Loyalty in Death (In Death #9)(66)

He knew cruelty existed. That murder was done every day. But he had never seen the kind of terrible disregard for life as he had on the viewing screen at his sister’s apartment the evening before.

Those who were capable of it had to be less than human. No one with heart and soul and guts could destroy lives in that way. He believed that, clung to the hope that such a thing was an aberration, a mutation. And that the world had evolved beyond acceptance of wholesale death.

It had been a shock when he’d seen Eve moving through the carnage. Her face had been blank, he remembered, her clothes splattered with blood. He’d thought she’d looked exhausted, and hollow, and somehow courageous. Then it had struck him that his sister must have been there as well, somewhere in the horror of all that.

Eve had only spoken to one reporter, a pretty, foxy-faced woman whose green eyes had mirrored her grief.

“I don’t have anything to add to what you see here, Nadine,” she’d said. “This isn’t the time or place for statements. The dead make their own.”

And when his sister had come home, with that same exhausted look on her face, he’d left her alone.

He hoped now that he’d done so for her sake and not his own. He hadn’t wanted to talk about what she’d seen and done. Hadn’t wanted to think about it. Or about Clarissa. And while he’d been able to control his mind enough to blank out those images of death, he hadn’t had the power to do so with the woman.

She would stay away from him now, he thought. They would stay away from each other, and that was best. He would finish the job he’d promised to do, then he would go back to Arizona. He’d fast and he’d meditate and he’d purge his system of her.

Maybe he’d camp in the desert for a few days, until his mind and heart were in balance again.

Then the sounds came through the vent. The angry laugh of the man, the soft pleas of the woman.

“I said I want to f**k. It’s all you’re good for, anyway.”

“Please, B. D., I’m not feeling well this morning.”

“I don’t give a damn how you feel. It’s your job to spread your legs when I tell you to.”

There was a thud, then a cry sharply cut off. The crash of glass.

“On your knees. On your knees, you bitch.”

“You’re hurting me. Please — “

“Use that mouth of yours for something besides whining. Yeah, yeah. Put some effort into it, for Christ’s sake. It’s a miracle I can get it up with you in the first place. Harder, you whore. You know where I had my c**k last night? You know where I had what you’ve got in your whiny mouth? In that new ‘link operator I hired. I got my money’s worth there.”

He was panting now, grunting like an animal, and Zeke squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for it to stop.

But it didn’t, it only changed, with the sounds of Clarissa weeping, then pleading. He was raping her now, there was no way to mistake those sounds.

Zeke caught himself at the foot of the steps, shocked to find his hand curled around the haft of a hammer. The blood was roaring violently in his ears.

My God, dear God, what was he doing?

Even as he set the hammer aside with a shaky hand, the sounds quieted. There was only weeping now. Slowly, Zeke climbed the steps.

It had to stop. Someone had to stop it. But he would face Branson empty-handed, and as a man.

He walked through the kitchen. Neither of the two remote domestics who worked there paid any attention to him. He moved into the wide hallway beyond, past the beautiful rooms and toward the sweep of floating stairs.

Perhaps he had no right to intrude, he thought, but no one, no one had a right to treat another human being as Clarissa was being treated.

He moved down the hallway to the right, judging which room would be directly over the workshop. The door was ajar; he could hear her crying inside. Placing his fingertips against the polished wood, he eased it open. And saw her curled on the bed, her naked body already blooming with bruises.

“Clarissa?”

Her head came up, eyes wide, and her swollen lips trembled. “Oh God. No, no, I don’t want you to see me like this. Go away.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Gone. Oh please, please.” She pressed her face to the tangled sheets.

“He can’t be. I just came up the front stairs.”

“The side entrance. He uses the side. He’s gone, already gone. Thank God. If he’d seen you come up…”

“This has to stop.” He came to the bed, gently untangled a sheet, and draped it over her. “You can’t let him hurt you this way.”

“He doesn’t mean — He’s my husband.” She let out a sigh that ripped at Zeke’s heart. It was so hopeless. “I have no place to go. No one to go to. He wouldn’t have to hurt me if I wasn’t so slow and stupid. If I’d just do what he says. If I — “

“Stop that.” It came out sharper than he’d intended, and when he laid a hand on her shoulder, she flinched. “What happened here wasn’t your fault, it was his.”

She needed counseling, he thought. She needed cleansing. A safe place to stay. Both her body and her self-esteem had been battered, and such things harmed the soul. “I want to help you. I can take you away from here. You can stay at my sister’s until you decide what to do. There are programs, people you can talk to. The police,” he added. “You need to file charges.”