New York to Dallas (In Death #33)(14)

She tried a body takedown, and he flung her across the room.

“That hurt!” Outrage reddened his face, stripped away all amusement. “You skinny bitch, you’re going to pay for that.”

Her ears rang. Her vision blurred. She thought, no, she’d be damned if she’d die this way. She was going to make goddamn detective.

She shifted her weight and balance, came up with both feet. When he staggered back she scrambled up and behind a chair. Time to catch her breath. She was hurt, knew she was hurt. Couldn’t think about it. He’d kill the hell out of her unless she evened the odds.

“I’m a cop.” She tasted blood along with the fear. “Dallas, Officer Eve. And you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.”

He laughed. Laughed and laughed with blood running from his split lip. He came forward, passing the knife from hand to hand. “You’re a feisty one, and entertaining. I’m going to keep you alive for a long, long time.”

For an instant she saw two of him and thought, fleetingly, she might have a concussion. Closer, she thought, let him get closer. Let him think she was finished.

Then she shoved the chair hard into his knees, and dived.

She rolled, came up with her weapon. As he leaped toward her, she fired. He jerked back, kept coming. She fired again. “Go down, you f**ker!” And again.

She heard herself screaming when the knife dropped out of his hand, when he slid, shaking, to the floor.

“Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch.” She got to her knees, weapon still trained. She couldn’t get her breath. Had to get her breath.

Training, routine. Kick the knife away, get out your restraints. Secure the prisoner.

She straightened, swayed as pain and nausea churned through her.

Jesus, Jesus, I’m hurt.

She couldn’t say why she did it. Even years later she didn’t know why she’d felt so compelled. She searched his pockets, found the key.

She staggered to the locked room even as her mind reeled off procedure. Go out, contact Fergus, call for backup. Officer needs assistance.

Sweet Jesus, officer needs assistance.

Instead, she dragged the bolts clear, managed after three tries to uncode the lock.

And she opened the door to hell.

“There were so many of them. Children, just girls, shackled, naked, covered in bruises, dried blood, God knows what. Most of them were huddled together. Eyes, so many eyes on me. The smell, the sounds, I can’t tell you.”

She didn’t know if she’d taken his hand or he’d taken hers, but the contact kept her grounded in the now, and a desperate step back from the horror.

“He’d put a couple chem toilets in there, some old blankets. There were cams up in the corners so he could monitor them. I didn’t see any of that, not then. All I could see were girls and their eyes. I can still see them.”

“Take a break.”

She shook her head, tightened her grip on his hand. “All at once, that’s better. For a minute I went somewhere else. I’d buried those memories of my father, and that room in Dallas so deep. It was gone, all of that was just gone. But for a moment, standing there, with all the girls, all the eyes, I went back. The dirty red light from the sign flashing against the window glass. The cold, so cold. And the blood all over me. Not me, a child, but the child was me, and the pain was mine. For that moment it just poured back, poison down the throat. I froze. Just stood there with part of me eight years old and covered with blood in that awful room.

“I started to go, just slide away, just slide to the floor, just slide back into that place I didn’t really recognize. But one of the girls started screaming at me. Help us. Do something. You bitch, she said, do something. Her name was Bree Jones. She and her twin sister, Melinda, were the last taken, only a week before. A week in that hell. Well, some of them had endured it for years.”

“As you had,” he murmured.

“I didn’t know, or couldn’t know. Or wouldn’t.” Eve closed her eyes a moment, focused on the warm, firm contact—Roarke’s hand holding hers.

“But she screamed and shouted, yanking at the chains. And it brought me back. Help us. That was the job, to help, not to stand there frozen and shaking and sick. The others started screaming, shouting, crying. It didn’t sound human. I went in. I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t have the keys to the shackles. I had to find the keys.”

She let go of his hand to rub both of hers over her face. “Procedure, routine. I pulled it out, dragged it through the hell. It got me through. I told them I was the police, told them my rank and name, told them they were safe now. When I said I had to go out, get more help, they went crazy. Don’t leave us. Begging me, cursing me, wailing like animals. But I had to. I had to get Fergus, get more cops, get medicals. Procedure, routine. It’s the foundation. I left them. McQueen was coming around. I didn’t even hesitate, just gave him another shock. Didn’t think twice about it. I stepped out in the hall, and got Fergus on my communicator. I told him to call for backup and medicals. A lot of both. Multiple victims, apartment three-oh-three. He didn’t ask questions, called it in while he came on the run. He was a good cop, a solid cop. I heard him running up the stairs when I went back to the room. I heard him say, ‘Mary, Mother of God.’ Like a prayer. I remember that, then it gets blurry for a while.”