Witness in Death (In Death #10)(90)

Like mother, like daughter, Eve thought.

"Many adoptees want contact, want answers, even a relationship with their birth parents."

"I didn't. Don't. There was no hole in my life to fill. I'm sure my parents would have helped me find her if I'd asked. If I'd needed that. I didn't. And it would have hurt them," she said quietly. "I would never hurt them. How is this relevant?"

"Do you recognize the name Anja Carvell?"

"No." She stiffened slightly. "Are you telling me that's the name of the woman who placed me? I didn't ask for a name. I didn't want a name."

"You have no knowledge, have had no contact with a woman by that name?"

"No, and I don't want any." Carly got to her feet. "You've no right to do this. To play with my life this way."

"You never asked about your birth father."

"Goddamn it, if she's nothing to me, he's less than nothing. A lucky sperm. You wanted a rise out of me, you got one. Now, what does this have to do with Richard Draco's death?"

Eve said nothing, and in the silence she watched denial, disbelief, then horror flash into Carly's eyes. "No, that's a lie. A revolting, vicious lie. You hideous bitch."

She grabbed the little pot of violets on the table, heaved them to shower glass and petals down the wall. "It's not true."

"It's documented," Eve said flatly. "Richard Draco was your birth father."

"No. No." Carly sprang at Eve, shoved her roughly against a table and upended a lamp. The china exploded like a bomb. Before Peabody could intervene, Eve signaled her back, and took the hard slap to the face without attempting to block.

"Take it back! Take it back!"

She shouted it, tears spurting out of her eyes. Her beauty was stark now, white face, dark eyes. She grabbed Eve's shirt, shook, then with a moan, collapsed on her.

"Oh God. Oh my God."

"Carly." Michael bolted in from the kitchen. One look at his face told Eve he'd listened, he'd heard. When he rushed to Carly, tried to turn her into his own arms, she shoved away, crossed her arms defensively over her br**sts.

"Don't touch me. Don't touch me." Like a candle burned to wax, she slid to the floor in a shuddering puddle.

"Peabody, take Michael back into the kitchen."

He stepped back, stared at Eve. "It was cruel what you did. Cruel." He walked toward the kitchen with Peabody behind him.

Eve crouched. She could still feel the heat from the crack of Carly's hand across her face. But her gut was iced over. "I'm sorry."

"Are you?"

"Yes."

Carly lifted her face, and her eyes were ravaged. "I don't know who I loathe more at this moment: myself or you."

"If you were unaware of your blood tie to him, you have nothing to loathe yourself for."

"I had sex with him. I put my hands on him. Allowed him to put his on me. Can you conceive how that makes me feel? How dirty that makes me feel?"

Oh God, yes. She was suddenly and brutally tired. She fought off her own demons and stared into Carly's eyes. "He was a stranger to you."

Carly's breath hitched. "He knew, didn't he? It all makes such horrible sense. The way he pursued me, the way he looked at me. The things he said. We're two of a kind, he told me, and he laughed." She gripped Eve's shirt again. "Did he know?"

"I can't tell you."

"I'm glad he's dead. I wish I'd killed him myself. I wish to God almighty it had been my hand on the knife. I'll never stop wishing that."

"No comments, Peabody?"

"No, sir." They rode down in the elevator with Peabody looking straight ahead.

There was an ache, churning, pulsing, swelling, in every part of her body. "You didn't like the way I handled that."

"It's not for me to say, Lieutenant."

"Fuck that."

"All right. I don't understand why you had to tell her."

"It's relevant," Eve snapped. "Every connection matters."

"You punched her in the gut with it."

"So now it's my method that doesn't meet your standards."

"You asked," Peabody shot back. "If she had to be told, I don't see why you shoved it in her face the way you did. Why you couldn't have found a way to soften it."

"Soften it? Her father was f**king her. You tell me how you soften that. You tell me how you put that in a pretty box with a bow on it."

She turned on Peabody, and like Carry's, Eve's eyes were ravaged. "What the hell do you know? What do you know about it with your big, sprawling, happy, Free-Ager family where everybody gathers around the dinner table with clean faces and chirpy news of the day."

She couldn't breathe, couldn't draw in enough air. She was strangling. But she couldn't stop the words.

"When Daddy came in to kiss you good night, he didn't crawl into bed with you, did he, and put his sweaty hands all over you. Fathers don't jam themselves into their little girls in your tidy world."

She strode off the elevator, through the lobby, and out to the street, while Peabody stood stiff with shock.