‘Oh? I’ll kiss it better.’ He was grinning as he crossed to her. Then the grin faded. ‘You’ve been eating without asking again, haven’t you? Haven’t you?’
‘No, I—’ But the lie, and the hope to evade both died as his hand swiped hard over her face. Her lip split, her eyes watered, but she barely winced. ‘I was going to fix some cheese. A snack for when you—’
He hit her again, hard enough to make stars explode inside her head. She went down this time, and before she could scramble up, he was on her.
Screams, her screams, because his fists were hard and merciless. Pain, blinding, numbing pain that was nothing beside the fear. The fear because however horrible, this would not be the worst he did to her.
‘Daddy, please. Please, please.’
‘Have to punish you. You never listen. Never fucking listen. Then I’ll give you a treat. A nice big treat, and you’ll be a good girl.’
His breath was hot on her face and somehow smelled like candy. His hands tore at her already tattered clothes, poking, squeezing, invading. His breathing changed, a change she knew and feared. It became shallow, greedy.
‘No, no, it hurts, it hurts!’
Her poor young flesh resisted. She batted at him, screaming still, was driven beyond fear to claw. His cry of rage bellowed out. He twisted her arm back. She heard the dry, hideous sound of her own bone snapping.
‘Lieutenant. Lieutenant Dallas.’
The scream ripped from her throat and she came to, swinging blindly. In wild panic she scrambled up, her own legs tangling and taking her to the floor in a heap.
‘Lieutenant.’
She reared away from the hand that touched her shoulder, huddled back as sobs and screams knotted in her throat.
‘You were dreaming.’ Summerset spoke carefully, his face impassive. She might have seen the realization in his eyes if her own hadn’t been clouded with memory. ‘You were dreaming,’ he repeated, approaching her as he would a trapped wolf. ‘You had a nightmare.’
‘Stay away from me. Go away. Stay away.’
‘Lieutenant. Do you know where you are?’
‘I know where I am.’ She got the words out between quick gulps of air. She was freezing, boiling, and couldn’t stop the tremors. ‘Go away. Just go away.’ She made it as far as her knees, then covered her mouth and rocked. ‘Get the hell out of here.’
‘Let me help you to the chair.’ His hands were gentle, but firm enough to keep hold when she tried to shove him away.
‘I don’t need help.’
‘I’m going to help you to your chair.’ As far as he was concerned, she was a child now, a wounded one who needed care. As his Marlena had been. He tried not to think if his child had begged as Eve had begged. After he put her in the chair, he went to a chest, drew out a blanket. Her teeth were chattering and her eyes were wide with shock.
‘Be still.’ The order was brisk as she began to push up. ‘Stay where I’ve put you and be quiet.’
He turned on his heel, striding into the kitchen alcove and the AutoChef. There was sweat on his brow and he dabbed at it with a handkerchief as he ordered a soother. His hand was shaking. It didn’t surprise him. Her screams had chilled him to the bone and brought him to her suite at a dead run.
They’d been a child’s screams.
Steadying himself, he carried the glass to her. ‘Drink it.’
‘I don’t want—’
‘Drink it, or I’ll pour it down your throat, with pleasure.’
She considered knocking it out of his hand, then embarrassed them both by curling into a ball and whimpering. Giving up, Summerset set the drink aside, tucked the blanket more securely around her, and went out with the object of contacting Roarke’s personal physician.
But it was Roarke himself he met on the landing.
‘Summerset, don’t you ever sleep?’
‘It’s Lieutenant Dallas. She’s—’
Roarke dropped his briefcase, grabbed Summerset by the lapels. ‘Has she been hurt? Where is she?’
‘A nightmare. She was screaming.’ Summerset lost his usual composure and dragged a hand over his hair. ‘She won’t cooperate. I was about to call your doctor. I left her in her private suite.’
As Roarke pushed him aside, Summerset grabbed his arm. ‘Roarke, you should have told me what had been done to her.’
Roarke merely shook his head and kept going. ‘I’ll take care of her.’
He found her curled up tight, trembling. Emotions warred through him, anger, relief, sorrow, and guilt. He battled them back and lifted her gently. ‘It’s all right now, Eve.’
‘Roarke.’ She shuddered once convulsively, then curved into him as he settled back in the chair with her on his lap. ‘The dreams.’
‘I know.’ He pressed a kiss to her damp temple. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘They come all the time now, all the time. Nothing stops them.’
‘Eve, why didn’t you tell me?’ He tipped her head back to look at her face. ‘You don’t have to go through this alone.’
‘Nothing stops them,’ she repeated. ‘I couldn’t not remember anymore. And now I remember all of it.’ She rubbed the heels of her hands over her face. ‘I killed him, Roarke. I killed my father.’
Chapter Thirteen
He looked into her eyes, felt the tremors that still shook her. ‘Darling, you had a nightmare.’
‘I had a flashback.’
She had to be calm, had to be to get it all out. To be calm and rational, she had to think like a cop, not like a woman. Not like a terrorized child.
‘It was so clear, Roarke, that I can still feel it on me. Still feel him on me. The room in Dallas where he’d lock me. He’d always lock me in wherever he took me. Once I tried to get away, to run away, and he caught me. After that, he always got rooms high up, and locked the door from the outside. I never got to go out. I don’t think anyone even knew I was there.’ She tried to clear her raw throat. ‘I need some water.’
‘Here. Drink this.’ He picked up the glass Summerset had left beside the chair.
‘No, it’s a tranq. I don’t want a tranq.’ She let air in and out of her lungs. ‘I don’t need one.’
‘All right. No, I’ll get it.’ He shifted her, rose, caught the doubt in her eyes. ‘Just water, Eve. I promise.’
Accepting his word, she took the glass he brought back and drank gratefully. When he sat on the arm of the chair, she stared straight ahead and continued.
‘I remember the room. I’ve been having part of this dream for the past couple of weeks. Details were beginning to stick. I even went to see Dr. Mira.’ She glanced over. ‘No, I didn’t tell you. I couldn’t.’
‘All right.’ He tried to accept that. ‘But you’re going to tell me now.’
‘I have to tell you now.’ She took a breath, brought it all into her mind as she would any crime scene. ‘I was awake in that room, hoping he’d be too drunk to touch me when he came back. It was late.’
She didn’t have to close her eyes to see it: the filthy room, the blink of the red light through the dirty windows.
‘Cold,’ she murmured. ‘He’d broken the temperature control, and it was cold. I could see my breath.’ She shivered in reaction. ‘But I was hungry, too. I got something to eat. He never kept much around. I was hungry all the time. I was cutting the mold off some cheese when he came in.’
The door opening, the fear, the clatter of the knife. She wanted to get up, pace off the nerves, but wasn’t sure her legs were ready to support her.
‘I could see right away that he wasn’t drunk enough. I could see. I remember what he looked like now. He had dark brown hair and a face gone soft from drinking. He might have been handsome once, but that was gone. Broken capillaries in his face, in his eyes. He had big hands. Maybe it was just because I was small, but they seemed awfully big.’
Roarke lifted his hands to her shoulders, began to massage the tension. ‘They can’t hurt you now. Can’t touch you now.’
&
nbsp; ‘No.’ Except in the dreams, she thought. There was pain in dreams. ‘He got mad because I’d been eating. I wasn’t supposed to take anything without asking.’
‘Christ.’ He tucked the blanket more securely around her because she was still shivering. And found he wanted to feed her, anything, everything, so she would never think about hunger again.
‘He started hitting me, and hitting me.’ She heard her voice hitch, made the effort to level it. It’s just a report now, she told herself. Nothing more. ‘Knocked me down and hit me. My face, my body. I was crying and screaming, begging him to stop. He tore my clothes and rammed his fingers in me. It hurt, horribly, because he’d raped me the night before and I was still hurting from that. Then he was raping me again. Panting in my face, telling me to be a good girl and raping me. It felt like everything inside me was tearing. The pain was so bad I couldn’t take it anymore. I clawed at him. I must have drawn blood. That’s when he broke my arm.’
Roarke stood abruptly, paced away, jabbed the mechanism to open the windows. He needed air.
‘I don’t know if I blacked out, maybe for a minute, I think. But I couldn’t get past the pain. Sometimes you can.’
‘Yes,’ he said dully. ‘I know.’
‘But it was so enormous. Black, greasy waves of pain. And he wouldn’t stop. The knife was in my hand. It was just there, in my hand. I stabbed him with it.’ She let out a shuddering breath as Roarke turned to her. ‘I stabbed him, and kept stabbing him. Blood was everywhere. The raw, sweet smell of it. I crawled out from under him. He might have been dead already, but I kept stabbing him. Roarke, I can see myself, kneeling, the hilt in my hand, blood past my wrists, splattered on my face. And the pain, the rage pounding at me. I just couldn’t stop.’
Who would have? he wondered. Who could have?
‘Then I pulled myself into the corner to get away from him, because when he got up, he’d kill me. I passed out or just zoned, because I don’t remember anything else until it was daylight. And I hurt - I hurt so bad, everywhere. I got sick. Really sick, and when I was finished, I saw. I saw.’
He reached down for her hand, and it was like ice, thin, brittle ice. ‘That’s enough, Eve.’
‘No, let me finish. I have to finish.’ She pushed the words out as though she were shoving rocks off her heart. ‘I saw. I knew I’d killed him, and they’d come for me, put me in a cage. A dark cage. That’s what he’d always told me they did if you weren’t good. I went in the bathroom and washed off all the blood. My arm - my arm was screaming, but I didn’t want to go in a cage. I put on some clothes and I put everything else that was mine in a bag. I kept imagining he was going to get up and come for me, but he stayed dead. I left him there. I started walking. It was early, early in the morning. Hardly anyone was out. I threw away the bag, or I lost it. I can’t remember. I walked a long way, then I went into an alley and hid until night.’
She rubbed a hand over her mouth. She could remember that, too, the dark, the stench, the fear overriding even pain. ‘Then I walked more, and kept walking until I couldn’t walk anymore. I found another alley. I don’t know how long I stayed there, but that’s where they found me. By then, I didn’t remember anything - what had happened, where I was. Who I was. I still don’t remember my name. He never called me by my name.’
‘Your name’s Eve Dallas.’ He cupped her face in his hands. ‘And that part of your life is over. You survived it, you overcame it. Now you’ve remembered it, and it’s done.’
‘Roarke.’ Looking at him, she knew she had never loved anyone more. Never would. ‘It’s not. I have to face what I’ve done. The reality of it, and the consequences. I can’t marry you now. Tomorrow I have to turn in my badge.’
‘What insanity is this?’
‘I killed my father, do you understand? There has to be an investigation. Even if I’m cleared, it doesn’t negate the fact that my application for the academy, my records, are fraudulent. As long as the investigation is ongoing, I can’t be a cop, and I can’t marry you.’ Steadier, she rose. ‘I have to pack.’
‘Try it.’
His voice was low, dangerous, and it stopped her. ‘Roarke, I have to follow procedure.’
‘No, you have to be human.’ He strode to the door and slammed it shut. ‘Do you think you’re walking out on me, on your life, because you defended yourself against a monster?’
‘I killed my father.’
‘You killed a fucking monster. You were a child. Are you going to stand there, look me in the face, and tell me that child was to blame?’
She opened her mouth, closed it. ‘It’s not a matter of how I see it, Roarke. The law—’
‘The law should have protected you!’ With visions dancing evilly in his head, he snapped. He could all but hear the tight wire of control break. ‘Goddamn the law. What good did it do either one of us when we needed it most? You want to chuck your badge because the law’s too fucking weak to care for its innocents, for its children, be my guest. Throw your career away. But you’re not getting rid of me.’
He started to grab her by the shoulders, then dropped his hands. ‘I can’t touch you.’ Shaken by the violence that spewed up in him, he stepped back. ‘I’m afraid to put my hands on you. I couldn’t stand it if being with me reminded you of what he did.’
‘No.’ Appalled, it was she who reached out. ‘No. It doesn’t. It couldn’t. There’s nothing but you and me when you touch me. It’s just that I have to handle this.’
‘Alone?’ It was, he realized, the most bitter of words. ‘The way you had to handle the nightmares alone? I can’t go back and kill him for you, Eve. I’d give everything I have and more if I could do that one thing. But I can’t. I won’t let you deal with this without me. That’s not an option for either of us. Sit down.’
‘Roarke.’
‘Please, sit down.’ He took one cleansing breath. She wouldn’t listen to anger, he decided. Nor, from him, to reason. ‘Do you trust Dr. Mira?’
‘Yes, I mean—’
‘As far as you trust anyone,’ he finished. ‘That’ll do.’ He walked over to her desk.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m going to call her.’
‘It’s the middle of the night.’
‘I know what time it is.’ He engaged the ’link. ‘I’m willing to abide by her advice on this. I’m asking you to do the same.’
She started to argue but found no solid ground. Weary, she dropped her head into her hands. ‘All right.’
She stayed there, barely listening to Roarke’s quiet voice, the murmured responses. When he came back to her, he reached out a hand. She stared at it.
‘She’s on her way. Will you come downstairs?’
‘I’m not doing this to hurt you or make you angry.’
‘You’ve accomplished both, but that’s not the main issue here.’ He took her hand and drew her to her feet. ‘I won’t let you go, Eve. If you didn’t love me or want me or need me, I would have to. But you do love me and want me. And though you still have difficulty with the concept, you need me.’
I won’t use you, she thought, but she said nothing as they went downstairs.
It didn’t take Mira long. In her usual manner, she arrived promptly and perfectly groomed. She greeted Roarke serenely, took one look at Eve, and sat.
‘I’d love a brandy, if you wouldn’t mind. I believe the lieutenant should join me.’ As Roarke saw to the drinks, she looked around the room. ‘What a perfectly lovely home. It feels happy.’ She smiled, cocked her head. ‘Why, Eve, you’ve changed your hair. It’s very flattering.’
Baffled, Roarke stopped, stared. ‘What have you done to it?’
Eve lifted a shoulder. ‘Nothing, really, just . . .’
‘Men.’ Mira took her brandy, swirled. ‘Why do we bother? When my husband fails to notice a change, he always says it’s because he adores me for me, not for my hair. I usually let him get away with it. Now then.’ She sat back. ‘Can you tell me?’
&
nbsp; ‘Yes.’ Eve repeated everything she’d told Roarke. But it was the cop’s voice now, cool, composed, detached.
‘It’s been a difficult night for you.’ Mira skimmed her gaze over Roarke. ‘For both of you. It might be hard to believe that it will begin to be better now. Can you accept that your mind was ready to deal with this?’
‘I suppose. The memories started coming more clearly, more often after that—’ She closed her eyes. ‘A few months ago I answered a domestic disturbance call. I was too late. The father was on Zeus. He’d hacked the little girl to death before I got in. I terminated him.’
‘Yes, I remember. The child, she might have been you. Instead, you survived.’
‘My father didn’t.’
‘And how does that make you feel?’
‘Glad. And uneasy, knowing I have that much hate in me.’
‘He beat you. He raped you. He was your father and you should have been safe with him. You weren’t. How do you believe you should feel about that?’
‘It was years ago.’
‘It was yesterday,’ Mira corrected. ‘It was an hour ago.’
‘Yes.’ Eve looked down at her brandy and squeezed the tears back.
‘Was it wrong to defend yourself?’
‘No. Not to defend. But I killed him. Even when he was dead, I kept killing him. This - blinding hate, uncontrollable rage. I was like an animal.’
‘He had treated you like an animal. Made you an animal. Yes,’ she said at Eve’s shudder. ‘More than stealing your childhood, your innocence, he stripped you of your humanity. There are technical terms for a personality capable of doing what he did to you, but in simple English,’ she said in her cool tones, ‘he was a monster.’
Mira watched Eve’s eyes dart to Roarke, linger, drop away.
‘He took your freedom,’ she continued, ‘and your choices, marked you, branded you, defiled you. You weren’t human to him, and if the situation hadn’t changed, you might never have been more than an animal if you had survived at all. And yet, after you escaped, you made yourself. What are you now, Eve?’
‘A cop.’