Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(107)

“Where’s my Ella-Loo?”

“In custody, her ass in the fire, just like yours. Have you been informed of your rights?”

“I want to see her. I want to see her and make sure y’all didn’t hurt her.”

Eve sat across from him, the table between them. Set the file down. “You have the right to remain silent,” she began.

“They told me all that already. You want to bring Ella-Loo to me right now.”

“Then you’ve been informed of your rights?”

“I said so, didn’t I?” He banged a fist on the table, restraints rattling. “I don’t say nothing about nothing until I see Ella-Loo.”

“You don’t see Ella-Loo until you say something about everything.” Eve leaned back. “Those rights you heard? That’s all you get. The fact is, Darryl, I can make it so you never set eyes on her again.”

Rage rose up into his face in a red flood. “You can’t keep her from me. We’re meant. We’re true lifetime love.”

“You think? We’ll see how ‘true,’ how ‘lifetime,’ she figures when she realizes that lifetime’s going to be in an off-planet concrete cage.”

Now she leaned forward. “You’re going down and down hard, Darryl. Get that? Never going to see the true light of day again. This isn’t going to be a couple years in the Oklahoma State Pen, with conjugals and visiting rooms, time to read and take classes. This is multiple, consecutive life sentences, the hardest of hard time.”

“You don’t scare me. You come busting into our place —”

“Yours? Samuel Zed’s.”

Darryl’s look went sly. “Sure, good old Sammy. He said how we could stay there. He had to go on a trip for a bit, and we could stay there, keep an eye on the place for him.”

“Is that so?”

“Sure is.”

“Did that trip include spending time floating in the Hudson River, without his f*cking fingers?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Where’d you meet him?”

“Some bar or other.”

“What bar?”

Cocky, he smirked at her. “Hell, honey, you’ve got so many of them, who knows?”

“Did Ella-Loo wag her tits at him, honey, lure him in?”

The red flood rose again. “Don’t you talk about my girl that way.”

“Did she promise to f*ck him, so he’d bring her home? Which one of you smashed his teeth in? Which one of you cut off his fingers?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. If Zed got into trouble, got himself killed, it’s not on us. We were just watching the place for him.”

“Were Jayla Campbell and Reed Mulligan watching the place, too?”

He aimed his gaze just above her head. “I don’t know who that is.”

She heard truth for the first time. He didn’t even know their names. “The two people you had tied down so you could torture them. So you and Ella-Loo could cut them and burn them and beat them because torturing and killing gets you off, you miserable f*ck.”

He stretched his legs out under the table, sucked air through his teeth. “You don’t know nothing. We met up with the two of them, and they said they were into that sort of thing, that lots were here in the big city. We were all just fooling around, is all. They say different, they’re liars and you can’t prove otherwise.”

Eve opened the file, dumped photos of the tortured dead on the table. “All these people, Darryl. Were all these people into it?”

“I don’t know those people.” But he looked at them avidly, with hints of excitement and pride in his eyes.

Eve started to push up, increase the pressure. But in a quiet voice, Banner said, “Melvin Little.”

“Say what?”

“Melvin Little. Right here.” Banner nudged the photo closer.

“Where you from?”

“Silby’s Pond, Arkansas, same as him. He was a friend of mine.”

“I’m right sorry about your friend, but me and my Ella-Loo ain’t never been to Silby’s Pond.”

“You want to protect Ella-Loo, don’t you, Darryl?”

“I’d do anything for her.”

With his finger he traced a heart over his chest.

“I’m not going to let anybody hurt her. I’d die for her.”

“I can see that.” A hint of admiration eked into Banner’s tone. “I can see the two of you are meant, just like you said. So you need to understand, we can prove what you did to my friend, and to all these others. We can prove you were in Silby’s Pond, and how you and Ella-Loo met in the Rope ’N Ride back in Oklahoma.”

“  ‘No sooner looked but they loved.’ That’s Shakespeare, friend.”

“All right. We can prove you and Ella-Loo loved your way across country, how when you got out of prison, the two of you started east in the truck you’d stolen about four years before from Barlow Hanks.”

“Hell.” The cocky smirk came back. “I gave Barlow cash money for that truck, and if he says different, he’s a liar.”

“You crossed into Arkansas,” Banner continued in that same easy, conversational tone, “and you killed Robert Jansen with a tire iron, took his car, and you drove on to Silby’s Pond, and broke into that cabin. Then Little Mel came along.”