Memory in Death (In Death #22)(93)

In the sudden silence Bobby stirred, opened his eyes.

"Zana? Oh, Eve. I must've nodded off. Sort of listening to a book. Crappy book," he added with an attempt at a smile. "The nurse told me Zana was coming in soon."

"I just left her a little while ago. I'm having a couple of uniforms drive her to and from. It's nasty outside."

"Yeah." He looked out the window, his expression brooding.

"So. How're you feeling?"

"I don't know. Clumsy, stupid, annoyed to be here. Sorry for myself."

"You're entitled."

"Yeah, that's what myself s telling me. The flowers, the tree. It's nice."

He gestured toward the little fake pine decorated with miniature Santas. To Eve's mind, it looked like the jolly old elf had been hanged, multiple times, in effigy.

"Zana told me you helped pick them out."

"Not really. I was just there."

"She thinks of stuff like that. Little things like that. This is a really, really shitty Christmas for her."

"For you, too. It sucks out loud, Bobby, and I'm going to add to it by asking you if you've thought of anything else, remembered anything. About what happened to your mother, about what happened to you."

"Nothing. Sorry. And I've had a lot of time to think, lying here like an idiot who can't cross the damn street." He let out a sigh, lifted the hand of his good arm, then let it fall. "A lot of time to think, about what you said, about what you said my mother did. Wanted to do. She really asked for money?"

Eve moved closer to the bed so she could stand at its side and watch his face. "How much shit can you take?"

He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, she hoped what she saw in them was strength.

"I might as well get it all dumped on me. I've got nothing better to do."

"Your mother had several numbered accounts, which were fed by funds she extorted from women she'd fostered as children."

"Oh, God. Oh, my God. There has to be a mistake, some kind of mix-up, misunderstanding."

"I have statements from two of these women that verify that your mother contacted them, threatened to expose their juvenile records unless they paid the amounts she demanded."

She watched the blows land on his already battered face, until he was staring at her, not with disbelief or shock, but with the focused concentration of a man fighting pain.

"Statements," he repeated. "Two of them."

"There're going to be more, Bobby, when it's done. She also informed my husband that she had copies of my files and would sell them to interested media sources unless he paid her. She's been blackmailing former charges for a number of years."

"They were just kids," he said under his breath. "We were all just kids."

"It's possible she used one of her former fosters to aid her in her attempt to blackmail me, through Roarke, and was killed by this individual."

"I would never have let her do without. Whenever she wanted something I did what I could to get it for her. Why would she do this? I know what you're thinking," he said, and looked beyond her, toward the window again. "I understand what you're thinking. You think she used and mistreated you when you were in her care, when you were a kid. So why not use and mistreat you now?"

"Am I wrong, Bobby? Is something wrong with my memory?"

His breath shuddered out softly. "No. She used to say, used to tell me that you—the kids she took in—were lucky to have someone offer them a decent home. Care enough to take them, to teach them manners and discipline and respect. That's what she said it was when she locked you up. Consequences for unacceptable behavior. Things would be a lot worse if you were on the streets."

"Did you buy that, Bobby?"

"I don't know. Maybe some. She never hurt me." He turned his head now, met Eve's eyes. "She never treated me that way. She said it was because I did what I was told. But I didn't, not always. If she caught me, she'd usually laugh and say, 'Boys will be boys.' It was the girls she... I don't know why. Something inside her. She hated her mother. Used to tell me we were lucky to be rid of the old bitch. Maybe—I don't know— maybe her mother did those things to her. It's a cycle, right? Isn't that what they say about abuse? It's a cycle."

"Yeah, it often is." Maybe that comforted him, she thought. "What about you, Bobby? Did you cycle around, take care of your mother? She must've been a hardship on you. New wife, new business, and here's this demanding woman, prying into your life. A demanding woman with a big pile of money stashed away."

His eyes filmed over for a moment. Tears he blinked away. "I don't blame you for saying it, thinking it. And you can put on record that I'll take a Truth Test. I'll take one voluntarily, as soon as you can arrange it. I want you to find who hurt her."

He took a long breath. "I loved my mother, Eve. I don't know if you can understand, but even knowing what she was, what she did, I loved her. If I'd known what she was doing, I'd have found a way to make it stop. To make her give the money back, and stop. That's what I want to do. Give the money back. You have to help me get the money back to the people she took it from. Maybe it won't make it right, but I don't know what else to do."