Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(116)

“Like you helped him sell the women you abducted for him?”

“I’m not proud of what I did, but I feared for my life. Every day. If you question Stanton Wilkey, the repercussions …” She trailed off as she pressed her lips together, stared down at the table. “I could be locked in my room for days on his whim.”

“How terrifying.” Peabody widened her eyes, blinked them. “Locked in a suite of rooms, Dallas, with a big, soft bed, an entertainment screen, an AutoChef, a spa-like en suite. The horror!”

Mirium cut her gaze to Peabody, and the heat in it burned away the fake tears. “The man’s a monster. He could have me beaten.”

“Should’ve led with that,” Eve commented. “Most people would. So, in terror of your monster dad, you traveled freely from the compound to the city, had meetings, often stayed at the—you called it a pied-à-terre, deceived young women by posing as a recruiter for employment, then drugged them and transported them back to the compound.”

“All under duress. I had no choice.”

“Right. And in all those hours, sometimes days, away from the compound and your monster dad, you never once considered going to the authorities with your fears and desperation.”

“I was afraid to. I truly believed he was invincible. Now I have hope, but I’m still afraid.”

“Uh-huh. And those fears traveled with you when you visited the farms and ranches out west, or shuttled to Europe, the island, when you banked your recruiter’s fees and so on.”

“The fear of the Time Out, Dallas. It can’t be overstated.” Peabody snickered, then chuckled, then threw up her hands and broke into giggles.

“Don’t you dare mock me, you stupid bitch!”

Mirium shoved up and, since Eve had—deliberately—had her brought in without restraints, lunged.

Since Peabody timed it well, Eve let it play out. Mirium’s shove, Peabody’s grab and spin.

“That’s assaulting an officer,” Peabody snapped. “Sit down, stay down, or I’ll put you down.”

“Said charge is added to the record.” Eve spoke mildly as Peabody put Mirium back in the chair. “And if you don’t want to be mocked, don’t be so damn mockable. Because everything you said is bullshit.”

Because, despite all of her planning, Mirium Wilkey hadn’t planned on this.

Now Eve shoved up, slapped both hands on the table, and leaned across and into Mirium’s face. “Bullshit, and every single one of these women, all your accomplices, every woman who worked in that house in the compound will testify to the bullshit. You ran that household, Mirium, treating these women like your personal slaves, happily ordering physical punishments if any of them didn’t move fast enough to suit you. Fucking tyrant, slapping Ella Foxx because there was too much goddamn pulp in your fresh OJ.”

“They’ll say anything to get back at my father. I had to maintain strict discipline in the house or—”

“And when you decided to assign Fiona Vassar to clean your rooms, scrub your toilet, make your bed and she didn’t fluff your pillows to your satisfaction, you slugged her? How the hell would your father have known? You ruled that house your way because you fucking enjoyed it.”

Eve sat back again. “You’re your father’s daughter, Mirium. If you want to play the victim tune, be my guest, but it sure doesn’t sing.”

“You can’t know what it’s like to be raised by a monster, to do his bidding because it’s all you know, and he’s everything you fear.”

Everything inside Eve tightened, twisted. And she used it, let it burn through her.

“I know you made your own choices. You weren’t helpless or beaten down. You weren’t locked in and defenseless. You wanted the life, the money, the travel, the power. You killed Ariel Byrd to gain and protect that power.”

“That’s insane! I told you before, I didn’t even know the woman. I was on retreat, in the compound.”

Rounding the table slowly, Eve leaned down, spoke quietly. “Do you really think you and your e-crew are better than me and mine? We have you leaving the compound on the evening of the murder, zipping out the gates in the same SUV you habitually used to abduct women. We have you entering the residence downtown. We have you leaving the residence twenty minutes before Ariel Byrd’s time of death. And we have you coming back with blood—her blood—on your shirt.”

Eve strolled around the table again, tossed evidence bags on the table. “We have the copy of Byrd’s key card—you should’ve ditched that. We have your recordings from the device you put in Gwen Huffman’s ’link.”

She tapped a bag with a tiny chip inside it. “Didn’t think to seal up when you made that, installed it.”

A risk, Eve thought, as they’d only found a partial. But she saw from the flicker on Mirium’s face, it had been a risk worth taking.

“You heard Gwen and Ariel argue, and Ariel in the heat of the moment threaten to expose Gwen. Couldn’t have that, could you? You’d gone to so much trouble, had such an investment. It went all the way back to that summer in the Hamptons when you saw Gwen with another girl and outed her. Off to Realignment with her, and that was power. It must’ve tasted so sweet.”

She sat, pulled Ariel’s crime scene shots out of the file.