Purity in Death (17 page)

"Which is something like saying his back was up. Look further," he said before she could snarl at him, "into the CS report. Price states the boy's schoolwork has been in steady decline. His attitude at school, and at home, poor. Brooding in his room, picking fights. And so on. The root of the problem wasn't in buying the Jazz, the root was in the boy, and at home."

"Maybe so, but the result was the parents overreacted, the cop jumps too fast, social worker mouths platitudes, and the system fails the kid."

"Is that how you see it?"

"I see Dwier didn't do his damn job on this one, but I don't know how I see the whole picture." She studied the data, absently twirling a lock of Roarke's hair around her finger. "I know they're seeing the last part. System fails. But you're right, this isn't enough to hide. So there's more. Let's dig into Fitzhugh's sheet."

Roarke found more blocks there as well. But he had the groove now and broke them quickly. "Minor complainants, Jansan, Rudolph . . . ah here we are. Sylvia and Donald Dukes, filing on behalf of their fourteen-year-old son, Devin."

"Yeah, yeah, CS rep, Price, investigating officer DS Dwier. Click, click, click."

"There's a-"

"No talking," she ordered.

"Touche," he retorted, and sat back to watch her work.

"Kid ends up at the health center this time. Sodomized, facial bruising, sprained wrist. Tox report . . . got himself Jazzed again, and chased it with alcohol. Got some body piercing now. Cock and nipple ornaments. Dwier catches it again. But look here, Price tagged him, specifically. Something going on between them."

She pulled out her memo book, began to take notes as she scanned data. "Doctor determines rape-Stanford Quillens. We'll see if he pops up again. But they don't shake Fitzhugh's name out of the kid for twenty-four hours. Doesn't want to talk about it. Why do they think you want to talk about it? Gang up on him at home the next day. Price, Dwier, the parents, rape counselor, who's this? Marianna Wilcox. Should've gotten a male counselor. He doesn't want to spill this to a female. Are they just stupid? Computer, copy text of victim interview to my home unit."

But she read it through from where she stood. It gave her a sour taste in the mouth, a greasy feeling in the gut. So many of the questions were familiar. The same had been asked of her once.

WHO DID THIS TO YOU?

WE WANT TO HELP YOU, BUT YOU NEED TO TELL US WHAT HAPPENED.

YOU'LL FEEL BETTER ONCE YOU GET IT OUT.

"Bullshit, bullshit, you don't feel better. Sometimes you never feel better. Why don't they say it like it is? You've been fucked over, kid, and we're real sorry we have to fuck you over again. Tell us how it was, and don't spare the details, so we can write it all up and make it real all over again."

"Eve."

She shook her head fiercely. "They've got good intentions. Most of them anyway. But they don't
know.
"

"This boy isn't like you." He was standing behind her now, laid his hands on her shoulders and began to rub. "He's troubled, and looking for trouble. I know about that. Surely he got more than he deserved in that area, but he isn't like you."

She calmed, leaned back against him. "Not like you either. You were smarter, meaner, and you weren't gay."

"No arguing with that." He kissed the top of her head. "His confusion over his sexuality is likely the cause for most of his behavior and the consequences of it."

"That and his parents. You got Donald here, eight years military service. Marines. Once a marine, always a marine. Mom takes the professional mother route. They put you in private schools, three in five years. Pull you out into home schooling two months before the incident with Fitzhugh. He's got a kid brother here. Three years younger. No problem there, at least that's showing up on personal data. But they yank him into home schooling, too. Taking no chances."

"You did note the father's profession?"

"Yeah, computer scientist. Click, click." She turned away to get her coffee, remembered it was wine. Frowning a little, she settled for it.

"Devin rolls on Fitzhugh, claims he was picked up at a club after he snuck out of the house. Admits he showed fake ID, admits he was a little buzzed, and that Fitzhugh says how he's having a party at his place. He goes with him. Most of that's probably solid, but then it gets smokey. He claims Fitzhugh got him stoned, but the tox level's too low for the way he plays it. He was zonked, didn't know what was going on. Fitzhugh got him into the playroom, got him in restraints. He tried to get away, but Fitzhugh overpowered him, knocked him around, then raped him."

"It wouldn't be the first time. Wolves hunt sheep. It's their nature."

"But it didn't go down like that here. Dwier had to know it didn't go down just like that. Maybe it was rape, kid was a minor so consensual or not, Fitzhugh's a pig. But he didn't knock Devin around. The father did. You look at Fitzhugh's sheet. He never beat on his victims. He didn't use force. He used persuasion, bribery, threats. Trying to make the case with force was one of the reasons they lost him."

"So you read this as Dwier, probably along with the Dukes and Price, tried to build their case out of straw, and the wolf blew it down."

She sat on the console. "Lies, half-truths, and lousy police work. I guess that's straw. I'll tell you how it went down. Kid sneaks out of the house. Probably he's done it dozens of time. They try to cage him in, but he's not having it. He's not his goddamn father. He's not his angel-face baby shithead brother. He heads to a club that caters to same-sex orientation. He's not looking for a girl. Fitzhugh's trolling and smells fresh meat. Buys the kid a drink, maybe offers him some illegals. Come up to my place, there's more where that came from. Kid keeps the nice, steady buzz going, and Fitzhugh does what Fitzhugh does. Buzz is wearing off."

"It's no prettier a picture painted your way."

"No prettier," Eve agreed. "But it's the right picture. Kid's fourteen. He's angry, he's confused, he's ashamed.He goes home, sneaks back in. But he's busted. He smells of the alcohol and the sex, and the father loses his temper. Grabs him by the wrist, slaps him. Tears, shouts, recriminations. Probably some name-calling the father regretted after. Take him to the health center, order him to say the minor injuries were a result of the sexual assault. He's caused the family enough trouble, damn it, and he's going to do what he's told."

"And in the end," Roarke continued, "it fell apart. Fitzhugh walked, because among other things, the others were too busy protecting their image."

"Yeah, which makes me feel better about going over to their place tomorrow and questioning the family. They won't be the only ones. Let's find the others."

"I've set up the search already, adding in George's file." He smiled at her, moved in, nudging her knees apart so he could fit his body between them. "It'll mark blocked sealeds, and I've input the series of commands to bypass the block, open the seal."

"Busy fingers."

"And they've life in them yet." He slid them under her shirt. "It'll take a bit of time to finish tasking. Just, I'd say, enough time."

"I'm on duty."

"Me, too." He eased in and found, with his mouth, the spot just under her jawline he liked best. "Why don't you give me an order, Lieutenant?" His fingers skimmed over her breasts, her sides, and around her back to dance along her spine.

The thrill rushed after them. She knew what he was doing-washing away the shadows of the picture they'd just painted. Bringing up the strong, clear colors of their own.

"Cut that out." She angled her head so his lips could trail up. "In a minute."

"That's pushing even my speed and agility, but we'll start with a minute." He caught her earlobe between his teeth. "And see how it goes."

Her brain was starting to fog up, her body starting to rev. "God, you're good at this."

"Is that going into my official file as a . . ." His mouth found hers, sank in. ". . . expert consultant, civilian?"

"I'll keep it in my personal records." Her breath caught. How the hell had he gotten her shirt off so fast? "This is . . . we can't do this on a command console."

"I think we could." He'd already unhooked her trousers. "But it does lack a little something. Hitch on," he said, and gave her hips a boost until her legs were wrapped around his waist.

"Minute's gotta be up," she whispered, but couldn't resist nibbling at his throat.

"Let's see if we can make time stop."

He opened a wall panel. A bed slid out. When he tumbled her to the mattress, she kept her legs and arms hooked around him and used the momentum to roll on top of him.

"It's going to be fast," she warned him.

"I can live with that."

She tore open his shirt, ran her hands in one hard sweep over his chest, then lowered to scrape her teeth over flesh.

The taste of him was already a part of her, lived inside her. Still she always wanted more. And took more, crushing her mouth to his until the heat drenched her.

She could feel it pump from him, from her as mouths and hands turned greedy. It fueled her, pulsing through her system like a slap of adrenaline.

When he flipped her to drag at her trousers, she dragged at his. Her heart hammered under his restless mouth. His muscles tensed under her impatient hands.

They tugged, pulled, yanked and ripped so that she was naked and laughing when she rolled again to straddle him. Laughter became a purr of pleasure as she took him inside her.

She clenched around him and drove him mad with need. Rearing up, he clamped his mouth on her breast, sucking her in until it felt as though he could feed on her heartbeat. The flavor, the heat, the scent of mate. She arched, letting him fill her.

Then began to move.

She drove him back, braced her hands on either side of his head and used her hips to set a furious pace.

The thrill, the dark and dangerous edge of it, sliced through him. Her face was alive, so alive with purpose and pleasure. And she rode him as if their lives depended on it.

The air thickened, his vision dimmed. She was a blur of white and gold.

"You go over." Her voice was raw. "You let go."

His body plunged to hers. He thought it was like being swallowed alive. He heard her cry out as she dived after him.

***

He drew her down, drew her in while they drifted back.

"Sex is funny," she murmured.

"I'm still laughing."

She snorted and turned her face into the side of his neck for a moment. "Yeah, that was a really good joke, but I meant sometimes it knocks you flat so you feel like you could sleep for a month. Other times it pumps you up so you feel like you could run a marathon. I wonder why that is?"

"I couldn't say, but I have a feeling this one falls into the latter category."

"Yeah, I'm stoked." She shifted, planted a quick, hard kiss on his mouth. "Thanks."

"Oh, whatever I can do to help."

"Well, you can get your great-looking ass up so I can see the rest of the data." She sucked in a cheerful breath, then rolled away. "I want coffee."

"It's going to be a long night. Why don't we get some of that cake to go with it?"

She grabbed her shirt. "Good thinking."

***

Between the sex and caffeine, her energy level stayed high until after three a.m. She had six more names on her list, and had no doubt there were more. The game plan was already formed in her head.

She'd start in the morning with the Dukes.

When she reached for yet another cup of coffee, Roarke simply pushed it out of her reach. "You're cut off, Lieutenant, and going off duty."

"I've got another hour in me."

"You don't, no. You've gone pale, which is a sure sign you've hit the wall. You need some sleep or you won't be sharp tomorrow. You'll have to be if you're going to do what I assume you're going to do and push for interviews with these families. Will you take Peabody?"

He asked more to distract her than a need to know. He shut down the equipment, slid an arm around her waist.

"I've been going back and forth on that. If I take her, I'm putting her in the squeeze. If I don't, she'll be pissed and sulk. She's really annoying when she's sulking."

He had her in the elevator before she realized it. Which proved, she supposed, that she'd lost her edge for the night.

"I guess I'll leave it up to her. Or maybe I'll . . ."

"Decide in the morning," he finished, and steered her off to bed.

Chapter 14

McNab wasn't having much luck shutting down for the night. He felt restless and useless lying in bed. In the dark. More aware of the numb parts of him than the rest. Counting off his own heartbeats. Like they were ticks of a clock, he thought, tick-locking off the rest of his life as half-there, half-gone.

It was easier during the day when the job kept his mind busy, pushed him to think of something other than himself. And that tick-tock. Until he went to reach for something, or stand up or just scratch his own damn ass.

It flooded back then, boy. Like a goddamn tidal wave.

Tick-tock.

If he closed his eyes he could see it all happening again. The shout, the movement, the blur of Halloway's hand lifting the weapon, drawing a bead. And he could feel it again, that icy hot blast kicking him up and back and down. That one instant, just the one, of feeling nothing.

If he'd moved just a little faster, if he'd jumped the other way. If Halloway hadn't fired so close and so clean.

If, if, if.

He knew what his chances of coming back were now. Down to thirty-percent and falling.

He was fucked, and everyone knew it. They didn't have to say it. He could hear them thinking it.

Especially Peabody.

He could practically hear her thinking it in her sleep.

He turned his head, and could see the outline of her in the dark, in the bed beside him.

He thought of the way she'd chattered away-about the job, the case, the kid Jamie, about a thousand things to avoid any gaps of silence while she'd helped him get undressed for the night.

Christ, he couldn't even unbutton his own pants.

Note to self, he thought sourly. Zippers, Velcro, and tipcot fasteners only in the future.

He'd deal with it. You ran with the data you got. But he'd be damned if she was going to be stuck with him.

He gripped the bedpost with his good hand, tried to lever himself up.

She stirred, shifted, and her voice came out of the dark, too clear for her to have been sleeping.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Just want to get up. I've got it."

"I'll give you a hand. Lights on, ten percent."

"I said I've got it, Peabody."

But she was already out of bed, coming around to his side. "Bet you gotta pee. You and Jamie must've sucked down a gallon of milk each with that cake. I could've told you-"

"Go back to bed."

"Can't sleep anyway. I keep thinking about the case." Her movements were as brisk and practical as her tone as she scooted him up, lifted, shifted, and maneuvered him into his chair. "You have to figure Dallas and Roarke are working on something or they'd have-"

"Sit down."

"I'm going to get some water."

"Sit down, Peabody."

"Sure, okay." She kept the half-smile on her face as she sat on the side of the bed facing him. Was it too much? she wondered. Not enough? Her muscles were so knotted it felt like a troop of Youth Scouts had been practicing for a merit badge with them.

He looked so tired, she thought. So horribly, horribly frail somehow.

"This isn't going to work. We're not going to work."

"That's a stupid thing to be talking about at three in the morning." She started to get up, but he laid his good hand on her knee.

She was wearing a bright red nightshirt, and her toes were painted the same shade. Her hair was messy, her mouth grim.

And McNab realized Roarke had been right in something he'd said once. He was in love with her. That meant he had to do this right.

"Look what I was going to do was pick a fight, piss you off enough so you'd storm out. Not that hard to do. You get bent pretty easy. We'd break it off and go our separate ways. But that doesn't seem right. Besides, you'd have copped to it anyway. So I'm going to play it straight with you, Peabody."

"It's too late to have this kind of argument. I'm tired."

"You weren't sleeping. Neither was I. Come on, She-Body, hear me out." He saw her eyes start to shine and shut his own. "Don't turn on the tap, okay? This already sucks out loud."

"I know what you're going to say. You're messed up, you're impaired and you want to break things off because you don't want to screw up my life. Blah, blah."

She sniffed, swiped a hand under her nose. "You want me to walk away because you can't, so I can have a full, meaningful life without the burden of being stuck with you. Well, get fucked, McNab, because I'm not walking. And you managed to piss me off just fine by thinking I would."

"That covers part of it." He sighed, kept his hand on her knee. "You wouldn't walk, Peabody. You're solid, and you wouldn't walk when I'm . . . when I'm like this. You'd stick, and you'd keep sticking even if your feelings changed about everything. You're solid, and that's what a solid does. After a while, neither of us would know, not for sure, if you were with me because you wanted to be or because you felt obligated."

She got a stubborn line between her brows and turned her head so that she stared at the wall instead of those sober, serious green eyes. "I'm not listening to this."

"Yeah, you are." He eased back, gripped the arm of the chair with his good hand. "I don't want a medical, and you don't want to be one. For Christ's sake, I wouldn't be able to take a piss on my own if Roarke and Dallas hadn't given me this fucking chair. She's keeping me on the job, and she doesn't have to. I'm not going to forget that."

"You're just feeling sorry for yourself."

"Fucking A." He nearly smiled. "You try going twenty-five percent dead and see how quick you haul out the violins. I'm pissed and I'm scared, and I don't know what the hell I'm going to do tomorrow. If I've got to live like this, then that's the breaks."

He wasn't going to be a whiner, he reminded himself. He was
not
going to be a whiner. "But I've got a right to set up the rules, and I don't want you around."

"You don't know you're going to have to live like this." She threw up her hands, trying for exasperated while tears burned the back of her throat. "If it doesn't come back in a few days, you'll go to that clinic."

"I'll go. I'll owe Dallas and Roarke big for that, too, but I'll go. And maybe I'll get lucky."

"They've got a seventy-percent success rate."

"They got a thirty-percent fail rate. Don't talk numbers to an e-man, baby. I've got to focus on myself for a while. I can't think about how things may or may not work out with us."

"So we just box that up so you don't have to worry about it? Now you're a coward, too."

"Goddamn it! Goddamn it, can't you get that I need to do this, for you? Can't you give me a lousy break here?"

"Guess not." Her chin jutted out. "You already had your lousy break. And I'll tell you, I don't know how things are going to work out with us either. Half the time I don't know what the hell I see in you. You're irritating, you're sloppy, you're skinny, and you sure don't match my childhood image of Delia's dream man. But I'm in it now and I make my own calls. When I want out, I'll get out. Until then, you can shut up because I'm going back to bed."

"Guess Roarke's more the image of Delia's dream man," he grumbled.

"Damn right." She swung her legs back into bed, punched her pillows. "Smooth, sexy, gorgeous, rich, and dangerous. None of which you are now, or were before you got zapped. None of which you can hope to be once you're up and dancing again either. Get your own pitiful self back in bed. I'm not your nursemaid."

He studied her as she laid back, folded her arms across her chest and glared at the ceiling.

And he began to smile. "You're good. I didn't see that coming. Piss me off, insult me-the not sexy remark is the one that stung, by the way-and shove the argument out of its orbit."

"Kiss my ass."

"It's one of my favorite recreational activities. I don't want to fight with you, She-Body. I just think we could both use a little time, a little space. I care about you, Dee. I really care about you."

It made her eyes sting again. He never called her Dee. She kept her lips pressed tightly together, afraid she might start sobbing. Certain the killing expression she worked onto her face would have made her lieutenant proud, she turned her head.

Then she sat up like a rocket coming off the launching pad, and stared. "You're scratching your arm."

"What?"

Very slowly, trembling only a little, she pointed. He followed the direction and saw he'd been scratching absently at his right arm. "So, it itches. What I'm trying to say . . ."

His body went very still. He'd have sworn his own heart stopped. "It itches," he managed. "It feels like a bunch of needles under the skin. Oh Christ."

"It's waking up." She hurled herself out of bed to kneel beside his chair. "What about your leg? Can you feel anything?"

"Yeah, yeah, I-" The itch grew maddening, and his heart began to hammer. "Help me out, will you? Right along the hip. I can't reach. Ahhhh."

"I have to call Summerset."

"Stop scratching and I'll kill you."

"Can you move your fingers, toes, anything?"

"I don't know." He bore down, tried to ignore the sensation in his biceps, in his thigh that was like being pricked with a thousand hot needles. "I don't think so."

"Do you feel this?" She pressed her thumb against his thigh, and thought she felt a muscle quiver.

"Yeah." He fought back the hot flood of emotion that gushed into his throat. "Why don't you shift that grip a few inches to the left? Distract me before I start screaming from this itching."

"Your dick never went numb."

A tear spilled off her cheek, plopped on his hand. And he knew the sweetest sensation he would ever feel was that warm, wet tear against his awakening hand.

"I love you, Peabody."

She looked up at him, with surprise. "Look, don't get crazy-"

"I love you." He laid his good hand on her cheek. "I figured I'd lost my chance to tell you that. I'm not going to risk missing it again. Don't say anything, okay? Maybe you could just give it a chance to settle in."

She moistened her lips. "I could do that. I need to get Summerset up here. He should . . . do something. Probably." When she straightened, her knees wobbled. And she turned and cracked her shin smartly on the bed. "Shit. Shit. Wow."

She limped to the house 'link while McNab scratched his throbbing arm and grinned after her.

***

By seven-thirty, Eve was pumping in the caffeine again. Second cup in hand, she headed for the lab for a quick check-in with Roarke before the rest of the team poured into her office.

She was nearly through the door when she heard his voice.

She'd heard that icy tone before-the kind that sliced straight through the belly, spilling out the guts before the victim registered the pain.

Though the victim in this case was a minor, nobody was going to call Child Services.

"Is there something about the rules of this household and your current position in it that's eluded you?" Roarke posed the question the way a cat lurks outside a mouse-hole.

With lethal patience and the gleam of fangs.

"Look, what's the BFD?"

And the kid, Eve thought with a shake of her head, was responding like the mouse stupid enough to think it could outwait or outwit the cat. Foolish, foolish boy, she mused. You are dead meat already.

"You'll mind your tone when you speak to me, James. I'll tolerate a certain amount of idiocy from you due to your age, but I'll tolerate no sass whatsoever. Are we clear on that particular point?"

"Yeah, okay, but I just don't-"

Eve couldn't see Roarke's face, but she could clearly envision the look in his eye. One that had Jamie swallowing back whatever he'd been about to say, and revising it.

"Yes, sir."

"That's good. Saves time and heartache. Now, I'll explain the big fucking deal to you, in words that should be easily understood. Because I gave you a specific order, and when I give specific orders, they're to be followed. And that's the end of it. Any part of that hazy for you?"

"People are supposed to think for themselves."

"That they are. And people who work for me are to do as I tell them. Or they don't work for me any longer. If you're going to sulk over it, take yourself off elsewhere so I don't have to look at you."

"I'm almost eighteen."

Roarke eased a hip onto a work counter. "A man, are you? Then behave as one, and not like a boy who's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar."

"I could've gotten more data."

"You could've crashed that impressive brain of yours. The fact is, Jamie, I've plans for you that don't include going to your memorial."

Jamie's shoulders hunched now, his gaze lowered. He kicked idly at the base of the workstation with the toe of his ancient airboot. "I'd've been careful."

"Careful? Careful isn't trying to sneak into the lab in the middle of the night to boot up an infected computer without anyone at control, without anyone monitoring. What that is, is arrogant and it's stupid. I'll tolerate a bit of arrogance, even admire it. But stupidity's another matter. Beyond all that, you disobeyed an order."

"I wanted to help. I just wanted to help."

"You have been, and you'll continue to help if you give me your word you won't try the same thing again. Look at me. You say you want to be a cop. God knows why as you'll work yourself half to death for piss-poor wages and little to no appreciation from the people you swear to protect and serve. A good cop follows orders. He doesn't always agree with them, doesn't always like them, but he follows them."

"I know." The wind seemed to go out of him, slumping his shoulders again. "I screwed up."

"You did indeed. But not as badly as you might. Your word on it, Jamie." Roarke held out a hand. "As a man."

Jamie looked down at the proffered hand. His shoulders straightened, and he clasped it. "I won't do it again. I promise."

"Then that's the end of it. Go, grab some breakfast. We'll be back at this in a half hour."

Eve eased around the corner, waited until Jamie had dashed out and away.

Roarke was already at a workstation when she walked in. She noted he wasn't doing casework, but transmitting some complicated instructions for his broker. When he was done, she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again when he immediately started another transmission to his admin.