New York to Dallas (In Death #33)(98)

“No,” he repeated, looking into Eve’s troubled eyes. “Who knows yours—and all their moods—better than I? Do you think I haven’t studied those ID shots?”

He remembered what his aunt had said to him on their first meeting, and gave it to Eve, in his own words. “Color changes on a whim. The shape of things counts for more. Your eyes are yours, Eve. The color, the shape, and more what’s behind them. You got none of it from her.”

“I don’t know why that’s important, except I don’t want to look in the mirror and see her. I don’t want you to ever look at me and see—”

“Never.”

“It’s stupid to pick at it,” Eve said wearily. “I know, I do know I’m not like her. Melinda and the kid, they were just means to an end to her. Not human, not important. Her next hit, that was important. Fucking with the cops, that was important. Getting back to McQueen, that was the most important. Weak spot. A certain kind of man, that’s a weak spot, makes her do what’s unnatural to her. Have a child, run errands, fix a meal. Because he makes her feel like the drug makes her feel. She lives a lie, but that’s second nature. Like using and exploiting. She stole another woman’s child knowing what he’d do to her. She left me with my father and she had to know what he was, what he’d do. He’d already started doing it. But she left me with him.”

“As she left Darlie with McQueen,” Mira added.

“Yeah. I knew what she was, and I felt nothing but that contempt. Then I felt sick, then cold. Then I had to step out of it. Had to, because if we didn’t find them, find Melinda and Darlie, without her help, I’d have to work her again. Go back, knowing who and what she was and work her again. But she went to him. Killed a cop without a second thought to get to him. And when I walked into that place, his place, and saw her on the floor, the blood, the death, I felt . . .”

“What?” Mira asked her. “What did you feel?”

“Relief!” It burst out of her. “Relief. She didn’t know me, and now she never would. God, the thought that she might realize . . . I wouldn’t ever have to think of her somewhere in the world. Wouldn’t have to think someday, somehow, she might remember me, might put it together, might know. Use that against me, against Roarke, against everyone I care about. She was dead, and I was relieved.”

In the silence, she pressed a hand to her mouth, struggling to hold back sobs.

“You didn’t say you felt joy,” Roarke said quietly.

She stared at him, eyes wet, shoulders trembling. “What?”

“You didn’t feel joy.”

“No! God. He’d slit her throat like a pig for slaughter. Whatever she was, he had no right to take her life.”

“And that’s who you are, Lieutenant.”

“I . . .” She swiped at tears, looked at Mira.

“It’s an exceptional thing to have someone in your life who knows and understands you so well. Who loves who you are. A very exceptional thing. He asks the question, as I was about to do, already knowing the answer. You felt relief because a threat to everything you are, everything you have, and what you love ended. It ended in blood so you’re struggling to treat her like another victim. She’s not.”

“She was murdered.”

“And McQueen should pay for it. You need to have a part in that not because of the connection, but because she was murdered. She was murdered here, in Dallas, by a man you see as very like your father. You want to walk away from it, and you can’t. Relief won’t stop you from seeking justice for her. That conflict causes you stress, unhappiness, self-doubt. I hope by admitting what you felt, what you feel, some of that will ease.”

“I would’ve put her away, built the case to put her away. I thought there’d be some justice. Locking her up, the way she’d done to me.”

“She chose the monster, again.”

“She thought he was still alive. Richard Troy. I brought him up, testing, I guess. She thought he was still alive. I let her think he’d given us information on her.”

“Well played,” Roarke commented, then lifted his eyebrows at her frown. “Sorry, was that cold? Am I supposed to feel otherwise?”

“No.” Eve looked down at her wine. “No.”

“I wish she were alive, that’s the God’s shining truth. So I could imagine her in a cage for the decades to come. But we live with disappointment.”

“You hate her. I can’t.”

“I’ve enough for both of us.”

“I feel disgust, and—God, I wish I had the words. I feel a little shame, and there’s no point getting pissed off because I feel what I feel. I’d rather feel hate. If she’d lived, I might’ve gotten there. So maybe I feel a little cheated as well as relieved. I don’t know what that says.”

“In my professional opinion?” Mira crossed her fine legs. “It says you have a very healthy reaction to a very unhealthy situation. The two of you have been scraped raw by this, yet here you are. With your cat.”

Eve let out a weak laugh while Galahad continued to snore at her feet, all four legs in the air.

“You need sleep. If you want medication, I can arrange it.”

“I’d rather not.”