The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [282]
“She—she just isn’t capable . . .”
“Zana Kline Lombard wasn’t capable. Marnie Ralston was and is. She confessed, Bobby, she walked me through it.”
“But we were married, all these months. We lived together. I know her.”
“You know what she wanted you to know. She’s a pro, a manipulator with a sheet as long as my arm. Bobby. Look at me, Bobby. You were raised by a manipulative woman, primed to be taken by another.”
“What does that make me?” His hand fisted, punched lightly on the bed. “What the hell does all that make me?”
“A target. But you don’t have to keep being one. She’s going to try to play you. She’s going to cry and apologize and tell you things like she started all this before she really knew you, that she fell for you on the way. She’ll say that part was never a lie. She’ll say things like she did this for you. She’ll have all the right words. Don’t be a target for her again.”
“I love her.”
“You love smoke. That’s all she is.” Impatient, a cinder of anger burning in her belly, Eve got to her feet. “You’ll do what you do. I can’t stop you. But I’m saying that you deserve better. I figure it took guts for a twelve-year-old kid to sneak me food, to try to make things a little easier for me. It’s going to take guts for you to face what you’re going to have to face. I’ll make it easier for you if I can.”
“My mother’s dead. My wife’s in prison, charged with her murder. With maybe trying to kill me. For God’s sake, how can you make it easier?”
“I guess I can’t.”
“I need to talk to Zana. I want to see her.”
Eve nodded. “Yeah, fine. You’re free to go down for visitation once they spring you.”
“There’ll be an explanation. You’ll see.”
You won’t, she decided. Maybe you can’t. “Good luck, Bobby.”
She went home, hating that she’d closed a case and still carried a sense of discouragement, of failure. The man would be manipulated. Maybe the system would as well.
She’d closed the case, but it wasn’t over. Sometimes, she thought, they never were.
She walked in, glanced at Summerset. “Let’s just keep this moratorium going another few hours. I’m too damn tired to screw around with you.”
She went straight to the bedroom. And there he was, stripped to the waist, pulling a T-shirt out of a drawer.
“Lieutenant. I don’t have to ask you about your day. It’s all over your face. She slipped through?”
“No, I got her. Full confession, for what it’s worth. PA’s going with Murder Two on Trudy, reckless endangerment on Bobby. She’ll go over, and for a long time.”
He pulled on the shirt as he crossed to her. “What is it?”
“I just left the hospital. Told Bobby.”
“You would do that yourself,” Roarke murmured, and touched her hair. “How horrible was it?”
“As much as it gets. He doesn’t believe it, or part of him does. You could see part of him knew I was giving it to him straight. It’s more he won’t see it, won’t accept it. He’s going to go down there, talk to her. She claimed he’d end up paying for her lawyers, and you know, she’s going to be right.”
Roarke slid his arms around her. “Love. Who can argue with it?”
“He’s a victim.” She dropped her forehead to his. “And one I can’t reach.”
“He’s a grown man, making his own decisions. Not helpless, Eve.” He tipped her face up. “You did your job.”
“I did my job. So what am I bitching about? It didn’t tie up the way I wanted. That’s the breaks. Nice that you’re here, though. Good that you’re here.”
She turned, wandered over toward the tree.
“What else?”
“She said we were alike. We’re not, I know we’re not. But there’s a piece of me like her, and that piece knows how she could pick up that sap and whale away. There’s a piece of me that understands that.”
“Eve, if you didn’t have that piece, didn’t understand why some use it and you don’t, you wouldn’t be such a damn good cop.”
Weight simply slid off her shoulders as she turned and looked