Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(114)

“Were the instruments and procedures I just named used in this training?”

“Yes. The dark and the false freedoms must be burned out to free the spirit.”

“Did you sell and profit from the sale of human beings abducted from New York City for the purposes of forced marriages and for impregnation of the females abducted?”

A bead of sweat trailed down his left temple, and that was fear. His eyes burned into Eve’s, and that was hate.

“You are an unnatural creature.”

“Okay. Do you need me to repeat the question?”

“A woman’s purpose is to serve at her husband’s will, for a woman’s will is fragile and fickle. It is her purpose to bear the joy and pain of childbirth and bring life forth.”

“And with this in mind you abducted, trained, then sold women to men who would pay the fee.”

“A man must invest in family.”

“So yes. Did you authorize and provide—at a fee—trackers with shock options to be utilized by these husbands on wives and minor children who they deemed required them?”

“A man is the head of the household, and a woman is duty bound to obey. You have a sickness, a terrible sickness enhanced by the perverted freedoms and laws you cling to.”

Eyes flat, Eve just stared back at him. “So another yes. Did you authorize the removal of Marcia Piper’s body, and the contamination of the crime scene after she was beaten to death by her husband, Lawrence Piper?”

“I regret his methods reached that extreme, and he will be punished by the order. But she disobeyed him. My people didn’t contaminate the household. They purified it.”

“Okay then.”

She rolled through more charges. She could read the fury in his eyes now, and the spread of real fear. But he remained stubbornly adherent to his tenets as justification for all.

“That wraps up this part of the program. You’ll be escorted back to your cell, have a break before the feds get their shot at you. After them, Interpol. I almost hate to send Mirium to Omega, seeing as she started this ball bouncing. But duty calls.”

Eve rose, and now his eyes looked at her, fevered, fervent.

“You’ll never stop the order, its righteousness. Our spread is wide, our roots are deep.”

“Wide maybe.” Peabody shrugged. “Or it was wide, but those roots can’t be more than an inch deep. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been so easy to rip out.”

Because Eve smiled at her, Peabody shrugged again. “Dallas and Peabody exiting Interview. Record off.”

“Nice parting shot,” Eve told her when they stood outside. “That’s a gardening thing, right?”

“Yeah. Jesus, I need another shower after that.”

“Take an hour.”

“I don’t need that long to shake it off.”

“Take an hour,” Eve repeated. “Get some food, take a walk. This was the worst of it. The daughter’s more your normal greedy murdering bitch.”

“And we eat them for breakfast.”

“Every day. Twice a day.”

Peabody laughed. “Can’t eat that much. New pants.”

“Take your new pants and have that sick son of a bitch taken back to his cage.”

She started toward Observation, but Mira, Teasdale, and Reo stepped out.

Eve looked at Mira first. “He’s legally sane.”

“Yes. He’s a fanatical bigot with a messiah complex who may believe a good deal of what he said in there—not all, but a good deal. And legally sane.”

“Good.” Now at Reo. “No deals.”

“Not even a tiny one.”

“Good again. Special Agent.”

“I’m going to ask what might be considered a favor, but what I hope will be understood and prevent any friction between this department and mine.”

“He took your man, he beat your man half to death. You want Wilkey first.”

“Yes. You’ve more than laid the groundwork for the federal crimes we’ll charge him with. I want you to agree not to fight me on him serving his time in federal prison before your charges kick in.”

“Done.”

Teasdale opened her mouth, then closed it, nodded. “You say that understanding he won’t live to pay for what you charge him with here.”

“He’s going to die in a cage. Why would I care what kind? Except sometimes I do,” Eve added. “Mirium Wilkey.”

“Is yours first, no question. Not from my end. I’m about to confer with Interpol. Hopefully they’ll be as cooperative as you.”

“They’ll have the upper echelon from the island. Whoever ran the day-to-day, brought people in, did the torture, and so on. They’ll take that. Everybody gets a share. Is it Abernathy you’re meeting?”

“No, someone a bit higher up.”

“Good luck. One question? Are you looking at higher up? The lateral move from Homeland to the FBI.”

Teasdale offered a very slight smile. “Opportunity knocked. I’ll speak to you again.”

Eve stopped in the bullpen for a quick roundup with whoever was between interviews. Santiago sat at his desk using voice command to write his report.

“You gave us the easy ones because I got dinged.”