Forgotten in Death(45)

“Jesus Christ.” She had to push up from the table, pace away, step out to breathe the air on the little balcony.

“That motherfucker. He set it up. I bet they took pictures. ‘Here’s what’ll happen and worse, Alva, you stupid bitch, if you don’t do what I say when I say it. If you try to tell anybody what goes on in my house. If you try running back home.’”

She closed her eyes. “‘You’re nobody, you’re nothing. Nobody cares about you. I’m all you’ve got. I put a roof over your head. I put food on the table. Why do you make me punish you?’”

She came back to the table, sat again. “Her father—substance abuse. Maybe abusive otherwise. Deserted them. She married a cop—she admired cops. They keep the law, the order, they keep the rules. A cop raised her—probably protected her from harm—a cop helped her, gave her love and affection, safety, security. This cop, this husband, hurts her. She must deserve it. She broke the rules he set down, so she deserves it. Her siblings—she gave up her own dreams for them. She has to protect them, like her mother and grandfather.”

Again, Roarke brushed a hand over hers. “I believe Mira will agree with your assessment. Alva lived that way for nine years. Then Alva Wicker disappeared. There were missing persons reports issued. Her siblings were interviewed, and from their responses I tend to believe she never contacted them.”

“Protected them. He broke her, and she couldn’t live that way anymore, but she had to protect what she loved.”

“So Alva Quirk was born. The fake ID is well done, not perfect, but well done. A pro or someone with experience certainly. They laid a decent background from 2047 back.”

“I didn’t find any background.”

“Washed, at a later time. In that, she changed her hair—very short and brown, where she was born very blond. Brown eyes, when she’d been born with blue. Quirk, two years older than actuality, and born in Dayton, Ohio, only child and so on. She listed her address, beginning in 2048, as Morgantown, West Virginia, and her employment as a housekeeper in a nearby resort. Enough time, I should be able to track down where the ID was made, but more importantly to you, I’d think, is she wiped it again in 2052. So Quirk ceased to exist.”

“Something spooked her. She saw something, or someone, and got spooked. Wiped herself out again and went poof. But—”

“What you have on her? The ID? It’s from a check-in at the Chelsea Shelter. Just bare bones, as is often the case. She gave them the name she’d taken, and nothing else. So she popped up again as Quirk, in New York. No background.”

“I need to talk to her siblings.”

“Both still in Oklahoma. I sent you the current contact information.”

“Did Wicker ever divorce her?”

“He did, and remarried, divorced again. Remarried again. No children.”

“Good.” She grabbed her wine, took a quick drink. “Good. He doesn’t get notification. What he will get is an investigation. DeWinter has to confirm the time line of those injuries. If I can find Alva’s place, where she kept her books. Maybe she wrote stuff down, maybe the rules she broke, the punishment he gave her.”

“It’s years ago, Eve. More than a dozen since she ran from him. And he’s a cop.”

Slowly, Eve shook her head. “No, he’s an abuser with a badge, and that’s the worst kind. He doesn’t get to keep the badge. I may not be able to see that he’s charged and convicted and locked up for domestic abuse, though I’m going to give it a solid try. But he’s not going to keep the badge.”

She looked straight into Roarke’s eyes. “We’re not going to let him. You’ve given me enough, you dug, you worked, and you gave me what I needed. I’m going to take that and do what needs doing. We—you and me—we’re not going to let him hold a badge.”

She picked up her wine again, sipped slowly. “We know what it’s like—you and me—to live with someone who uses power and authority to hurt and terrorize us. I felt that from her. That’s not woo-woo crap.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked her.

“No, it’s instinct and training. It’s following your gut and following leads. She lived with that. Nine years. I lived with it for eight, you lived with it longer. She broke. I broke. You never did.”

“I’m not looking at a woman who broke.”

“I broke,” she repeated. “I mended. She’d started to mend, the way I see this. Got away, covered herself, protected her family, got a job. Then something or someone cracked the seal she’d put over the break.”

She set the glass down again. “Wicker gave her near to a decade of abuse, and he’s going to pay for it just like whoever bashed her skull in and tossed her in a dumpster’s going to pay.”

She felt her throat closing up, struggled against it. “I have a badge. And that’s what I do.”

Roarke rose, came around the table. He put his arms around her, just held her.

“I’m fine. I’m okay.”

“You’re more than both no matter how this upsets you and reminds you. And you’re right in everything you said. You have the right of it.” He drew back, cupped her face. “We won’t let him keep the badge. And we won’t let those who killed a harmless woman who’d already suffered get away with it.”