“A crime had been committed.”
“Absolutely. I just wonder if it might have been simpler and cleaner to stand the kid on his head, so to speak, at home initially rather than having him surrounded by badges and reports.”
“We rarely torture minors these days. They break down so easy, it’s not much fun.”
“Torture has a different definition for a boy of twelve. But . . .” He shrugged his shoulders, elegantly. “That’s hardly to our point, is it? It seems a relatively small occurrence to go to such trouble to lock away.”
“Cogburn was brought in, ID’d, charged,” Eve continued. “But the parents had flushed the evidence. Cogburn maintained that he’d been drinking in a bar at the time the kid stated the buy went down. Bartender backs Cogburn. Probably bullshit. Places like that will back Jack The Ripper if Jack spreads enough grease. Dwier messed this up.”
Annoyance edged her voice. “He shouldn’t have charged Cogburn so fast. Why didn’t he work him first, work the bartender? Hang back, scope out his routine, snatch him up doing another deal? Pop a charge on him like that, he lawyers up, clams up. He knows Dwier’s got nothing but the kid’s word. And see here, you’ve got the Child Services report. Clarissa Price. Says the minor was reluctant, defiant, uncooperative. Confrontational with parents. Recommends family counseling and yadda-yadda. Dwier needed to sweat Cogburn because his witness was hostile and worthless.”
“Which is something like saying his back was up. Look further,” he said before she could snarl at him, “into the CS report. Price states the boy’s schoolwork has been in steady decline. His attitude at school, and at home, poor. Brooding in his room, picking fights. And so on. The root of the problem wasn’t in buying the Jazz, the root was in the boy, and at home.”
“Maybe so, but the result was the parents overreacted, the cop jumps too fast, social worker mouths platitudes, and the system fails the kid.”
“Is that how you see it?”
“I see Dwier didn’t do his damn job on this one, but I don’t know how I see the whole picture.” She studied the data, absently twirling a lock of Roarke’s hair around her finger. “I know they’re seeing the last part. System fails. But you’re right, this isn’t enough to hide. So there’s more. Let’s dig into Fitzhugh’s sheet.”
Roarke found more blocks there as well. But he had the groove now and broke them quickly. “Minor complainants, Jansan, Rudolph . . . ah here we are. Sylvia and Donald Dukes, filing on behalf of their fourteen-year-old son, Devin.”
“Yeah, yeah, CS rep, Price, investigating officer DS Dwier. Click, click, click.”
“There’s a—”
“No talking,” she ordered.
“Touché,” he retorted, and sat back to watch her work.
“Kid ends up at the health center this time. Sodomized, facial bruising, sprained wrist. Tox report . . . got himself Jazzed again, and chased it with alcohol. Got some body piercing now. Cock and nipple ornaments. Dwier catches it again. But look here, Price tagged him, specifically. Something going on between them.”
She pulled out her memo book, began to take notes as she scanned data. “Doctor determines rape—Stanford Quillens. We’ll see if he pops up again. But they don’t shake Fitzhugh’s name out of the kid for twenty-four hours. Doesn’t want to talk about it. Why do they think you want to talk about it? Gang up on him at home the next day. Price, Dwier, the parents, rape counselor, who’s this? Marianna Wilcox. Should’ve gotten a male counselor. He doesn’t want to spill this to a female. Are they just stupid? Computer, copy text of victim interview to my home unit.”
But she read it through from where she stood. It gave her a sour taste in the mouth, a greasy feeling in the gut. So many of the questions were familiar. The same had been asked of her once.
WHO DID THIS TO YOU?
WE WANT TO HELP YOU, BUT YOU NEED TO TELL US WHAT HAPPENED.
YOU’LL FEEL BETTER ONCE YOU GET IT OUT.
“Bullshit, bullshit, you don’t feel better. Sometimes you never feel better. Why don’t they say it like it is? You’ve been fucked over, kid, and we’re real sorry we have to fuck you over again. Tell us how it was, and don’t spare the details, so we can write it all up and make it real all over again.”
“Eve.”
She shook her head fiercely. “They’ve got good intentions. Most of them anyway. But they don’t know.”
“This boy isn’t like you.” He was standing behind her now, laid his hands on her shoulders and began to rub. “He’s troubled, and looking for trouble. I know about that. Surely he got more than he deserved in that area, but he isn’t like you.”
She calmed, leaned back against him. “Not like you either. You were smarter, meaner, and you weren’t gay.”
“No arguing with that.” He kissed the top of her head. “His confusion over his sexuality is likely the cause for most of his behavior and the consequences of it.”
“That and his parents. You got Donald here, eight years military service. Marines. Once a marine, always a marine. Mom takes the professional mother route. They put you in private schools, three in five years. Pull you out into home schooling two months before the incident with Fitzhugh. He’s got a kid brother here. Three years younger. No problem there, at least that’s showing up on personal data. But they yank him into home schooling, too. Taking no chances.”
“You did note the father’s profession?”
“Yeah, computer scientist. Click, click.” She turned away to get her coffee, remembered it was wine. Frowning a little, she settled for it.
“Devin rolls on Fitzhugh, claims he was picked up at a club after he snuck out of the house. Admits he showed fake ID, admits he was a little buzzed, and that Fitzhugh says how he’s having a party at his place. He goes with him. Most of that’s probably solid, but then it gets smokey. He claims Fitzhugh got him stoned, but the tox level’s too low for the way he plays it. He was zonked, didn’t know what was going on. Fitzhugh got him into the playroom, got him in restraints. He tried to get away, but Fitzhugh overpowered him, knocked him around, then raped him.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time. Wolves hunt sheep. It’s their nature.”
“But it didn’t go down like that here. Dwier had to know it didn’t go down just like that. Maybe it was rape, kid was a minor so consensual or not, Fitzhugh’s a pig. But he didn’t knock Devin around. The father did. You look at Fitzhugh’s sheet. He never beat on his victims. He didn’t use force. He used persuasion, bribery, threats. Trying to make the case with force was one of the reasons they lost him.”
“So you read this as Dwier, probably along with the Dukes and Price, tried to build their case out of straw, and the wolf blew it down.”
She sat on the console. “Lies, half-truths, and lousy police work. I guess that’s straw. I’ll tell you how it went down. Kid sneaks out of the house. Probably he’s done it dozens of time. They try to cage him in, but he’s not having it. He’s not his goddamn father. He’s not his angel-face baby shithead brother. He heads to a club that caters to same-sex orientation. He’s not looking for a girl. Fitzhugh’s trolling and smells fresh meat. Buys the kid a drink, maybe offers him some illegals. Come up to my place, there’s more where that came from. Kid keeps the nice, steady buzz going, and Fitzhugh does what Fitzhugh does. Buzz is wearing off.”
“It’s no prettier a picture painted your way.”
“No prettier,” Eve agreed. “But it’s the right picture. Kid’s fourteen. He’s angry, he’s confused, he’s ashamed. He goes home, sneaks back in. But he’s busted. He smells of the alcohol and the sex, and the father loses his temper. Grabs him by the wrist, slaps him. Tears, shouts, recriminations. Probably some name-calling the father regretted after. Take him to the health center, order him to say the minor injuries were a result of the sexual assault. He’s caused the family enough trouble, damn it, and he’s going to do what he’s told.”
“And in the end,” Roarke continued, “it fell apart. Fitzhugh walked, b
ecause among other things, the others were too busy protecting their image.”
“Yeah, which makes me feel better about going over to their place tomorrow and questioning the family. They won’t be the only ones. Let’s find the others.”
“I’ve set up the search already, adding in George’s file.” He smiled at her, moved in, nudging her knees apart so he could fit his body between them. “It’ll mark blocked sealeds, and I’ve input the series of commands to bypass the block, open the seal.”
“Busy fingers.”
“And they’ve life in them yet.” He slid them under her shirt. “It’ll take a bit of time to finish tasking. Just, I’d say, enough time.”
“I’m on duty.”
“Me, too.” He eased in and found, with his mouth, the spot just under her jawline he liked best. “Why don’t you give me an order, Lieutenant?” His fingers skimmed over her breasts, her sides, and around her back to dance along her spine.
The thrill rushed after them. She knew what he was doing—washing away the shadows of the picture they’d just painted. Bringing up the strong, clear colors of their own.
“Cut that out.” She angled her head so his lips could trail up. “In a minute.”
“That’s pushing even my speed and agility, but we’ll start with a minute.” He caught her earlobe between his teeth. “And see how it goes.”
Her brain was starting to fog up, her body starting to rev. “God, you’re good at this.”
“Is that going into my official file as a . . .” His mouth found hers, sank in. “. . . expert consultant, civilian?”
“I’ll keep it in my personal records.” Her breath caught. How the hell had he gotten her shirt off so fast? “This is . . . we can’t do this on a command console.”
“I think we could.” He’d already unhooked her trousers. “But it does lack a little something. Hitch on,” he said, and gave her hips a boost until her legs were wrapped around his waist.
“Minute’s gotta be up,” she whispered, but couldn’t resist nibbling at his throat.
“Let’s see if we can make time stop.”
He opened a wall panel. A bed slid out. When he tumbled her to the mattress, she kept her legs and arms hooked around him and used the momentum to roll on top of him.
“It’s going to be fast,” she warned him.
“I can live with that.”
She tore open his shirt, ran her hands in one hard sweep over his chest, then lowered to scrape her teeth over flesh.
The taste of him was already a part of her, lived inside her. Still she always wanted more. And took more, crushing her mouth to his until the heat drenched her.
She could feel it pump from him, from her as mouths and hands turned greedy. It fueled her, pulsing through her system like a slap of adrenaline.
When he flipped her to drag at her trousers, she dragged at his. Her heart hammered under his restless mouth. His muscles tensed under her impatient hands.
They tugged, pulled, yanked and ripped so that she was naked and laughing when she rolled again to straddle him. Laughter became a purr of pleasure as she took him inside her.
She clenched around him and drove him mad with need. Rearing up, he clamped his mouth on her breast, sucking her in until it felt as though he could feed on her heartbeat. The flavor, the heat, the scent of mate. She arched, letting him fill her.
Then began to move.
She drove him back, braced her hands on either side of his head and used her hips to set a furious pace.
The thrill, the dark and dangerous edge of it, sliced through him. Her face was alive, so alive with purpose and pleasure. And she rode him as if their lives depended on it.
The air thickened, his vision dimmed. She was a blur of white and gold.
“You go over.” Her voice was raw. “You let go.”
His body plunged to hers. He thought it was like being swallowed alive. He heard her cry out as she dived after him.
He drew her down, drew her in while they drifted back.
“Sex is funny,” she murmured.
“I’m still laughing.”
She snorted and turned her face into the side of his neck for a moment. “Yeah, that was a really good joke, but I meant sometimes it knocks you flat so you feel like you could sleep for a month. Other times it pumps you up so you feel like you could run a marathon. I wonder why that is?”
“I couldn’t say, but I have a feeling this one falls into the latter category.”
“Yeah, I’m stoked.” She shifted, planted a quick, hard kiss on his mouth. “Thanks.”
“Oh, whatever I can do to help.”
“Well, you can get your great-looking ass up so I can see the rest of the data.” She sucked in a cheerful breath, then rolled away. “I want coffee.”
“It’s going to be a long night. Why don’t we get some of that cake to go with it?”
She grabbed her shirt. “Good thinking.”
Between the sex and caffeine, her energy level stayed high until after three A.M. She had six more names on her list, and had no doubt there were more. The game plan was already formed in her head.
She’d start in the morning with the Dukes.
When she reached for yet another cup of coffee, Roarke simply pushed it out of her reach. “You’re cut off, Lieutenant, and going off duty.”
“I’ve got another hour in me.”
“You don’t, no. You’ve gone pale, which is a sure sign you’ve hit the wall. You need some sleep or you won’t be sharp tomorrow. You’ll have to be if you’re going to do what I assume you’re going to do and push for interviews with these families. Will you take Peabody?”
He asked more to distract her than a need to know. He shut down the equipment, slid an arm around her waist.
“I’ve been going back and forth on that. If I take her, I’m putting her in the squeeze. If I don’t, she’ll be pissed and sulk. She’s really annoying when she’s sulking.”
He had her in the elevator before she realized it. Which proved, she supposed, that she’d lost her edge for the night.
“I guess I’ll leave it up to her. Or maybe I’ll . . .”
“Decide in the morning,” he finished, and steered her off to bed.
Chapter 14
McNab wasn’t having much luck shutting down for the night. He felt restless and useless lying in bed. In the dark. More aware of the numb parts of him than the rest. Counting off his own heartbeats. Like they were ticks of a clock, he thought, tick-tocking off the rest of his life as half-there, half-gone.
It was easier during the day when the job kept his mind busy, pushed him to think of something other than himself. And that tick-tock. Until he went to reach for something, or stand up or just scratch his own damn ass.
It flooded back then, boy. Like a goddamn tidal wave.
Tick-tock.
If he closed his eyes he could see it all happening again. The shout, the movement, the blur of Halloway’s hand lifting the weapon, drawing a bead. And he could feel it again, that icy hot blast kicking him up and back and down. That one instant, just the one, of feeling nothing.
If he’d moved just a little faster, if he’d jumped the other way. If Halloway hadn’t fired so close and so clean.
If, if, if.
He knew what his chances of coming back were now. Down to thirty-percent and falling.
He was fucked, and everyone knew it. They didn’t have to say it. He could hear them thinking it.
Especially Peabody.
He could practically hear her thinking it in her sleep.
He turned his head, and could see the outline of her in the dark, in the bed beside him.
He thought of the way she’d chattered away—about the job, the case, the kid Jamie, about a thousand things to avoid any gaps of silence while she’d helped him get undressed for the night.
Christ, he couldn’t even unbutton his own pants.
Note to self, he thought sourly. Zippers, Velcro, and tipcot fasteners
only in the future.
He’d deal with it. You ran with the data you got. But he’d be damned if she was going to be stuck with him.
He gripped the bedpost with his good hand, tried to lever himself up.
She stirred, shifted, and her voice came out of the dark, too clear for her to have been sleeping.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Just want to get up. I’ve got it.”
“I’ll give you a hand. Lights on, ten percent.”
“I said I’ve got it, Peabody.”
But she was already out of bed, coming around to his side. “Bet you gotta pee. You and Jamie must’ve sucked down a gallon of milk each with that cake. I could’ve told you—”
“Go back to bed.”
“Can’t sleep anyway. I keep thinking about the case.” Her movements were as brisk and practical as her tone as she scooted him up, lifted, shifted, and maneuvered him into his chair. “You have to figure Dallas and Roarke are working on something or they’d have—”
“Sit down.”
“I’m going to get some water.”
“Sit down, Peabody.”
“Sure, okay.” She kept the half-smile on her face as she sat on the side of the bed facing him. Was it too much? she wondered. Not enough? Her muscles were so knotted it felt like a troop of Youth Scouts had been practicing for a merit badge with them.
He looked so tired, she thought. So horribly, horribly frail somehow.
“This isn’t going to work. We’re not going to work.”
“That’s a stupid thing to be talking about at three in the morning.” She started to get up, but he laid his good hand on her knee.
She was wearing a bright red nightshirt, and her toes were painted the same shade. Her hair was messy, her mouth grim.
And McNab realized Roarke had been right in something he’d said once. He was in love with her. That meant he had to do this right.
“Look what I was going to do was pick a fight, piss you off enough so you’d storm out. Not that hard to do. You get bent pretty easy. We’d break it off and go our separate ways. But that doesn’t seem right. Besides, you’d have copped to it anyway. So I’m going to play it straight with you, Peabody.”