Brotherhood in Death (30 page)

She saw his eyes change from sad and angry to shocked, then sorrowful, then so desperately sympathetic her insides trembled.

“I—I figured Dr. Mira would have told you.”

“No. Oh, no, Charlotte would never betray a confidence. My sweet girl,” he comforted. “I'm so sorry. What you do, every day, is so courageous, and so dangerous.”

“It didn't happen on the job.” She wanted to push to her feet, get out, get away from that quiet sympathy. But her legs had gone to water. “I was a kid,” she heard herself say. “It was my father.”

It was he who moved. He rose, came to her, took her cold hands in his. Without a word, he simply drew her to her feet and into his arms where he held her so gently she felt she would break.

“I'm okay. I'm all right,” she managed even as she began to shake.

“There now. There. You're safe here. You're safe now.”

“It was a long time ago. I—”

“Time doesn't heal, whatever they say. It's how we use the time that can heal.” He stroked her back, as Roarke often did, and tears burned like embers in her throat.

“You sit now, sit right here, and wait. I'll only be a minute.”

“I should go.”

He eased her back into the chair, touched a hand briefly to her cheek. “Sit right there.”

She did what he told her, struggled to find her balance again when he left the room. She
had
believed Mira would have told him. She understood the confidentiality, but they'd been married forever. Didn't that outweigh . . . ? Of course it didn't.

She closed her eyes, forced herself to take slow breaths.

And both the Miras would understand and respect that.

Now she'd unloaded more of a burden on a man who was already grieving. She needed to get things back on course, then get back to work.

He came back—misbuttoned sweater, house skids, and carrying two delicate cups in their delicate saucers. Tears pressed viciously at the back of her eyes just from looking at him.

“We'll have this very nice tea, with a healthy dollop of brandy. It helps.”

She didn't have the heart to tell him she didn't like tea, or brandy, so took the cup.

“Drink now.”

She obeyed, and discovered whatever magic he'd put into the cup was like a warm stroke on the spirit. She drank some more.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Mira. This isn't about me. I only wanted to reassure you I'll do everything I can to find the women who killed your cousin.”

“I never doubted that. There's no need to explain, and you don't
have to tell me anything that makes you uncomfortable. I'd like to ask, if you can answer. Where was your mother?”

“She was as bad as he was. Maybe worse. She hated me. She left. She's dead. I didn't kill her. I killed him, but I didn't kill her.” She closed her eyes. “Christ.”

“Do you think I'd judge you? My brave girl, I think you judge yourself far too harshly.”

“No—I—I did what I had to do. I know that.”

“But this investigation brings it back, and still you don't set it aside. You could.”

“If I did that, he wins. If I did that, I don't deserve the badge.”

“Far too harshly,” Dennis said quietly. “Will you tell me how old you were?”

“They said I was eight. When they found me, after, they said I was eight. They didn't know who'd raped me or broken my arm, they didn't know I killed him. Well, Homeland did—it's complicated—but the police, the doctors, they didn't know. And I didn't—wouldn't remember. I shut it all away.”

Those kind, kind eyes never left her face.

“A healthy response, I think. Just a child. A child should never have to defend herself from her father. A father should never prey on his own child. Biology, that's simply science, isn't it? There's more in the world than science, more inside the human heart than DNA and genes. He was never your father in the true sense. I hope you can understand that.”

The simple heart of it all, she thought. Of course he would find the simple heart of it all.

“Been working on that for a while.” Finish it, she told herself, and move on. “He always locked me up—they didn't give me a name, I was a thing. He kept me locked up whenever he went out. I don't remember
the first time he raped me. They're all blurred together, except the last time. He came home—we were in Dallas, that's where Child Services got my name. And he was drunk, but not enough. He hit me, knocked me down. I fought him, and it made it worse. He broke my arm. I could see the pain, the blinding white flash of it. There was a little knife I'd dropped. I'd been sneaking something to eat while he was gone. I was so hungry. And my fingers found the knife. I used it, and I kept using it until I was covered in his blood. Until he was dead. It was just a little knife. I guess I got lucky, hit some arteries.

“Anyway.” She took a breath, drank more tea. “They found me in an alley. I'd gotten out, wandered off. I didn't remember any of it.”

“But you remember now?”

“It came back a few years ago. I'd have flashes, some nightmares, some memories—but I could shut them down. And a few years ago it all came back. Dr. Mira . . . she's helped me. Even when I didn't want her to.”

“Of course. She's brilliant and beautiful, and cares deeply for you. And Roarke? Have you told him?”

“I guess he was the trigger, or the finger on it. Yeah, I told him everything.”

“Good, that's good. He's a fine young man, and one who loves you without restrictions. Finding a mate, a true one, is a rare and precious thing.”

And the heart of the heart, she thought. Yes, he'd found that, too.

“I don't even know how it happened, but even when he pisses me off, I'm grateful every day it did.”

“The best possible description for a good marriage.”

“I didn't intend to come here and talk about all of this, I just— You matter, Mr. Mira. I understand whatever he did, you lost family in a terrible way. I'll do everything I can to identify, find, and stop those who took his life. I swear it to you.”

“You took an oath when you became a police officer. How long have you been with the police? I don't recall.”

“About a dozen years now.”

“And so young.” He smiled at her now, that sweet, slightly dreamy smile that melted her heart. “You took an oath long before this, and from all I know, all I've seen, you've kept it. Look at the woman you've made yourself. Lieutenant Eve Dallas, strong and smart and brave. You'll forgive me if, at this moment, I feel Edward doesn't deserve you. If in my heart I can't feel he deserves you. But his children do, and so for their sake I'm grateful you'll keep your oath.”

“A cop protects and serves, and everybody deserves it. But I don't think he deserved you. I've got to get back to work.”

He got to his feet when she did, stepped to her again, enfolded her again. “I'm proud of you.”

“Oh God, Mr. Mira.” Tears flooded her throat, her eyes. At that moment it seemed her whole being was tears.

“There now.” He let her go to pat the pockets of his sweater, his trousers. “I never have a handkerchief where I think I do.”

“It's okay.” She swiped at the tears with her hands. “Thanks. Thank you. For everything.” She grabbed her coat, afraid she'd fall to pieces. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes. Charlie will be home soon. I'll be fine.”

But when she left, he sat by the fire and mourned the death—in every way there was to die—of the man he had thought he'd known. And grieved for the little girl he'd never known, and no one had protected.

—

E
ve got crime scene blotters out of her field kit, used them as tissues, found some sunshades in the glove box. They wouldn't fool Roarke if he'd beaten her home, but they might get her past Summerset.

She wanted to get home, stick her face in a bowl of ice water, then get to work.

She'd been honest when she'd told Dennis Mira the odds of her saving Frederick Betz were next to zero. Unless she misjudged this . . . sisterhood, they wouldn't finish him in his own house, not this time. Not when they knew she was looking for them.

She needed to ID the house in the painting, if her hunch held and it was, or had been, real. She needed to find the residence that opened with Betz's key swipe.

And she needed to watch the recording.

She shuffled that to the side for now.

Easterday, she thought as she drove. He'd be panicked, desperate, looking to both survive and escape.

Forgive me

His last message to his wife told Eve he knew what he'd done, what they'd all done, would come to light.

Where would he run?

Reo had it right—he hadn't had much of a lead. Unless he'd run straight out of the city, he'd have a hard time getting out, and with only whatever cash he'd taken from the safe. He couldn't use credit or debit or it would throw up a flag.

And he hadn't used a card to book a shuttle, a train, a car, or any other mode of transpo.

He didn't seem the type to hole up in a flop. A hotel, possibly, but that didn't ensure privacy. She had every property owned by any of the men under watch. If he had a property she didn't know about, Eve felt certain Petra would have told her.

The woman was terrified, only wanted her husband back and safe.

Would she forgive when she learned why he'd run?

Not your problem, Eve told herself and nearly wept again from the relief of driving through the gates of her home.

She ordered herself to pull it together. She had to get through Summerset and upstairs. And she didn't want to break down on Roarke.

She didn't have time to lose it again.

She got out of the car, took the bank bag out of the back—asked herself again if she should've made the trip downtown to take the hair to the lab rather than give that task to Reo.

Quicker this way, quicker was best.

She strode to the door, told herself to just keep walking.

The relief she felt when the foyer was Summerset-free dried up any threatening tears. She took the stairs two at a time, heading straight for her office.

Then slowed, stopped, when she heard Summerset's voice.

“I haven't seen one of those for thirty years or more.”

“I boosted one like it when I was a boy—before you. It was old even then, but you never knew what might bring in a few punts. So I lifted it and a stack of discs with it. Turned out to be very old porn, which gave the lads and myself quite an education. I traded it off to Mick—no, no, I'm wrong, it was Brian I traded it off to, years later. He may still have it, as far as I know.”

“I take it this one came without the porn.”

“Sadly, it did.”

“How did you come by it?”

“One of my R & R men is known for hoarding everything,” Roarke told him. “He swears it will work, good as new. But the problem, as you see, is the hookup.”

“You'll jury-rig it there to the comp, and then program it to screen.”

“That's the plan. Bugger it. Hand me the small spanner there. It's the wrong size plug, but I can swap it out, I'm thinking.”

She considered backtracking to the bedroom, doing that bowl of ice water. But she'd taken too much time on herself already.

She squared her shoulders, strode straight in to see Roarke at her desk, hunkered over her comp and some black box thing with Summerset peering over his shoulder.

“There you are,” Roarke said without looking up. “I'm just working out how to merge the antique with the contemporary. Nearly there.”

“Great.”

When Summerset glanced over, she realized the shades fooled no one. She saw him lay a hand on Roarke's shoulder, give it a small squeeze as he himself straightened.

“I'll leave you to it,” he said as Roarke lifted his head, looked at Eve.

She supposed she owed him for leaving the room rather than mortifying her.

“What happened?” Roarke asked.

“A whole bunch of stuff.”

“You've been crying.”

“A little meltdown, I guess. Look, what you're doing there's really important. I'll bring you up to date, meltdown included, but I need you to keep doing whatever that is. I'll get coffee.”

“What you need is sleep.”

“Maybe, but it's not what I'm going to get. The ground's still a little shaky under my feet, okay? Give me a chance to steady up.”

“All right.”

He reached for another tool as she went to the kitchen to program a pot of black coffee.

She told him all of it, from the time he'd left her that morning until she'd left Dennis Mira.

“I really did assume Mira had told him—like the Marriage Rules take over everything else after—what—three decades. I wouldn't have . . .” She shook her head. “I wanted to reassure him, I guess, that no matter what, I'd do the job. And I ended up telling him. An abbreviated version, maybe, but all the high points. Or the low ones.”

“There's no kinder shoulder to lean on, to my thinking.”

“I didn't go there to lean on him. But I did.” The tears stung her eyes again. “And he was kind. I brought him grief, mine and more of his, and he was kind. I'm going to give him more grief, because everything I do is a step closer to bringing all this out. It's his family name.”

“A man isn't a name. Who knows that better than I? It's he himself makes it. I've no worries on that count for Dennis Mira. Nor should you.”

“You're right.” And with that came a cool wash of relief. “You're
right,” she said again, taking his face in her hands. “You're a fine young man, and you love me without restrictions.”

“Well now, there's various interpretations of
fine
, and I might hit one or two. But the second part is pure truth.”

“You're a fine young man,” she repeated. “I have it from a good source. So . . . do you think that thing's going to work?”

Roarke glanced at the old disc player, the jury-rigged cable. “I do.”

She went to the bank bag, took out the disc in its clear case. “Let's run it.”

He put the disc in a little pop-out drawer that made a grinding sound that didn't inspire confidence. Then he played his fingers over the keyboard of her comp, swore under his breath.

“I just need to . . .”

He sat, keyed in something else, checked the connections, keyed in more. And this produced a series of beeps.

“There we are.”

“We are?”

“We are, yes. Just give it a moment.”

She frowned at the screen. The frown deepened when it turned a deep, and blank, blue.

“What—”

“It's coming,” he insisted, and gave a satisfied nod when the word PLAY appeared in the top right corner.

“See, there we are.” He tapped two keys simultaneously with his thumb and pinkie.

They came on screen, six young men standing in a circle in a room lit with dozens of candles. The glow flickered over their taut, naked bodies.

One of them—William Stevenson, she thought—let out a series of drunken giggles.

“Come on, Billy, cut it out.” Ethan MacNamee, Eve noted, trying to look stern, but managing a glassy grin.

“Sorry, Jesus, doesn't anybody else think this is weird? Standing here naked. Plus, she's out, man.” He glanced behind him. “Hot, but out.”

“She'll wake up.” Young Edward Mira had a glint in his eyes, and not all of it came from whatever they'd ingested. “And she'll beg for it.”

“Are we really going to do this?” MacNamee swiped a hand over his mouth. “All of us? On camera?”

“Brotherhood.” Betz gave MacNamee a poke in the chest. “This is how we seal our brotherhood, now and forever. We already agreed, we're all set up. We've got the girl.”

“Let's get started.” Easterday looked off camera, too. “Hey, she was practically humping me at the party, right? We're giving her what she wants. Is the camera on?”

“I set it up, didn't I?” Betz looked around, directly into the lens. “It's on. Let's quit fucking around and start.”

“We do it right.” Wymann stepped out of range. Music began to beat—something low and tribal. “We are the Brotherhood . . .

“Come on, guys, do it
right
. This is the first annual Celebration of the Brotherhood. April 12, 2011.”

When he nodded, they spoke in unison.

“We are the Brotherhood. We take what we want. We take who we want. From this day forward. We are bound, we are one. What one brother needs, the brothers give. What one brother desires, all brothers desire. All men envy what we are, what we have, what we do. And none but we, the six, will know. To break the vow of silence is death. Tonight, we seal our unity, our vow, by sharing the chosen. She is ours to do with as we will. The woman is a vessel for the needs of the Brotherhood.”

“Do we speak as one?” Edward Mira demanded.

“As one!” the others responded, though Stevenson ended on a giggle.

“He's stoned,” Eve said. “Look at his eyes. The others, they've had some chemical enhancement, but he had more. Or he's more susceptible.”

“Hardly an excuse for what they're obviously about to do.”

“No, but they needed the false courage, this time anyway, to do it.”

“We drew lots,” the future senator announced. “I am the first to take the vessel.”

“Hold on!” Betz rushed the camera. “Let me set it up.”

“Make it fast.”

The image tilted, shook—Eve saw parts of the room—a large area. Sofas, chairs, some game tables, a bar.

“Like a game room, a lounge. No windows I could see. Lower level? A fancy basement maybe. Good size.”

Then the screen showed a woman—young, maybe eighteen or nineteen. A long sweep of blond hair, a pretty face with a rounded chin, wide-set eyes. Eyes closed now.

She, too, was naked. And bound, spread-eagle on a mattress.

“Like a convertible bed? A pullout deal. Leather straps tied to the legs. Fingernails, toenails, painted—pink. That's girlie. She's wearing earrings, glittery. Her makeup's smeared some. Caucasian female, about eighteen, looks like about five-five, maybe one-twenty.”

Then Edward Mira stepped over to her, leaned over. And slapped her. One of the men off camera said, “Hey! Come on, Ed,” but he ignored the protest, slapped her again.

He had big hands. Eve knew how it felt to have a big hand slap you awake.

“Wake up, bitch!”

Her eyelids fluttered. Blue eyes, Eve noted. Glazed and unfocused.

“What?” On a moan, she turned her head. “I don't feel good. What . . .” Hints of fear lit those eyes as she tried to move, found herself bound. The fear exploded as she focused.

On the six men, Eve thought. On the one standing over her.

“No, don't. Please? What is this?”

“This is the Brotherhood.”

As he straddled her, she wept, begged.

“Let me give her the stuff, Edward. She'll want it when it kicks in.”

“I don't care if she wants it or not. I take what I want.”

“Please. Please.”

She wept as Betz fumbled with a syringe, managed to push the needle into her biceps. “Give it a couple minutes.”

Ignoring Betz, he rammed himself into the girl.

She screamed.

When he was done, she turned her face away and said, “Please.” Only, “Please.” Again and again.

“Freddy's up.”

“I'll say.” Betz stroked himself. “I got a hell of a boner. Let's see how the magic juice works.”

He took his turn straddling her, gave her nipple a teasing pinch. “Hey, baby.”

“What? What? It's hot. It's so hot.”

“Yeah, magic juice. Gonna get hotter.”

She strained against the bindings, tried to rear up. But instead of fear and shock, now her eyes were glazed and wild.

“Some form, some early form of Whore or Rabbit. Chem major—family business,” Eve stated.

Roarke said nothing, but his hand slipped into his pocket, and his fingers closed over the small gray button he carried there, always.

While Betz raped her Eve heard voices, laughter, the clink of glasses. Getting drunker, she thought, getting higher. Getting off on it, and waiting their turn at her.

When Betz came with a triumphant roar, they actually cheered.

“Holy
shit!
Best I ever had.”

“Move your ass, Fred.” Wymann shoved him aside. “My turn.”

“It's enough,” Roarke said and turned to the machine.

“No, it's not. All of it.”

It made her sick, it made her sweat, but she watched it all. Watched as they went back for more, one by one, and again, even after the girl had passed out.

“She's done, man.” Easterday sprawled beside her. She lay facedown now, limp. “No fun when she just lies there like a corpse.”

“Let's clean her up and out. Douche the douche.” Betz cackled at his sick joke.

“She won't remember anything?” Edward Mira demanded.

“Who're you talking to?” Betz snorted. “She'll remember the party—vaguely, but nothing after the first roofie we got in her. We clean her good—no DNA in her when we're done. We get her dressed, and we dump her back on the campus. Just like we planned. Maybe she cries rape, because that bitch is going to be sore every fucking where, but they can't put it on us. We're our own alibis.”

“The Brotherhood,” Wymann said.

“Bet your ass, bro.”

He turned back to the camera, grinned. “And that concludes the First Annual Brotherhood Fuckfest. Thank you and good night!”

The screen went back to blue.

After a long silence, Roarke ejected the disc, put it back in its case.

“These are the men you'd work yourself to exhaustion for? These sick, spoiled, vicious animals are who you're standing for?”

“I don't get to choose.” Her voice shook. She fought to steady it. “I don't get to choose,” she repeated. “I have to do— God, I'm sick.”

She ran out, dropped to the floor in the nearest powder room. Her stomach pitched out the vile and bitter until all that remained was the raw.

“Here now.” Gently, Roarke laid a cool cloth on the back of her neck, stroked her pale, burning face with another. “I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry, darling.”

She only shook her head. “No. They are animals, and the ones who
live, I'll work myself to exhaustion to put in cages. I'd bury those cages so deep if I could, they'd never, never see light again. It hurts you, to see someone treated that way, and it hurts more because it makes you think of me. What happened to me.”

He said nothing, only reached up to get the glass he'd set on the counter when he'd come in. “Sip this.”

“I can't.”

“Trust me now. Just a sip or two. It'll help settle you.”

“Beating them all into bloody pulps. That would settle me.”

Gently, as Dennis Mira had been gentle, Roarke cupped her cheek. “There's my Eve. Just a sip now.”

She took one. “And you know I can't. I can't do that.”

“And there's my cop. I'm madly in love with both of them. One more sip now.”

Like Dennis Mira's brandy in her tea, whatever he'd put in the glass soothed, settled. Maybe it was love that held the magic.

“It hurts you,” she said again.

He sighed, pressed his lips to her brow. Cooler now, he thought, though not a whiff of color had come back to her cheeks. “It does, yes. And yes, it makes me think of you.”

“It hurts you,” she said for a third time, “but you'll still help me.”

“A ghrá.”
He urged another sip on her. “I'm with you.”

She pressed her face to his shoulder, let a few tears spill when he drew her to him. “Every day,” she murmured. “However we got here, however and whyever you're with me, I'm grateful. Every day.”

She drew back, brushed her lips over his cheek. “I'm sorry we have to do this.”

“There's no sorry, not for this, not between us. Let's find at least one of them still breathing, so we can have the satisfaction of that cage.”

“All right.” She pushed away tears with the heels of her hands. “Let's do that.”

He slipped an arm around her waist as they walked back to her office. “You should have something—a little soup.”

“I don't think I could keep it down right now. Later, okay?”

“All right. You'll watch that obscenity again.”

“Yeah, I have to. But later.” She stopped, studied the board. She'd update that, the book, her notes. She needed to check her incomings. Maybe Harvo—Queen of Hair and Fiber—had some hits. Maybe Yancy had some luck.

“I've got three names. There are five women, two yet unidentified. If one of the three we have has other property—I'm leaning toward private home, old building, warehouse—a place they could . . . do this work—I need to find it. And I need to find Betz's other property. All I've got is what I think is the street number. And a probability that we're looking at the Bronx.”

“He had a bank and box there.” Roarke nodded. “Why go there for that unless there was another connection. I can start on both of those, but it would go faster, this sort of wide-range search, on the unregistered. More corners can be cut without CompuGuard watching, or having to avoid that annoyance.”

By agreeing to the use of the unregistered, she'd be cutting corners.

She thought of the girl gang-raped in a basement, and the forty-eight who'd come after her. Sometimes, she thought, corners needing cutting.

“Okay. If you could get started on that, I've got some things here I need to do. Then I'll come work in there with you.”

“Fair enough.” He ran a fingertip down the dent in her chin. “No coffee.”

“What?” She hadn't thought anything more could appall her that day. “Did you lose your mind between here and the bathroom?”

“You lost your lunch—or whatever passed for nutrition,” he reminded her. “If you need the caffeine, go with a Pepsi. Ginger ale would be better, but I suspect you won't settle for it.”

“My brain can't function on the ale of ginger. I don't even know what it is!”

“Pepsi then—as if you know what the hell's in that. And a bit of broth to start when you feel more ready for it.”

“Yes, Mom.”

So he kissed her forehead, as a mother might. “Be a good girl, and there may be candy later. I'll get started.”