New York to Dallas - J. D. Robb [30]
“While I tend to agree, it’s very possible she’s no more than bait—dead or alive—to lure you down. He wants you there, out of your element and without your usual resources. And we agree he’s gone to some trouble, used a partner, with you as the target.”
He paused, leaned toward her slightly. “Understand me, Lieutenant. I won’t order you to go.”
“Wherever he wants to take me on, Commander, he won’t stop until that happens.”
She’d known, Eve thought now. She’d known it wouldn’t be New York, that he wouldn’t wage this battle on her ground.
But Dallas. She’d never considered he’d use Dallas and a former victim.
And she should have.
“There are another twenty-one survivors from that room,” she continued, “and he can pick and choose. And there are countless others who fit his needs. He wants to engage me. He’ll torture Melinda Jones, and/or take other victims until he does. This isn’t a negotiation. It’s an either/or until I go where he wants me to go.”
No choice, she thought. He’d left her no choice at all. First strike to him.
“I’d prefer having your permission and support, Commander, and the cooperation of the Dallas PSD. But I’ll go without it. I have personal time coming, and I’ll take it.”
“I’ve spoken with Detective Jones’s lieutenant. He’s willing to accept your help, and include you in their investigation as a consultant. However . . .” Whitney laid the palms of his hands on his thighs, tapped them twice. “Dallas, we’re all aware of your background, your history in that city. We have to assume McQueen knows parts of it.”
A small, hard ball of ice formed in her belly. “It’s likely he dug up the basics. That I’d been found there, my condition. It would only add to his determination to draw me back. You know him.” She turned to Mira. “You know that would play.”
“Commander, if I could have a few moments in private with the lieutenant.”
His eyebrows drew together, but he nodded and rose. “Of course.”
“We’re wasting time,” Eve said the minute the door shut behind him. “We all know I have to go, so there’s no damn point in talking it all to death.”
“And I’ll block you leaving New York unless you talk to me.”
“You can’t.”
Mira’s eyes, a mild, soft blue hardened to steel. “Don’t be so sure.”
“You’d let him torture, dismember, kill an innocent woman so, what, I don’t experience some emotional trauma?” Eve shoved to her feet. “I’m a cop. It’s not your job to decide.”
“It’s precisely my job,” Mira corrected with a rare flash of temper. “You didn’t blink. You didn’t hesitate. And you’d better do both now, here with me. Or would you rather bull forward and go, then find yourself unable to deal with it when that innocent’s—and your own—life is on the line? You were beaten and raped in Dallas.”
“Chicago, too. I remember it some, and a couple other places. Do I have to give you a list of cities so you can clear my travel?”
“You didn’t kill your abuser in Chicago. You were finally able to defend yourself in Dallas, a child of eight, who—covered with blood, her arm broken, her mind frozen in shock—wandered the streets.”
“I know what happened. I was there.”
“And blocked it out for years, protected yourself from the memories of years of abuse as best you could. Lived with nightmares.”
“I don’t have them anymore. I dealt with it. They stopped.” Almost entirely.
“Have you considered, even for a moment, what going back under these circumstances might mean? Going there, of all places, to hunt a man who abuses—physically, sexually, emotionally—children, just as your father did to you. Have you considered how this might affect you, personally and professionally?”
“Do you think I want to go?” It burst out