Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(82)

“Eighteen dead.”

“Yes. Now she has her head. She has no one to tell her to stop.”

“Will he feel pride?”

“I believe he will. He may see, some part of him may see, she’s reveling in the kill—not the agenda, not the mission, but the power of the kill. And still, she’s his child, one he taught. One he loves.”

“What kind of love is that?” Eve snapped it out. “What kind of love raises a kid to be a monster?”

“However twisted, for him it’s genuine. He sacrificed himself to save her. He sent her away, not only in hopes she might eventually complete the mission, but certainly to protect her.”

She turned now to face Eve. “He was a police officer. He certainly had to know, once you’d identified them, you’d also identified at least some of the targets. So those targets would be out of reach.”

“Tell that to Jonah Rothstein.” Eve took the ID shot out of her field kit, put it on the board.

“There’s no point blaming yourself when you know who’s responsible.”

“I just couldn’t . . . No.” Eve sucked in a breath. “No point. So, the instructor—the master—wants the mission completed, and for it to be completed, the student needs to stay safe. Free. And the father protects the child, even as he helps twist her into a killer. Because I think to do what she’s done, it was always in there. Inside there. He just had to recognize it and exploit it.

“But he doesn’t know her agenda—she was smart to keep that to herself. Will he care? When I hit him with hers in the hospital, he wasn’t ready to believe me. Her own mother, her own brother, teachers, kids in school? He slapped that off. When I make him believe it, will he give a fuck?”

“You need him to,” Mira said with a nod. “You need him to, we could say, give a great many fucks in order to pressure him into giving you information on her whereabouts.”

Another time it might have amused her to hear Mira’s clinical use of the f-word. “That’s exactly right.”

“I believe children are important to him. With the divorce, a man in his position—a demanding career—could have opted for generous visitation rather than co-parenting. It was the loss of his wife and the potential of another child that broke the restraints on his control.”

“The kid brother then, the school.”

“Will most likely be your best levers.”

“She’s not going to Alaska to live wild and free, as in his plan for her.” Eve nodded. “She’s going to stay right here, shift over to her own mission. He taught her to kill, now she’s going to take what he taught her and eliminate anyone who’s annoyed her. Keeping herself in my crosshairs. Not safe. Yeah, yeah, I’ll play that.”

“Do you want me in Interview?”

“No, I want him looking at me. The one who’s hunting his offspring. A cop killer. I want him thinking about that, knowing she’s still here. Knowing she’s close, and I’m close. And remembering, as a cop, how we feel about those who target our own. It won’t be hard to make him believe I’d take her out rather than give her a chance to play the misled card and spend time in a cushy facility for minors.”

When Mira said nothing, Eve shifted her gaze, met her eyes. “No. In fact, that’s last resort. I want her looking at me, knowing I’m the one who stopped her. I want her to remember me every day of the rest of her very long life.”

“She’s not you.”

“Could’ve been. Who knows what Richard Troy would’ve twisted me into if he’d had more time.”

“No. Nature, nurture, both matter, both form us. But at some point, at so many points, the choices we make, the paths we take, they define us. You made yours. She’s made hers.”

“Yeah. Yeah. And we’re going to come together, I swear to Christ we are. Then we’ll see what each other is made of. So I need to break Mackie. I will break Mackie.”

“I’ll be in Observation. If you need me.”

“Okay.”

As Mira turned to go, Cher Reo stepped into Eve’s doorway. “Mackie’s in Interview A,” the APA stated. “I’m here to tell you that my boss says no deals for him. Former cop, now a mass murderer, and a cop killer. Evidence is thick and heavy. A confession would be nice, of course, but the PA’s office believes we have more than enough for a conviction.”

“I hear that.”

“However—”

“Bugger the howevers.”

“However,” Reo continued, “if Mackie gives us the location of his daughter before she takes another life or injures anyone else, and if she surrenders peaceably, the PA’s office will agree to try Willow Mackie as a minor.”

“Bullshit, Reo.”

Reo held up a hand, skimmed the other through her windblown, curly hair. “We’re giving you ammunition, Dallas. He needs incentive to lead us to her before she takes out another swath of people. Dr. Mira?”

“It could play on two levels. On his paternal instincts to protect, and on his need to have the mission complete—however long it might take.”

“Which is just what she will do if we let her walk at eighteen.”

Reo angled her head. “And what are the odds of that actually happening? The odds of a peaceful surrender and no further harm done?”