Immortal in Death (In Death #3)(58)

“Did she always carry a palm ‘link?”

“Everybody in fashion and beauty does, honey. We’re just like doctors.”

It was close to midnight when Eve settled down at her desk. She couldn’t face the bedroom, preferred the suite she used for privacy and work. She programmed coffee, then forgot to drink it. Without Feeney, she had no choice but to go a roundabout route to try to trace a three-month-old intergalactic call from a palm ‘link she didn’t have.

After an hour, she gave up and crawled onto the sleep chair. She’d take a nap, she told herself. Set her mental alarm for five A. M.

Illegals, murder, and money, she thought. They went together. Pin down the source, she thought groggily. Identify the unknown.

Who were you hiding from, Boomer? How did you get your hands on a sample and the formula? Who broke your bones to get them back?

The image of his battered body flashed into her mind and was ruthlessly shut off. She didn’t need to drift into sleep with that loop playing.

It might have been a better choice than the show she ended with.

The dirty red light was flashing. Over and over through the window. SEX! LIVE! SEX! LIVE!

She was only eight, but her mind was quick. She wondered if people would pay to see dead sex. Lying on her bed, she watched the light blink. She knew what sex was. It was ugly, it was painful, it was frightening. It was inescapable.

Maybe he wouldn’t come home tonight. She’d stopped praying that he would forget where he’d left her or fall down dead in some handy ditch. He always came back.

But sometimes, if she was very, very lucky, he would be too drunk, too buzzed to do more than stumble to the bed and snore. Those nights, she would shiver with relief and huddle in the corner to sleep.

She still thought about escape. Of finding a way out of the locked door, or down the five stories. If the night was very bad, she imagined just jumping from the window. The flight down would be quick, and then it would be over.

He wouldn’t be able to hurt her then. But she was too much a coward to jump.

She was only a child, after all, and tonight she was hungry. And she was cold because he had broken the temperature control in one of his rages and it was stuck on full air.

She padded toward the corner of the room, the excuse for a kitchenette. Experienced, she pounded the drawer first, to send any roaches scattering. She found a chocolate roll inside. The last one. He would probably beat her for eating the last one. Then again, he would beat her anyway, so she might as well enjoy it.

She bolted it like an animal, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Hunger churned still. A further search turned up a hunk of moldy cheese. She didn’t want to think what had been nibbling on it. Carefully, she took a knife, began to shear off the nasty edges.

Then she heard him at the door. In her panic, she dropped the knife. It clattered to the floor as he came in.

“What are you doing, little girl?”

“Nothing. I woke up. I was just going to get a drink of water.”

“Woke up.” His eyes were glazed, but not glazed enough, she saw without hope. “Missing your daddy. Come give your daddy a kiss.”

She couldn’t breathe. Already she couldn’t breathe and the place between her legs where he would hurt her began to throb in painful fear. “I have a stomachache.”

“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 f**king 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.”