedroom. "No chance on her, no way in h.e.l.l. I can see it as soon as I see her, shaking and shuddering at the thought the husband got out of Rikers. I wanted to slap her." Eve stopped, closed her eyes. "A slap's more humiliating than a punch. I wanted to slap her-and I guess I did, verbally."

He said nothing, waited for her to finish digging it out.

"She was there, G.o.dd.a.m.n it." Her voice rang with it, with the anger, the misery, the bitterness. "She was right there when that son of a b.i.t.c.h was raping the kid, over and over. She let him beat her, and that's her business, but she did nothing to help her own kid. Not a d.a.m.n thing. Didn't know, didn't see, oh my poor baby. And I don't get it. How can you not see, how can you not know?"

"I don't know. Maybe some don't see, refuse to know what they can't stand."

"I t's no excuse."

"I t's not, no."

"And I know it's not like me, it's not the same. My mother hated me, hated the fact of me. That's some-thing I remember, one of the few things I remember about her. I f she'd been there when he raped me, I don't think she'd have cared one way or the other. I t's not the same, but ..." She stopped, pressed her fingers to her eyes.

"I t pushed it back into your face," Roarke finished. "I t made it now again, instead of then."

"I guess."

"And wasn't it worse, isn't that what you think? Worse for this girl because there was someone there who should have seen, should have known, should have stopped it?"

"Yes, yes." She dropped her hands. "And I found myself detesting this pitiful, sad, terrified woman and giving props to a dead man I strongly suspect -h.e.l.l, I know-was a murderer."

"Giving him props for doing the right thing for a child isn't excusing the rest, Eve."

Calmer, she picked up her wine again. "I t got a hook in me," she repeated. "Later, the priest came back to see me. The real one. Lopez. There's something about him."

"Suspicious?"

"No, no. Interesting. King of ... compelling. He ..." I t struck her, shot out of far left and beaned her with insight. "He reminds me of you."

I f she'd fielded the ball and winged it straight into his face, he'd have been no less shocked. "Me?"

"He knows exactly who and what he is, and accepts it. He's tough and he gets your measure pretty d.a.m.n quick. Lino slipped by him, and that's in his craw. He takes responsibility, and he blurred the lines to do what he saw was right."

"All that?" Roarke asked.

"Yeah. He brought me information I needed, even though his superiors wanted to debate and stall on it. He went around them, followed his own code. Then I asked him-it didn't apply, I don't know why I asked him-what he did before he became a priest."

She sat now, had to sit now, and told him about Lopez and Annamaria.

"You thought of yourself again, of being trapped and defenseless all those years when your father beat you, raped you. And more, you thought of Marlena," Roarke added, speaking of Summerset's daughter.

"G.o.d." Her eye swam with the memories, the nightmares. "When he was telling me, I could see it. And I could see myself, that last time, in the room when he broke my arm, and was raping me, when I went crazy and killed him. I could see Marlena, and how it must have been when those men tookher to get at you, when they tortured and raped and killed her."

She rubbed away tears, but couldn't stop them. "And he's talking about visitations and miracles, and I 'm thinking: But what about before? What about the terror and the pain and the horrible helplessness? What about that? Because I 'm not dead, and I can still feel it. Do you have to be dead not to feel it anymore?"

Her voice broke. Roarke felt the crack in his own heart.

"And he asks me if I 've killed, and he knows the answer is yes because he asked me before. But then, he asks if I got pleasure from it. I said no, automatically. I 've never taken a life in the line, I 've never used my weapon as a cop for pleasure. But I wondered, for a minute, I had to wonder, did I feel it that night? That night when I was eight and I put the knife in him, when I kept putting it in him, did I get pleasure from that?"

"No." He sat beside her now, took her face in his hands. "You know better. You killed to live. No more, no less." He touched his lips to her forehead.

"You know better. What you're wondering, what you need to know, is did I find pleasure in killing the men who murdered Marlena."

"There'd have been no justice for her. They killed her-brutalized and killed her to strike at you-and they were powerful men in a corrupt time. No one stood for her. No one but you."

"That's not the point."

She laid her hands over his, joined them. "The cop can't condone vigilantism, can't condone going outside the law to hunt down and execute murderers. But the victim inside the cop, the person inside the cop understands, and more, believes it was the only justice an innocent girl would ever get."

"And still you won't ask what you need to know. Are you afraid you won't be able to stand the answer, and would rather not see? Rather not know?"

Her breath shuddered out. "Nothing you could say will change the way I feel about you. Nothing. So okay, I 'm asking. Did you get pleasure from killing them?"

His eyes stayed level on hers, so clear, so desperately blue. "I wanted to feel it, more than anything, I wanted to revel in it. I wanted to f.u.c.king celebrate their deaths-their pain, their end. For every second of pain and fear she'd had. For every second of life they'd taken from her, I wanted it.

And I didn't. I t was duty, when it came to it. Not revenge, but duty, if you can understand that."

"I guess I can."

"I felt the anger, the rage, and maybe at the end of it, that lessened a bit. I can kill with less pain than you-for you feel it, even for the worst of them.

We don't stand in the same precise spot on moral ground, on everything. And because I don't believe we must to be what we are to each other, I wouldn't lie to spare your feelings. So if I 'd felt pleasure from it, I 'd say it. Neither did I feel, nor do I now feel, a single drop of regret."

She closed her eyes, resting her brow to his as another tear slid down her cheek. "Okay. All right."

He stroked her hair as they sat, as she calmed. As she came back. "I don't know why I let myself get twisted up this way."

"I t's what makes you who you are. A good cop, a complicated woman, and a pain in the a.s.s."

She managed a laugh. "I guess that's about right. Oh, and about what you said before? I love you, too."

"Then you'll take a blocker for the headache, and have a decent meal."

"How about I have a decent meal first, and see if that takes care of the headache, which isn't so bad anymore, anyway?"

"Fair enough."

They ate where they'd shared breakfast, in the bedroom sitting area. Because she'd dumped on him, Eve thought it only fair to bring him up to date on the case. For a civilian, he had a sharp interest-and sharp sense-of cop work.

Besides, she knew he'd programmed cheeseburgers for the same reason some people offered an unhappy kid a cookie. To comfort her.

"Don't I rish gangs go for tats?" she asked.

"Sure. At least back when I was running the streets."

She c.o.c.ked her head. "I know your skin intimately. No tats on you."

"No, indeed. Then again, I wouldn't consider my old street mates and a.s.sociates a gang. T oo many rules and regs with gangs, to my way of thinking, and that constant cry to defend the home turf as if it's holy ground. They could've taken my square of Dublin back then and burned it to ashes for all I cared. And tattoos-as you've so recently proven-are an identifying mark, even when removed. And the last thing a young, enterprising businessman, with brains, wants is an identifying mark."

"You got that, which is why Lino had it taken off. The marks it leaves are so faint, it's not going to pop to the naked eye so much-and not at all to the casual glance. Even if it's noticed, it can be explained away-and was-as a youthful folly."

"But it gives you another point of reference toward his ident.i.ty." He took a thoughtful bite of his burger. "What sort of burke marks himself with an Xto announce he's killed? And what sort of killer values ego above his own freedom?"

She gestured with a fry. "That's gang mentality. But still, can't take an X to court. What I need to know is why he left his beloved turf-for how long- and why he needed to a.s.sume another ident.i.ty to come back. I t tells me he did something-and something major-after the Clemency Order was revoked, or after he reached legal age."

"You believe he killed Flores."

"Had to be before that. As far as we can track, Flores was out West. Why was Lino out West? And since I 'm not going to buy Lino decided to spend the rest of his life pretending to be a priest, there's a reason he came back under that cover, and an endgame. Patience."

"I 'd say there's a score involved."

She nodded. "Money, jewels, illegals-which translate back to money. Enough so this g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ger from Spanish Harlem could afford expensive face work, top-grade ID. Enough that he's got to go under for a solid stretch of time, either because it's too hot, or because he's going to take that stretch of time to get the whole pie." She narrowed her eyes. "I need to do a search for major heists, robberies, burglaries, illegal deals between six and eight years ago. Maybe six and nine, but that's the cap. And run the baptism records. Then I need to find a cop who worked that sector back when Lino would have been an active member of the Soldados. Somebody who'd remember him, give me a picture."

"Why don't I take the first search? I so enjoy heists, robberies, and burglaries. And I did deal with dinner, so deserve a reward."

"I guess you did, and do." She sat back. "How big a b.i.t.c.h was I when I got home?"