Taken in Death (In Death #37.5)(5)

“She came to kill me. To end me once and for all. Papa had punished her that day because she took my new doll to the garden and burned it. She marked it with my name, and burned it, and he took her new doll away, and she was confined to her room. She couldn’t go outside to play or talk to friends. For a week, he said. She was so angry, and she came to kill me.”

Tosha pressed her lips into a thin, trembling line. Her eyes, an arctic blue, pleaded into Eve’s. “I . . . saw inside her mind, and I knew. I ran outside and I hid, and I made my mind still. But hers wasn’t still. She couldn’t find me, and instead she went to Papa’s room, and while he slept, she stabbed him with the knife from the kitchen. She stabbed his heart, and she cut his throat. She stabbed, and stabbed, and she made a mark on him, like her birthmark.”

“She carved a pentagram on him?”

“Yes. And she . . .” A sob broke through though Tosha muffled it with her hand.

“What?”

“She . . . drank. His blood. She licked and lapped at it. Oh God. God, Ross. I can still see it. I saw it in my head, and I see it now.”

“Tosh. Tosha. It’s over.” He took both her hands, pressed his lips against them. “It’s done. I’m right here.”

How many times, Eve wondered, had Roarke said those same words to her when she woke from nightmares?

They were never really over.

“What happened then?” Eve asked.

“I ran to the neighbor’s house so they could help, but it was too late. They called the police, and the man, the neighbor, he went to our house. He found her on the bed with Papa, with the knife. He said she was laughing.

“They took her away, and I never went home again. I only saw her again when I testified. She said to me one day she would come for me and take all I loved. Now she has. They’re only children, and so innocent. She’ll hate them for that, for their innocence.”

“We’re going to do everything we can to get them back safe. You said Stockholm. When did you come to New York?”

“When I was eighteen. I lived in the countryside, with a family in Sweden. They were good to me. But I wanted to be away, far away. There had been nightmares until I was almost sixteen. She’d come into my sleep. I can’t explain.”

“You don’t have to.” Eve knew exactly.

“Dr. Ryden helped me. He helped me learn to keep her away, and to keep my own mind from reaching into hers. But when I was old enough, I wanted to be away. I came to New York to live, to study, to work.”

“Are you a sensitive, Tosha?”

“No, no, it’s not the same. Only with her. And now, not even that. I don’t feel her, I don’t see her. If I did, I would have known she was close, that she wanted the children.”

“You came home a day early?”

“Yes, we wanted to come home, to surprise Darcia . . . Darcia.” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “Darcia and the children. We have gifts for them. Oh God, she killed Darcia. She was my true sister. My little sister, and Maj killed her.”

Peabody set a cup in front of Tosha. “I made some herbal tea. You should drink it. Your kids’ faces are on every screen in the country now. Your sister’s, too.”

“I have another question,” Eve began. “Do Henry and Gala know about Maj?”

“No.” Rocking, Ross pressed Tosha’s hand to his lips again, as much for comfort as to offer it.

“I didn’t want them to know, or to be afraid, or to understand, so young, that there’s real evil in the world. She’s from another life,” Tosha added, then stopped, went white again. “We’re the same. We look the same. They’ll think she’s me, their mother. Oh God, they won’t understand.”

“She’s got no reason to hurt them. Listen, listen,” Eve stressed as Tosha began to weep. “If she’d wanted to hurt them, to kill them, she would’ve done it here, right here in your home, where you’d come back and find them. She took them for a reason. She packed clothes and toys for them. Why would she do that if she only meant to kill them?”

Though her breath stayed rapid and ragged, Tosha nodded. “She . . . wants them because they’re mine—and hers—we share blood, we share faces, bodies. We’re almost the same. She wants them.” She turned to her husband, held on, held close. “She wants them, Ross. She won’t hurt them as long as she wants them.”

Only, Eve thought, until she gets tired of them. Or until they fulfilled her purpose for them. But she let the terrified parents hold on to that slim thread of hope.

IT DIDN’T LOOK LIKE A DUNGEON, OR A TOWER. IT LOOKED like a bedroom—the two beds, the two dressers, the toys on the shelves. There was a bathroom, not like the one at home. It had only a toilet and a sink. And no door to close for privacy.

The rooms had no windows, and the only door was locked.

On a big red table sat a blue and white tea set with bowls of little cupcakes, and gumdrops and frosted cookies.

His stomach hurt, and his head.

“Mine, too,” Gala whispered. “And I’m so thirsty.”

They’d told each other not to eat or drink, but they were only seven.

“We’ll have just a little bit,” Henry decided.

But they were so hungry, and the pot held cherry fizzies instead of tea. So they gobbled up the treats.