Apprentice in Death (29 page)

“He came up with adding to the range, so we took a few more trips out west, and I worked on my skills. He's a damn good instructor when he's on.”

“You stalked your targets, got their routines, and/or researched where they'd be at certain times. Like Jonah Rothstein. You knew he'd be at Madison Square for the concert.”

“The guy was a raging fan-o-holic. Counting down the days, then the hours till he saw that old, totally
over
rocker. My dad, he did most of the research, but I helped when I could get away from Zoe—that's the bio-tube where I incubated. And I picked the nests. He wanted closer initially, but then he saw I could do it.”

“How long did you work on the plan, on the details?”

“A good, solid year. He needed to clean up, at least some. We needed to stockpile weapons, the IDs, walk through the strategies and tactics.”

“You moved out of his apartment.”

“We needed a secure HQ, so yeah, bit by bit we moved what we needed to the new place. We knew we'd have to move fast when we started, hit targets daily, keep the chaos going. You got lucky, nailing down our ID.”

“Is that what you call it when somebody's better than you, smarter than you? Luck?”

“Give me half a break. If you were so good, so smart, I wouldn't have to sit here spoon-feeding you every detail. You'd already know.”

“Got me there,” Eve said, because she did. She saw it all, in hideous detail. “Don't stop now. Educate
me.”

Willow Mackie overflowed with details, smirks, and insults. Eve gave her the center spot she craved, and basking in the attention, she rolled.

For three hours Eve listened, probed, nudged, with the occasional question or comment from Reo or Peabody.

Pushing wasn't necessary, not as Willow warmed up to the idea of being important.

At one point she demanded another fizzy, and around hour three demanded a bathroom break.

“Peabody, have two uniformed officers, female, accompany Willow to the bathroom.”

On a hard laugh, Willow sneered at Eve. “You've been listening to all I can do, and you think I can't take a couple of girl cops?”

You couldn't take me, Eve thought, but nodded. “Make it four, Peabody.”

“That's more like it.”

“Interview paused,” Eve said, and strode out.

Reo caught up with her just outside the bullpen. “Jesus Christ, Eve.”

“You were expecting a sulky teenager?”

“I was expecting a stone killer. I guess I wasn't expecting a raging, showboating psychopath inside a teenager. I need to update my boss, and I want to talk to Mira. I want to make dead certain this girl is legally sane.”

“She's as legally sane as you and me. And she's a vicious little bug that needs squashing.”

“I'm with you on part two. Let me make part one absolutely solid.”

“Take fifteen.” Rocking back on her heels, Eve tried to decide if she felt disgusted or satisfied. Realized she could feel both. “I want her sitting in there again, waiting, getting worked up about telling us the rest.”

“We've got enough to put her away for countless lifetimes already. But yeah, I want the rest, too. Fifteen,” Reo said, then hurried off.

Eve stepped into the bullpen, surprised how many of her team remained. “I'm not done, but I can promise you she is. She's confessed to all of it, and I'm wrapping her up. For God's sake, anybody not on the roll, go home.”

“How's the eye, LT?” Jenkinson called out.

“It stings like a bitch, but that's from looking at that tie. Go home.”

She walked into her office to see Roarke sitting at her desk, working his own PPC and her comp at the same time.

“Done?”

She shook her head. “What's that?” She pointed at her own screen and what looked like some sort of ancient castle surrounded by some kind of cage.

“Ah, that's progress on the projected hotel in Italy. I'll have it off your unit before I leave. Coffee?”

“No. No, I need something cold.” She glanced back out. “I should've hit Vending—probably literally—for a Pepsi.”

“They're stocked in your AC now.”

“They are?”

“To save you the frustration of Vending.”

She surprised herself by being absurdly touched. And needing to sit down. She dropped into the ass-biting visitor's chair.

“That bad, is it?” Roarke rose, ordered the tube himself.

“She's told us everything up to and including Madison Square. I didn't expect her to feel remorse, to feel anything for the victims. And I did expect her to feel pride. But . . . It's the glee. The goddamn jubilation. I didn't expect the extent of that, how her ego rules all.

“It was all her idea. Part of me knew that, all of me wondered. You had to consider Mackie's state of mind. He'd never have been able to do all this, think of it all. But she did. He was paying too much attention to his grief, and not enough to her. She didn't say it, but it came across clear. She had no respect for her stepmother, called her an idiot. She used her father's grief, his weakness—it wasn't him using her, but her using him—to realize her greatest ambition. To take lives.”

“Here now, use your own chair.”

“No, no, I can't sit anyway.” She rose, took the tube from him, then just paced without drinking. “She remembers everything, even remembers what some of the victims were wearing. Sometimes that's all it took for her to make them a target. Hate that hat—you get to die in it.”

Saying nothing, Roarke eased a hip on the corner of the desk, let her spew.

“She believes the killings, the initial realization of their plan, the progess of their mission, made her father stronger. Gave him purpose. And he focused on her again.”

As she paused, she cracked the tube, drank. Breathed.

“I guess Mira would say there's a part of her, the child, who craves that focus from her father. His eyes and hands, his partner, his equal, his only child. She brought him along so he could praise her.”

“You considered her his apprentice—we all did. And for a time she was. But what you're saying is he became hers. She taught him the death of his so-called enemies by her hand—his hand through her—united them.”

“Yeah. Plus, he was her audience, her witness, her goddamn cheerleader. Even when he wasn't there, as with Madison Square, she knew he'd hear, knew he'd be proud. Knew she'd remain his center.”

“And he proved she was by sacrificing himself for her.”

“Their Plan B—we got to that. She'd get gone, get away, and he'd draw us to him. He'd take the fall. Only that didn't work on any level. Roarke, she's in the box, and she's preening. ‘Look at me, look how good I am. Yeah, I did it, did it all. Because I'm the best. Number one.' And it makes me more sick than pissed.”

“You'll be pissed before it's done. I have every confidence there.”

She nearly smiled. “You're not going home?”

He nearly smiled back. “Do you know the only color in your face is from the bruises?”

“The bruises look good on the record. And the booster you dug up for me helped. I'm tired, but I'm not shaky with it.”

“This should help as well.” He pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket.

“Is that mine?” She shot one furious glance toward the wall, and the framed sketch Nixie Swisher had done of her. “Is that from my stash? Did you compromise my stash?”

“I didn't, no, though that might've been entertaining. EDD has candy in Vending.”

“They do? Why do they rate?” But she grabbed it, ripped the wrapper. “Thanks.”

“I'm going to make it up to both of us by seeing you have a decent meal at the first opportunity.”

“Whatever.” She closed her eyes, let the first glorious bite of chocolate do its work. “Did you check on Summerset?”

“Often enough that he's now annoyed with me.”

“Okay.” She folded the wrapper over the half candy bar remaining, stuck it in her pocket. “This may take a couple more hours.”

“When I finish here, I believe I'll wander over to Observation so I can watch you wrap her up as you did that candy bar.”

She stepped to him, let her head rest on his shoulder, just a moment. “Mackie might've been a good man once—Lowenbaum thinks so anyway. But he made his choices, choices he can never come back from. She's one of them. But even without him, she'd have been in somebody's box one day. It was just his choices, just the timing of it all that made it mine.”

She drew back. “And since it's mine, I'll go finish it.”

When she left to do just that, Roarke wondered if she thought of how many more would be hers—victims and killers.

And knew, as he knew her, she did.

—

B
y the time Eve returned to Interview A, Peabody and Reo stood outside the door. Both of them, she noted, looked worn to the bone. Peabody held two fizzies, Reo a tube of Diet Pepsi.

“She's in there,” Peabody said. “I got her another fizzy before she can snap her fingers at me for one. Hitting the sugar myself.”

“Cold caffeine for me, as I can't stomach Vending coffee.”

“Hell.” Eve pulled out the half candy bar, broke that in half, held the pieces out to them.

“Chocolate? Really?” Pleasure put some energy in Peabody's voice. “Loose pants be damned. Thanks. Thanks, Dallas.”

“Thank Roarke.”

“Thank you, Roarke.” Reo took a minute bite.

“Eat the damn thing, don't mouse-nibble it to death. We've got work.”

“I like to savor the unexpected, but.” Reo popped her share into her mouth.

“I'm going to keep her going, get her to tell us about this Alaska crap, then lead into her own agenda. I want the intent to kill on record. We're going to start challenging her. The more we do, the more she'll be compelled to brag.”

Eve pulled open the door. “Record on, Interview resume. All parties present.”

Peabody set the fizzy down in front of Willow.

“I wanted cherry this time.”

“You got orange, take it or leave it.” Peabody's eyes narrowed on Willow's face. “And if you throw that at me, I'll have you up on charges of assaulting a police officer.”

“Assault with a fizzy.”

Peabody didn't crack a smile as Willow hooted in disdain.

“I'll make it stick, you ungrateful little shit.”

It seemed the challenging had begun, Eve noted, saying nothing until Peabody took her seat, sipped from her own drink.

“Tell me about Alaska.”

“It's cold.”

“Your father states that you and he planned to relocate there. That, according to your alternate plan, should something go wrong, happen to him, you were to make your way there.”

“Alaska? About as lame as Susann. Sure I liked seeing it, doing some hunting the couple times we checked it out. No way would we live up there.”

“He was very clear you would.”

“If we needed a place to lay low for a few months, sure, that would do it. Mostly, I went along with him because he needed to hear it. It helped keep him focused on the mission.”

“So you didn't intend to make your way there, as outlined, after his arrest?”

“I like the city. It's fine spending some time out west, even up there in Nanook country, but I wasn't going to drag my ass all the way to Alaska. Plus, I finish what I start.”

“Which you proved by targeting Jonah Rothstein and seventeen other bystanders at Madison Square Garden. But after that, you'd have run into a problem. Were you aware we'd identified your other targets and had them in protective custody?”

“Yeah, yeah. BFD.”

“Is that why you returned to your family home rather than the location you and your father had chosen should you need to remain in New York?”

“They're not my family, okay?” Those green eyes gleamed with disgust. “Bio-tube, her banging buddy, and the brat they spawned. That's it. It's a house, and it's as much mine as anybody's. I got my stuff there.”

“Not all of it.”

“So you took my electronics. BFD-squared. I had backups.”

“Right. We've got them now, too. I wonder, will EDD find any backups to the documents you tried to hide on your brother's comp?”

Surprise sparked first, then anger. Quickly followed by a so-the-fuck-what smirk. “He's not my brother.”

“Same mother—or ‘bio-tube,' if you prefer. Were you going to snap his neck the way you did his little dog's?”

Though she sipped from her fizzy, Willow couldn't hide the quick grin. “Why would I waste my time with a stupid dog?”

“Because it was fun. Because your brother loved it. Because you could.”

“He's
not
my brother. And so what if I did? Are you going to charge me with dog killing?”

“Animal cruelty,” Peabody supplied. Willow yawned.

“Go ahead, add it on. Like I care. Like it means a damn thing.”

“You killed the dog, then tossed its body out the window in front of your brother—”

“I
said
—open your fucking ears—he's not my brother.”

“You admit to these acts?”

“I broke the little fleabag's neck, tossed him out. If that's what you want to talk about, I'm done here.”

“Oh, we have more. Let's talk about your separate agenda or mission. Your separate list of targets, which you attempted to hide on—we'll just call him Zach—on Zach's computer.”

“They monitor mine like prison guards. Zoe thinks I don't know she goes in my room, goes through my things? The bitch is on my case 24/7, and did jack shit when that perv she married went at me.”

“He never went at you.”

“My word against his.”

“I'd like the details,” Reo put in, and made notes on her pad. “When this incident, or incidents, happened. What he did.”

“She's lying,” Eve said.

“She has a right to tell her side of it. Did Lincoln Stuben sexually or physically assault you? If so, please detail the circumstances, the number of incidents, the times.”

“Bored. Bored. Bored. He wanted to do me, but I can take care of myself.”

“Did you have an altercation?”

“‘Did you have an altercation?'” Willow mimicked. “Sure, plenty of them. He was always trying to tell me what to do, how to do it. Always bitching about showing respect. I don't have to respect some loser.”

“Which is why he was on your list,” Eve put in. “You had him, your mother, your brother, your school counselor, the principal. Oh, and you had a blueprint of your school.”

“Not hard to come by. Marksmanship's not my only skill.”

“So noted. You planned to attack the school? To kill students, teachers, others.”

“It was a thought.” Gazing at the ceiling again, Willow circled her finger in the air. “Can't charge me with thinking.”

“You returned to the townhouse, used the room on the third floor, added another alarm to alert you if somone came in.”

“So what?”

“You were lying in wait. They'd come home eventually, right? And there you'd be. How did you figure to do it? Just walk down, ‘Hi, everybody,' and blast them where they stood?”

When Willow shrugged, Eve leaned in. “Not much skill required for that. An ambush, three unarmed civilians. And not much fun from where I'm sitting. Over and done so fast. Is that the best you could do?”