Possession in Death (In Death #31.5)(26)

Sasha pulled the dagger from his belt. “I’ll kill you for touching her.”

“You can certainly try, and I admit I’d enjoy beating you to hell and back again, but I believe the lieutenant will indeed drop you if you take a step toward this girl.”

“She’s mine.” He whirled back to Eve. “No one takes her from me. She is my Angel, and here she lives forever.”

“I am Beata Varga.” Beata yanked the crown from her head, heaved it. “I’m not your Angel, and you go to hell.”

Sasha lunged for her, and even as Roarke braced to counter the attack, Eve kept her word. She dropped him, stunned and shuddering, to center stage.

As he fell, Beata covered her face with her hands and slid to the floor at the edge of those glittering lights. “I knew someone would come. I knew someone would come.”

Eve moved forward, went to her knees, and wrapped her arms around Beata as Peabody’s team rushed in.

Once again Roarke stepped between. “I think you might want to restrain your suspect before he recovers, and take him out. Give Beata a moment.” He gave the dagger a light kick across the stage. “And there’s your murder weapon.”

“Yeah.” If Peabody thought it strange to see her partner rocking the weeping girl, she said nothing of it. “We’ll clear him out, and I’ll tell Father Lopez and Dr. Mira to stand by.”

“Crazy f**ker.” Baxter looked around the room as he locked restraints on Sasha. “All his world’s a freaking stage. Trueheart tagged the MTs. For her,” he added, and with Trueheart’s help, hauled Sasha to his feet.

Eve let the police routine play out behind her—under control, she thought and concentrated on Beata. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”

“Not really, not much. How long? How long have I been here? Sometimes he gave me something that made me sleep, and I lost track.”

“You’re all right now. That’s what counts.”

“He locked me in. In there.” Though she continued to shake, she lifted her chin toward the inner door. “This horrible, beautiful room. He brought me flowers and chocolates, and all these beautiful clothes. He’s out of his mind, out of his mind.” She dropped her head back on Eve’s shoulder.

“Did he touch you? Beata.” She drew the girl back.

“No, no, no. Not that way. I thought he would rape me, kill me, but it wasn’t what he wanted.”

She continued to tremble under Eve’s hands, but even as they streamed with tears, her eyes held fury.

“He said we would be together forever, and I would do what I was born to do: dance. Always dance. And night after night he would come and put on the costume. If I wouldn’t wear mine, he’d give me the drug, and when I woke I’d be in it. So I put it on rather than have him touch me. And I danced, because if I refused or if I fought, he’d tie me and leave me in the dark.”

“You did what you had to do,” Eve told her. “You did exactly right.”

“I called, but no one heard, and I tried to break the door, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”

“Okay. It’s okay.”

“Every day I’d try to find a way out, but there wasn’t one. I don’t know where I am. How did you find me?”

“You’re in the basement of the school where you took classes. We’ll get into all the details later. We’re going to get you out of here now.”

“My family.”

“You can contact them.” Eve laid a hand on Beata’s cheek. “Your family is always with you, wherever you are, wherever you go.”

Beata closed a hand around Eve’s wrist, let her head rest in Eve’s hand. “That’s what my grandmother would say to me whenever I was sad or scared.”

I know, Eve thought, and helped Beata to her feet. “I want you to go with these officers now. They’ll take you out.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

“I’ll be there soon. There are things I have to do. Beata, did they know, were they part of this? Natalya, Alexi.”

“No. He said it was only us, our secret—that they wanted him to be calm, to accept, to live without me. Her, Arial, the one whose name he called me. But that he never would. He wouldn’t share me with them or the world. He wouldn’t lose me this time. He told me often.”

“Okay, go ahead now. Go outside. Go breathe the air.”

Eve knew what it was to be locked up, to be trapped and helpless. And to want to breathe free.

Eve shut off her recorder, looked at Roarke. “It’s not done. I hoped, when we found her… I have to find the others. I know where they are,” she said before Roarke answered. “They’re pressing on me. The dead. I know where they are, and I think—hope—I know what to do.”

“Then we’ll go find them.”

She turned her recorder back on, reengaged her mic. “I need a unit down here with tools. We need to take down a wall. And I’ll need Morris. I’m on the move. Key in on my location when I get there, and send a team down to process this goddamn prison.”

“Let’s go,” she said to Roarke.

She didn’t have to ask him to hold her hand, to keep her close as they walked those dim corridors, or to talk to her quietly, soothingly.