Survivor In Death (In Death #20)(100)

“Too much,” Peabody agreed.

“He was worse than anything, than anybody. Not just because she was my sister. It's not that he likes to cause pain, to harm. It's that it means nothing to him. He might snap the bone in her finger for having dinner on the table two minutes late--according to his schedule--then sit down and eat a hot meal without a single flicker of emotion. Can you imagine living like that?”

“No, ma'am. No,” Peabody repeated, “I can't.”

“She was property to him, Dian and the children. It was when he began to hurt the children that she was able to pull out of the mire. He'd already damaged them, too, but she thought she was protecting them, keeping the family together. He brutalized them, punishments, his brand of discipline. Solitary confinement, he'd call it, or he'd make them stand in cold showers for an hour, deny them food for two days. Once he cut off all of my niece's hair because he said she'd taken too long brushing it. But then he began to beat Jack, my nephew. Toughen him up, he claimed. One day, when Roger was out, she found her son with Roger's army-issue stunner. He'd put it on full, he was holding it here . . .”

She pressed her fingers to the pulse in her throat. “He was going to kill himself. This eight-year-old boy was going to end his own life rather than face another day with that monster. It woke her up. She left. She took the kids, nothing else. She didn't even pack a bag. There were shelters I'd told her about, and she ran to one.”

Roxanne closed her eyes, drank deeply. “I don't know if she'd have gone through with it, expect for the children. But once she did, it was like a miracle. She got herself back. And a few weeks later, she hired a lawyer. It was horrible, going through the trial, but she did it. She stood up to him, and she won.”

“She never intended to adhere to the conditions, to stay in New York, to allow him to see the kids again,” Peabody said.

“I don't know. She never told me, never even hinted, but no, I think not. I think she must have planned to run all along. I don't know how else she could have managed to get away from him.”

“There are undergrounds, for people in her situation.”

“Yes. I didn't know then. When she vanished, I was sure he'd killed her and the kids. He's not only capable, but he has the means, the training. Even when he took me, I thought--”

“He abducted you?”

“I was on the subway coming home, and I felt a little sting.” She cupped a hand around her biceps. “I felt sick and dizzy--and I don't remember. I remember waking up, still sick. It was a room, a big room. No windows and just this ugly greenish light. He'd taken my clothes, all of my clothes.”

She pressed her lips together until they went white, reached blindly for her husband's hand. “I was on the floor, my hands in restraints. And as I woke I was lifted up, by some sort of pulley, so that I was standing, had to stand on my toes. I was six months pregnant with Ben.”

Turnbill pressed his face into his wife's shoulder, and Peabody could see now that he wept.

“He stepped in front of me. He had some sort of rod. He said, 'Where is my wife?' Even before I could answer, he pressed the tip of the rod here.” She laid a hand between her br**sts. “Horrible pain, electrical shock. He told me, very calmly, that he had the rod on low, and would up the power every time I lied.

“I told him I knew he'd killed her, and he shocked me again. And again and again. I begged, I screamed, I pleaded, for myself, for my baby. He left me there, I don't know how long, then he came back and did it all again.”

“He had her over twelve hours.” Turnbill sucked in breath, ignored the tears on his face. “The police--you can't file a report, a missing person's, that soon. I tried, but they said it wasn't enough time, when I called. But it was a lifetime, for both of us. It was a miracle she didn't miscarry. When he was done with her, he dumped her on the sidewalk in Times Square.”

“He believed me, finally. He must have known that I would've told him anything just to stop the pain. So he believed me, and before he knocked me out again, he told me if I went to the police--if I implicated him in any way--he would find me again. He would cut the brat out of my belly and slit its throat.”

“Roxanne.” Peabody spoke quietly. “I know this is very hard for you to speak about. But I need to know: Was Kirkendall alone when he held you?”

“No. He had that bastard with him. They were joined at the hip, claimed to be brothers. Isaac, Isaac Clinton. They were in the army together. He ... he sat at some sort of console, controls. I don't know. I think he was studying some kind of readout. They had some sort of hookup on me, like in a hospital. He sat, the whole time Roger tortured me, and he never spoke. Not one word. At least not when I was conscious.”

“Was there anyone else?”

“I'm not sure. Sometimes I thought I heard voices, maybe a woman's. But I was out of my mind. I didn't see anyone else, and I was unconscious when they took me out, when they tossed me onto the street.”

“You didn't tell the police that you knew your abductors?”

“When I ... when I came out of it, I was in the hospital. I was afraid for my life, for my baby's life. So I said nothing. I told them I couldn't remember anything.”

“What do you expect--” Turnbill began, but Peabody sent him a look of such sympathy his voice broke.