Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(116)

“CS is getting me out. Gromer told me. And when I get out—”

“Gromer’s going to be reprimanded, if she’s lucky. And if I get my way, she’ll be out of a job come tomorrow. And you will now be further charged with attempted murder of a police officer, with assault with a deadly on same, with attempting to escape, with attempted assault with a deadly on a medical. Just adds weight.

“Rikers max security until trial—you just bought that. And, oh boy, they’re going to love you there. Fresh, really fresh meat.”

“I’ll get out!” Tears leaped into Willow’s eyes as she shoved to her feet. “I’ll get out, and I’ll come for you.”

“Now I’m bored.”

Satisfied, Eve signaled to Shelby, to Roarke, and walked away with Willow’s curses echoing.

“Go on up, Officer. Write it up, and file. Then find your friend and go to the vids. You did good today.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant. Thank you for the opportunity.”

“I put you in Homicide. I didn’t put you in that infirmary. The psychopath back there gave you the opportunity, and you handled it. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You choose well,” Roarke murmured when Shelby headed out.

Eve gave him a fierce smile. “I like to think so. One more stop.”

More steel doors, more scans, then Eve stood outside the cage holding Reginald Mackie. He didn’t sprawl on the bunk like his daughter, but paced, back and forth, from wall to wall.

She imagined him pacing a cage for the rest of his life.

“Has word traveled down here that we took your daughter alive?”

He stopped pacing, turned, stared at her with his ruined eyes. “You can’t try her as an adult. We had a deal.”

“Terms were not met, not even close to met. Let me be the first to pass along the fact that she just tried an escape—used the infirmary, an idiot CS rep, and a green officer. The officer is now in the hospital, with his face slashed, with stab wounds. She’s going to Rikers, Mackie, and there she’ll stay until her trial. Then it’s Omega for the next century. Give or take a few years.”

“I helped you.”

“You didn’t. She wasn’t where you said, where you probably really thought she’d be. She was at your ex-wife’s, lying in wait. And on the record, she bragged about how she intended to kill her stepfather, then gut her brother while she made their mother watch. Then she’d finish her. She wanted to rack up a hundred bodies at the school. Kids, teachers, parents, bystanders. Didn’t matter as long as she hit the number.

“That’s what you spawned, Mackie. I figure maybe she was born wrong. Maybe she had that twist in her right from the jump. But you nurtured it. You stoked it, educated it, brought it along. She had choices, sure, but you made the choices she made easy for her. You made them righteous.”

She felt nothing for him when he began to weep. Nothing.

“I want you to think about that for the rest of your life.”

When she walked away, his sobs echoed as Willow’s curses had.

“We are done down here now?” Roarke asked her.

“Absolutely.”

“There’s good news, as this place is starting to make me twitchy.”

“Not a cage that could hold you, ace.”

“I’d rather never find out.”

“I just have to go up, make the arrangements for her transfer, and I should contact Whitney, just bring him up to speed. Then we’re done.”

As they moved back—the correct way, in his opinion—through the doors, he ran a hand down her back.

“On home then?”

She started to nod—home sounded excellent—then she thought: Choices. To kill, to train to kill. To move into trouble, or turn away. To share a precious new gift. To give thanks.

Wherever you came from, however you grew up, it always came down to the choices you made. Even when you only had one year on the planet.

She made one of her own, and took his hand.

“Let’s go back to the party.”

“Voluntarily?” he said, making her laugh.

“Let’s go back to the weird and the happy. Let’s go have some fucking birthday cake.”

He made a choice of his own, cupped her chin, and kissed her. “That sounds absolutely perfect.”

They rode up, away from the cages, from the curses, the tears, from those who chose to shed blood. And made their way back to the weird and the happy.