The In Death Collection Books 16-20 - J. D. Robb [553]
She had to stop, gather herself for the rest. “He hit me, knocked me down. All I could do was pray that was going to be all. Just a beating. But I could see it wasn’t going to be all. Don’t cry. I can’t take it if you cry.”
“I can’t take it without crying.” But she used one of the stingy napkins to mop at her face.
“He got on top of me. Had to teach me a lesson. It hurt. You forget after each time how much it hurts. Until it’s happening again, and it’s more than you can imagine. More than you can stand. I tried to stop him. It was worse if I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stand it, and I fought. He broke my arm.”
“Oh, God; oh, Jesus.” Now it was Peabody who pressed her face to her knees. And wept, struggling to do so soundlessly.
“Snap!” She focused on the lake, on the calm water, and the pretty boats that glided over it. “It makes a snap, a thin, young bone. And I went crazy from the pain. And the knife was in my hand. The knife I’d been using on the cheese. Fallen on the floor, and my fingers closed over it.”
Slowly, face drenched, Peabody lifted her head. “You used it on him.” She swiped at her face with the backs of her hands. “I hope to holy God you ripped him to pieces.”
“I did. I pretty much did.” There were ripples on the surface of the lake, Eve saw. It wasn’t as calm as it looked with those little ripples spreading. Spreading.
“I just kept stabbing until . . . well, bathed in blood. There you go.” She drew a shaky breath. “I didn’t remember that part, or most of the rest until right before Roarke and I got married.”
“The cops—”
Eve shook her head. “He had me scared of cops, social workers, anybody who might’ve stepped in. I left him there, in that room. I don’t know how, except I was in shock. I washed up, and I walked out, walked for miles before I crawled into an alley and passed out. They found me. I woke up in the hospital. Doctors and cops asking questions. I didn’t remember anything, or if I did, I was too scared to say. I’m not sure which. I’d never had the ID process, so there was no record of me. I didn’t exist until they found me in the alley. In Dallas. So they gave me a name.”
“You made the name.”
“You see it affecting the job, you tell me.”
“It does affect the job. It’s made you a better cop. That’s the way I see it. It’s made you able to face anything. This guy we’re after, whatever happened to him, whether it was as bad as what happened to you, or somehow worse, he’s used it as an excuse to kill, to destroy, and cause pain. You use what happened to you as a reason to find justice for people who’ve had it taken away from them.”
“Doing the job isn’t heroism, Peabody. It’s just the job.”
“So you always say. I’m glad you told me. It says you trust me, as your partner and as your friend. You can.”
“I know I can. Now let’s both put it away, and get back to work.”
Eve rose, held her hand down. Peabody gripped it, held it a moment, then let Eve pull her to her feet.
As much to see Annalisa Sommers again as to grill Morris, Eve made another trip to the morgue.
She found him, removing the brains of a male cadaver. It was enough to put you off, she thought, even without the soy dog in her system. But Morris cheerfully gestured her in.
“Unattended death. Fair means or foul, Lieutenant?”
Morris loved his guessing games, so she obliged by moving toward the body for a closer look. It had already started to decompose, so she put time of death at twenty-four to thirty-six hours before he’d been brought in and chilled. As a result, he wasn’t pretty. She judged his age in the upper reaches of seventy, which meant he’d been robbed out of forty or fifty years on the average life expectancy table.
There was some bruising on his left cheek, and his eyes were red from broken blood vessels. Curious now, she walked around the body, looking for other signs.
“What was he wearing?