Visions in Death (In Death #19)(107)

Because she wanted time to prepare, to think, without the distraction of cop chatter or questions, she traveled upstate in one of Roarke's jet-copters, with him in the pilot seat.

They flew through a steady, dreary rain. Nature's way of weighing in, she thought, to make a hideous job more so. She saw a little burst of lightning bloom on the horizon, far to the north, and hoped it stayed there.

Roarkedidn't ask questions, and his silence throughout the flight helped steady her for what was to come. This sort of procedure would never be routine. Never could be routine.

"Nearly there." Roarke glanced at the comp map highlighting their destination, then nodded toward the windscreen. "At two o'clock."

It wasn't much of a house. She could see that from the air as they started the descent. Small, ill-kept, poorly maintained, if she was any judge. It looked to her as if the roof sagged—probably leaked, and the lawn fronting the steep, narrow road was weedy and littered with trash.

But the back was blocked in with trees, and in front of them ranged a high fence. The lawn, such as it was, spread up, dipped down, following the rise and fall of land.

There were other houses, and the curious would come out of them before long. None of those houses were close, not to the bumpy land back of the house. A man with a mission, she thought, a man with a job to do, could carry it out in relative privacy in such a place.

Uniforms would knock on doors and ask about the Blues, and a dark van, and any odd activities.

They set down. Roarke killed the engines.

"You feel some sympathy for him. John Blue."

Through the rain, she stared at the house, the dark, dirty windows, the scabs of paint puckering its skin. "I feel some sympathy for a defenseless child tortured by a parent, by a woman who most certainly was vicious and cruel. We know what that's like."

She turned her head, looked at him. "We know how it can twist and scar. What it can drive you to. And I feel a twinge, maybe more than a twinge, at the way I played the child in Interview. You saw how I went after him."

"I saw you doing what needed to be done, even when it hurt you. Hurt you, Eve, as much as him. Maybe more."

"Needed to be done," she agreed, and would live with that. "Because a child didn't kill these women. A child didn't rape and beat and strangle them, mutilate their bodies. A child didn't put Peabody in the hospital. So no, when it comes down to the line, I don't feel for John Blue. We had as bad."

"You had worse."

"Maybe." She breathed deep. "Maybe. And like him, I killed my tormentor."

"Not like him, Eve. Nothing like him." It was that point, that vital point he'd wanted to make to her. "You were a child, in desperate terror and pain. Defending yourself, doing whatever you could to make it stop. He was a man, and had the choice of walking away. However she twisted him, he was a man when he committed these acts."

"The child lives inside. I know that's shrink pap, but it's true enough. We've both got that lost child in us."

"And?"

"And we don't allow that lost, damaged child to strike the innocent. I know. You don't have to soothe me. I know. We use, I guess, that child to stand for the innocent. Me with my badge, you with places like Dochas. We could've gone the other way, but we didn't."

"Well, I had a few detours."

It made her smile, and thank God for him. "And we haven't finished the trip yet. Roarke." She touched a hand to his. "You don't know how hard this is going to be."

"I have some idea."

She shook her head, and her face was already bleak. "No, you don't. I've done this before. It's worse than you can imagine. I'm not going to ask you to go back or hang around the edges, because you won't. But I'm saying, if you need a break from it, take it. Walk away for a while. Others will, believe me. There's no shame in it."

She, he thought, would never walk away. "Just tell me what you need me to do."

———«»——————«»——————«»———

She had the back of the house cordoned off. While the dogs and droids were sent in, she took a team into the house. It was dank and foul inside, dark as a cave, but when she called for lights, the place illuminated like a torch.

No dark rooms for John Blue, she thought.

He'd killed them in the bedroom, the smaller of the two. His room, Eve assumed, whenever they'd made the trip here. There were locks on the outside of the door—old locks. Locks she'd undoubtedly installed to keep the boy inside. Lock him in the dark, as her mother had locked her.

So he'd killed her there, on the stained mattress, lying naked on the floor. Killed others there, in her image.

She saw lengths of red cord, remnants of women's clothing, and the smears and stains of blood that had dried on the mattress, on the floor.

"Everything bagged and tagged," she ordered. "I want a full sweep. Personal items of some of the vics may include their identification. When it's done, I want the porta -lab and tech in here to get samples of the blood. We're going to ID every victim he brought here."

"Lieutenant?" One of the team stepped up. He wore his full protective suit, but had yet to attach the mask and filter. "We're locating them."