Kindred in Death (In Death #29)(19)

“Okay.”

“More, Eve.” He rarely used her first name, and using it now, he closed his hand over her arm to keep her still. “Though it discomforts you.” And smiled, just a little—just enough to loosen the tightest knots in her belly. “Thank you for suggesting I speak to Father Lopez.”

“You went to see him?”

“I did. I had thought to go away, stay away until . . . Until. But there was nowhere I wanted to be, and frankly, I felt closer to her here. So I stayed, and I went to see your priest.”

She had to fight not to squirm. “He’s not mine.”

“He gave me comfort,” Morris continued over her flustered response. “He’s a man of unassailable faith, with a flexible mind and limitless compassion. He helped me with those next difficult steps, and helped me accept I’ll have more to take.”

“He’s . . . good, but not a pain in the ass about it. Much.”

Now the smile reached those dark eyes and eased more of her tension. “An excellent summary. And thank you for trusting me when I wasn’t sure I trusted myself.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Before your request came in this morning, I was going over the reasons—excuses—not to come back yet. Another week, maybe two. I wasn’t sure I was ready to be here, to face this place, to handle the work. But you asked for me. You trusted me, so what choice do I have but to trust myself?”

“She needs you.” On that single point Eve had Lopez’s unassailable faith. “Deena MacMasters needs you. You have a good team here, good people. But she needs you. She needs us.”

“Yes. So . . .” He stunned her by brushing his lips, very lightly on hers. “It’s good to see you.”

“Um. Likewise.”

He gave her arm a quick squeeze, then released it. “And where is the estimable Peabody?”

“Field work. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

“Then we’ll begin. I know MacMasters, of course. He’s solid. This will have put a hole in him.”

“He’s maintaining.”

“What else is there? Her name is Deena.” He glanced at Eve, got her nod. “Sixteen-year-old female in exceptional health prior to her death. She took care of herself, and was cared for. The scan showed no prior injuries of any note, and confirms excellent nutrition. Her last meal, consumed at approximately six-thirty p.m., was pizza with a topping of peppers, mushrooms, black olives, and about six ounces of cherry fizzy. As you flagged tox, I’ve determined the barbiturate she ingested with the meal was mixed with the drink.”

“He drugged her.”

“I can’t say, only that she ingested the barb, and there are no signs of regular use of same in her scan. All to the contrary. Given her weight, and the assumption she wasn’t accustomed to taking drugs, the dose would have been enough to render her unconscious, for perhaps as much as an hour.”

“Plenty of time for him to get her upstairs, restrained, then shut down the cameras and take the discs. If he did so in that order. Plenty of time. She’d have been groggy, disoriented when she came to.”

“Yes. She ingested another dose—smaller—at about midnight.”

“A second dose?”

“Yes. Her hands were cuffed behind her back at the wrists—there’s deep bruising, lacerations indicating she struggled against them, quite violently. The marks on her ankles indicate a different restraint. Probably cloth.”

“Bedsheets.”

“That’s consistent. She fought those, too. And if you look.” He paused to pick up a second pair of microgoggles, gave them to Eve. “Here.” They bent over the ankles together. “The bounds were extremely tight, digging into the skin. Here, here, here.”

“Tied, retied, tied again.” She saw it in her head as well. “Tied, raped, untied, turned, tied, sodomized. Untied, turned, raped again?”

“It would be my conclusion. Multiple rapes, multiple sodomy, all extremely violent. As you can see . . .”

He moved up the body. A line of sweat, icy cold, slid down Eve’s spine. But she moved with him, slammed more locks on her memories, and studied the damage.

“The tears, the trauma. Her hymen was intact before the rape. So young,” he murmured. “And so mercilessly used. I found no se**n. He sealed up, and was cautious enough to do so with each rape. We’ve no trace of him in or on her. I’d speculate he removed his own genital hair, possibly all his body hair before the act. Otherwise, even sealed, with multiple, violent rapes, we should have found a stray hair. There’s some bruising on her legs, her torso from his hands. Deeper bruising on her shoulders where it appears he held her down more forcibly. On her throat—”

“He choked her. Watched her face while he did. Watched until she passed out. Between the rapes, between them because he wouldn’t want to risk going too far, taking her out too soon, spoiling the fun.”

She could see it, in the room with the soft violet walls and the glossy white furniture. See the terror, the horror. Feel the pain.

“He chokes her while she struggles, fights for air, goes out. Then he unties her legs, shoves her over, secures her again. And waits for her to come to so she can feel him sodomize her. No good if she’s out. He wants to hurt her. Needs to hurt her. Maybe he gets off that way. On her pain, her struggles, her pleas.”