Apprentice in Death (20 page)

“I agree with you, but there's nothing you can do here and now. You need to go home, get some sleep.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She glanced back as Roarke steered her toward the elevator. “I hope he sleeps right and tight tonight, because it's the last night he'll spend outside of a goddamn
cage.”

She fell asleep in the car, her PPC falling out of her limp hand onto her lap. Reaching over, Roarke slid it into her pocket, then lowered her seat back.

She worried him. No matter how completely he understood she did what she had to, pushed herself and others because she had no choice, she worried him.

He knew how thin her defenses were when she worked herself into exhaustion.

At least she'd get a few hours' sleep in her own bed, he thought as he drove them through the gates. And he'd see she ate a decent breakfast in the morning.

He, too, did what he must, and the most important must for him was Eve.

He would have carried her in, and straight up to bed, but she stirred.

“I'm okay,” she mumbled as she pushed herself up to sitting. “I've got it.”

“Sleep,” he said as he slid an arm around her on the way to the door.

“Yeah, I'm mostly already there. I need to be up at six. No, five-thirty's better. I want to clear some things, go into Central, and be ready when they transport Mackie.”

“Five-thirty it is then.”

“I can count on you for that.” She leaned her head toward his shoulder, realized she could have slept standing up. “Does it have to be oatmeal? You're already thinking about what you're going to feed me in the morning.”

“Pancakes.” Swamped in love, he brushed a kiss over her hair. “And bacon and berries.”

“And lots and lots of coffee.”

He ended up carrying her the rest of the way, pulling off her boots as she dragged off her coat. Together they got her undressed. She managed a “Thanks” as she burrowed under, and was dead asleep before he slipped in beside her, wrapped an arm around her.

And let himself join her.

—

E
ve stood on the circle of white ice with its spreading pools of blood. The wind cut like razors. In the deep, dark night, the blood read black against the white, and the bodies it flowed from were a pale and sickly gray.

She faced the girl, the girl with smooth skin and black dreads and bold green eyes.

And what she felt in that moment, looking into those bold green eyes, was a kind of pity. One she had to shove away, even in dreams.

“I'm better than you,” Willow said with a glinting smile.

“At killing unarmed civilians? Sure, I'll give you that.”

“Better than you all the way. I know what I am. I
like
what I am. And I'm the best at what I am. But you? You pretend to be what you're not.”

“I'm a cop. I don't have to pretend.”

“You're a killer, same as me.”

“We're not even close to the same.” Yet something shuddered through her at the words—Willow's, her own. “You kill for sport, for jollies. You kill the defenseless and the innocent. Because you can—until I stop you.”

“It's the kill that counts, and I already have more racked up than you. Reasons don't matter.”

“Yeah, they do. Who's running and hiding? Not me.”

“I'm right here.” As the wind whipped, Willow opened her arms. “And you hide every day, run and hide every day from who you are, deep down.”

In the dark night, the red light began to pulse, washing over the white ice. “You did that to your own father.”

Eve looked down at Richard Troy's body, at the blood seeping from more than a dozen wounds.

“I did that, and I'd do it again.”

“Because you're a killer.”

“Because he was a monster.”

“Who says you get to choose and I don't? People hurt my father, now they're dead.”

“Your father's a selfish, twisted son of a bitch.”

Willow smiled again. “Yours, too, but my father loves me. He taught me, helped make me what I am. So did yours.”

“I made me what I am, despite him. How did she hurt your father?” Eve pointed at the dead girl in red.

“I didn't like her. Show-off. The kind who thinks they're better than me. Like you do. When I'm done, I'll come back for you.”

“When I'm done, you little freak, you'll live in a concrete cage. You and your old man.”

Willow threw back her head and laughed. “You'd kill me if you
could, because that's who you are. But you won't find me. I listened to my father, bitch. I learned, I worked, and I'm not finished. Before I'm done, I'll check off every name on my list, then I'll kill everyone you care about. I'll save you for last.”

Willow raised her assault rifle. Eve drew her weapon.

“And then,” Willow said.

They fired together.

Eve woke with a jolt, Roarke's arms around her.

“Shh, baby, it's all right. Just a dream.”

“She said we're the same, but we're not. We're not the same.”

“All right now. You're cold. Let me light the fire.”

But she wrapped around him. “We're not the same. Sick bastard fathers don't make us the same. But she won't stop and neither will I. What does that mean?”

“It means she's as sick as her father. It means you'll do your job. You'll do whatever you can to protect others, even while you stand for the dead, for those she's killed. Not the same, darling Eve. Opposites.”

“We could have been the same. We could have.” She pressed her face into his shoulder, a shoulder that was always there when she needed it most. “How much is you?” She drew back, framed his face with her hands. Even in the dark she could see the wild, wonderful blue of his eyes. “I love you.”

“A ghrá.”
He kissed her softly. “My only.”

“I love you,” she said again, pouring herself into the kiss. “You saved me.”

“Each other.” He laid her back, covered her with his body. “We saved each other.”

She needed him, the tangible act of loving. Mouth on mouth, hands on flesh, heart beating to heart.

Not the cold, the dark, not the ugly pulse of red light and blood black against white. But warmth and beauty and passion, and all the brilliance he'd brought to her life simply by loving her.

Whatever she'd been, whatever she'd become, she was more because he loved her.

So strong, he thought, and so vulnerable. The two aspects of her in constant conflict. But that pull and tug made her what she was. And what she was, here and now, was his. Only his.

So he soothed her with long, gentle strokes. And aroused her with depthless kisses. And took the gift of her for himself, saturated himself in the feel of those long limbs, those tough muscles under soft skin.

The pulse in her throat, in her wrists, the beat, beat, beat of her heart, all that life twined with his.

She needed this, just this, more than sleep, more than food, more even than breath at that moment. Needed his body joined with hers. A testament to what she was, what he was. What they were.

Away from death, away from brutality, away from the cold.

She opened for him, took him in, gave herself utterly to that joining. Rising and falling together, pleasure building on pleasure until nothing else existed.

And reaching, reaching for that moment, that exquisite moment when they emptied all they were into the other.

Filled with him, she wept.

“What's this, what's this?” Undone, he gathered her close again, tried to kiss away the tears.

“I don't know.” Trembling, she held tight.

So he shifted, cradled her, rocked her, and still felt helpless.

“It's stupid. Who am I crying for?”

“You're worn out, that's all. Just worn out, worn down.”

It was more, she knew it, but couldn't pinpoint it. The tears, so hot, so strong, came from something, fell for something.

“I'm okay. Sorry. I'm okay.”

“I'm going to get you a soother.”

“No, no, I have to be up in a couple hours, right? What time is it?”

Even as she asked, her communicator signaled.

She bolted up, cheeks still wet, scrambled for the device still in the pocket of the pants she'd worn the day before.

“Lights on ten percent,” Roarke ordered.

“Block video.” Eve sucked in a breath. “Dallas.”

“Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Report to Madison Square Garden, Thirty-First and Seventh. Multiple victims.”

“Acknowledged. Contact Peabody, Detective Delia, Lowenbaum, Lieutenant, ah, Mitchell. I'm on my way.”

Roarke tossed her clothes, grabbed his own.

“It has to be the lawyer,” Eve said as she dressed. “Unless she's gone off script, it's the lawyer we couldn't find. It's after two in the goddamn morning. How did she find him?”

“Concert at Madison Square,” Roarke told her. “Newly rebuilt. I expect it let out near to two. Christ Jesus, the place would have been packed. Eve, Mavis was one of the headliners.”

Her hand jerked as she hooked on her weapon harness, then she forced herself to move, to just keep moving. Mavis wouldn't have exited with the crowd. It wouldn't be Mavis among the fallen.

I'll kill everyone you care about.

“We had tickets.”

She pulled herself back as she dragged on boots. “What? Tickets, to this thing?”

“I gave them to Summerset.”

He moved so fast, so efficiently, tossing Eve her coat, grabbing his own. But his eyes, she saw now that his eyes were stricken.

“You drive,” she said as they both bolted out of the room. “I'll try to contact both of them.”

Everyone you care about
, she thought again, snapping Mavis's name into her 'link while they rushed down the stairs.

Yo! Can't chat 'cause I'm doing something mag! But I'll catch you later. Fill me in on what's the what. Cha!

“Mavis, tag me back. It's urgent. If you're still at Madison Square, stay inside. Stay inside.”

Even as she jumped into the car, she tried Summerset.

I'm unavailable at the moment. please leave your name, a contact number, and a brief message. I'll return your call as soon as possible.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. They're all right. They're both fine.” She wanted to try Leonardo, but realized if he'd stayed home with the baby, she'd just terrify him.

No point, no point, she told herself as Roarke bulleted through the gates.

Instead she set the dash 'link on a loop, tagging them each in turn while she punched in Baxter, and hit the sirens.

He didn't block video, looked wild-eyed and exhausted at the same time, showed a shadow of beard and hair in messy sleep tuffs.

“Baxter.”

“She hit Madison Square—big concert. I'm on my way. I need you to contact the squad. I want Jenkinson and Reineke on scene. The rest report to Central unless I tell you different.”

“Done.”

She cut him off, tagged Feeney.

“I'm on my way,” he said the minute he came on. “McNab filled me in. ETA, maybe fifteen. Do you know how many?”

“No, we're five minutes out. I need a location for Mavis's and Summerset's 'links. They were both at this concert.”

“Christ. I'll work it. Goddamn it.”

He cut her off. Eve did the only thing she could think of. She touched Roarke's hand, squeezed briefly. Then prepared to deal with what came next.

“As soon as we find them, I need you, Feeney, McNab working that program. We want the nest. She won't be there, but we want the nest.”

“I think he was taking Ivanna—Ivanna Liski. He said something about having dinner with her and broadening his musical horizons with this bloody concert. And I . . . I told him he should take Ivanna backstage to meet Mavis. He should see about arranging that.”

Delicate blonde, Eve thought, former ballerina—and former spy. And maybe former flame of Summerset. “So it's likely they were both inside when this hit. We'll find them.”

Seventh Avenue was chaos. Roarke cut across Thirty-Fifth, snaking through other vehicles and barricades while lights glared and sirens screamed.

She'd been in this chaos before, when the Cassandra group had blown up the arena in its crazed quest to destroy New York landmarks. And now, rebuilt, renewed, reopened, that resilience had been used as a target by another killer.

Should she have realized it? Anticipated it?

She shoved those thoughts aside as she and Roarke leaped out of opposite doors.

“Wait. They won't let you through, and I need my field kit.”

She grabbed it, yanked out her badge to clip it to her coat, before the two of them bulled their way through the clamoring crowds pressed to the police line.

“Lieutenant. Jesus, Lieutenant, we got a hell of a mess here.”

“Hold the line, Officer, and start moving it back. I want this area cleared back to Sixth on the east, and Eighth to the west—two blocks north and south. How many victims?”

“I can't tell you, sir. We came in on crowd control. I heard up to twenty, but I can't say for sure.”

She kept moving through an area alive with cops, with MTs, with weeping civilians. And, she saw as they neared the arena, with the dead and the injured.

Copters circled overhead—police and media—and on the street, on the sidewalk, cops and medics fought to help the injured, to shield the dead.

To hold order when another strike could come from anywhere.

The world flashed blue and red from the police car lights, roared full of the terrible sound of screaming, and stank with the copper smell of blood.

“Ah, Christ.” Because they were shoulder to shoulder she felt the shudder move through Roarke. “He's there. Over there, helping the medics.”

She saw him, too, the bony frame, the shock of gray hair, those thin hands smeared with blood as he knelt by a woman bleeding from the side, from a gash along her temple.

Her own chest shook as they veered toward him.

“Are you hurt?” Roarke dropped down beside Summerset, gripped his arm. “Tell me if you're hurt.”

“No, we were inside. Just coming out. Just . . . I heard the screams. I saw—I need to stop this bleeding.” His voice was clipped, cold, but when he looked up, Eve saw both horror and grief. “Mavis and Leonardo are fine. Inside, still inside. I sent Ivanna back in to them.”