Apprentice in Death

  “Fine.” She started off at a fast clip. “I sent Peabody ahead. I’ve got a consult with Mira, then I’m taking Mackie into Interview.”

  “I’ll see what help I can be elsewhere.” Stopping, he took Eve’s arm—firmly. “He looked shaken and fragile. I couldn’t stand the idea that you would push him. And yourself. I couldn’t stand being caught between the pair of you when you both looked ready to drop, and neither would give way.”

  “He held up.” She hissed out a breath. “I wasn’t going to push him, but I needed to know what he saw. He was right there, front lines, and he’s been there before. It gives me insight. She’s going to hit again, and likely quicker now. I needed him.”

  “I know it.”

  “What he did? I admire it more than I can say. He could’ve gone back in, stayed safe, but he went outside, he risked doing that to save lives.”

  “He saved mine, and so did you. It’s a tricky dance for me.”

  She stopped at the car. “You were the making of him, that’s what I see.” The stunned look on Roarke’s face had her shaking her head. “He wouldn’t be with you still if that wasn’t the way it is. You say you and I saved each other. Well, before I came along, the two of you did the same. Another way, another path, but just as true. You gave him purpose, and you gave him a son. So let’s just table all this crap.”

  “Crap tabled.” Then he pulled her into his arms, held tight. “No one’s paying attention to the likes of us right now. So give me this, as I need it. I swear, I need it.”

  She gave what he needed, and took what she needed. Held on. “You know, you got more Irish in there, trying to bully us into doing what you thought we should do.”

  “A bloody lot of good it did me.” He drew back. “I’m going to find you a booster. Not now, not the sort you hate, as they wire you up. I’ll find something that suits you.”

  “If anybody can. You can drive. I’ve got people to talk to.”

  He got behind the wheel, glanced over at her. “Will this new sort of understanding, as it were, also table the daily sniping between you and Summerset?”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Well then, there’s something to look forward to.”

  —

  She moved fast through Central, didn’t notice—as Roarke did—the other cops, support staff who recognized her, step aside to clear her way.

  Even as she strode into Homicide, Peabody stood up behind her desk. “Mira’s in your office. Sweepers are all over the nests. We’re culling through wit reports. A few may be viable.”

  “Keep it going. Mackie?”

  “En route, with counsel.”

  “In Interview, the minute he’s in the house. Give me ten with Mira.”

  “I’ll take myself off to EDD,” Roarke told Eve. “And if I can’t be of use there, I’ll be elsewhere.”

  “You could catch an hour’s sleep in the crib.”

  “Not in this lifetime, or the next.”

  “Snob.”

  “So be it.” He’d have kissed her, actively longed to. But he understood there were Marriage Rules on either side. So he just flicked a finger down the dent in her chin and wandered away.

  They’d both do what they could—and he’d access his home system, make certain Summerset was home, and in bed.

  Then he’d find his cop a damn booster.

  Mira stood in Eve’s office facing the case board. She’d tossed her coat on the visitor’s chair. Clothes might not have been high on Eve’s list of priorities, but observation was. And she observed Mira wore leg-hugging black pants with knee-high black boots and a floaty blue sweater rather than her usual pretty suit and heels.

  “I need to update that.”

  Mira didn’t turn. “It gives a good sense, and I’m fully briefed on this morning’s attack.”

  “I need coffee. You want that tea stuff?”

  “Yes, thanks. She continued her father’s agenda. Still seeking his approval.”

  “She likes to kill.”

  “Yes. Very much yes, but she’s still a child, and the child seeks to please the father. This is their bond. It began with weaponry, honing her skill there, and devolved into revenge. As his skills lessened due to his addiction, hers have sharpened. The apprentice has exceeded the master. She became his weapon.”

  “She likes it,” Eve insisted.

  “Again, I agree.” Mira took the tea, holding the cup as she studied the dead. “In the first attack, the other two victims were, essentially, cover. Or he convinced himself of that. But I wonder. Did he feel pride when she so skillfully struck three targets? I think he did. In the second, we had five struck, four dead, so he allowed her to test her skills. Or she increased on her own. And now the third.”

  “Eighteen dead.”

  “Yes. Now she has her head. She has no one to tell her to stop.”

  “Will he feel pride?”

  “I believe he will. He may see, some part of him may see, she’s reveling in the kill—not the agenda, not the mission, but the power of the kill. And still, she’s his child, one he taught. One he loves.”

  “What kind of love is that?” Eve snapped it out. “What kind of love raises a kid to be a monster?”

  “However twisted, for him it’s genuine. He sacrificed himself to save her. He sent her away, not only in hopes she might eventually complete the mission, but certainly to protect her.”

  She turned now to face Eve. “He was a police officer. He certainly had to know, once you’d identified them, you’d also identified at least some of the targets. So those targets would be out of reach.”

  “Tell that to Jonah Rothstein.” Eve took the ID shot out of her field kit, put it on the board.

  “There’s no point blaming yourself when you know who’s responsible.”

  “I just couldn’t . . . No.” Eve sucked in a breath. “No point. So, the instructor—the master—wants the mission completed, and for it to be completed, the student needs to stay safe. Free. And the father protects the child, even as he helps twist her into a killer. Because I think to do what she’s done, it was always in there. Inside there. He just had to recognize it and exploit it.

  “But he doesn’t know her agenda—she was smart to keep that to herself. Will he care? When I hit him with hers in the hospital, he wasn’t ready to believe me. Her own mother, her own brother, teachers, kids in school? He slapped that off. When I make him believe it, will he give a fuck?”

  “You need him to,” Mira said with a nod. “You need him to, we could say, give a great many fucks in order to pressure him into giving you information on her whereabouts.”

  Another time it might have amused her to hear Mira’s clinical use of the f-word. “That’s exactly right.”

  “I believe children are important to him. With the divorce, a man in his position—a demanding career—could have opted for generous visitation rather than co-parenting. It was the loss of his wife and the potential of another child that broke the restraints on his control.”

  “The kid brother then, the school.”

  “Will most likely be your best levers.”

  “She’s not going to Alaska to live wild and free, as in his plan for her.” Eve nodded. “She’s going to stay right here, shift over to her own mission. He taught her to kill, now she’s going to take what he taught her and eliminate anyone who’s annoyed her. Keeping herself in my crosshairs. Not safe. Yeah, yeah, I’ll play that.”

  “Do you want me in Interview?”

  “No, I want him looking at me. The one who’s hunting his offspring. A cop killer. I want him thinking about that, knowing she’s still here. Knowing she’s close, and I’m close. And remembering, as a cop, how we feel about those who target our own. It won’t be hard to make him believe I’d take her out rather than give her a chance to play the misled card and spend time
in a cushy facility for minors.”

  When Mira said nothing, Eve shifted her gaze, met her eyes. “No. In fact, that’s last resort. I want her looking at me, knowing I’m the one who stopped her. I want her to remember me every day of the rest of her very long life.”

  “She’s not you.”

  “Could’ve been. Who knows what Richard Troy would’ve twisted me into if he’d had more time.”

  “No. Nature, nurture, both matter, both form us. But at some point, at so many points, the choices we make, the paths we take, they define us. You made yours. She’s made hers.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. And we’re going to come together, I swear to Christ we are. Then we’ll see what each other is made of. So I need to break Mackie. I will break Mackie.”

  “I’ll be in Observation. If you need me.”

  “Okay.”

  As Mira turned to go, Cher Reo stepped into Eve’s doorway. “Mackie’s in Interview A,” the APA stated. “I’m here to tell you that my boss says no deals for him. Former cop, now a mass murderer, and a cop killer. Evidence is thick and heavy. A confession would be nice, of course, but the PA’s office believes we have more than enough for a conviction.”

  “I hear that.”

  “However—”

  “Bugger the howevers.”

  “However,” Reo continued, “if Mackie gives us the location of his daughter before she takes another life or injures anyone else, and if she surrenders peaceably, the PA’s office will agree to try Willow Mackie as a minor.”

  “Bullshit, Reo.”

  Reo held up a hand, skimmed the other through her windblown, curly hair. “We’re giving you ammunition, Dallas. He needs incentive to lead us to her before she takes out another swath of people. Dr. Mira?”

  “It could play on two levels. On his paternal instincts to protect, and on his need to have the mission complete—however long it might take.”

  “Which is just what she will do if we let her walk at eighteen.”

  Reo angled her head. “And what are the odds of that actually happening? The odds of a peaceful surrender and no further harm done?”

  Eve started to speak, then waited for her initial outrage to fade, and for more caffeine to kick in. “Okay. Okay, I get it. No way she surrenders without a fight. That’s in stone? That part’s nonrefundable?”

  Reo smiled. “She resists in any way, stomps her evil little foot and stubs your toe, the deal’s void.”

  “Let me work him awhile first. If I can’t break him down, we’ll toss this in. That way it sounds and feels like a concession. I don’t want to walk in with any deal.”

  “That’s good, that works. He’s got a court-appointed as his counsel. Guy named Kent Pratt. He’s got a rep as the public defenders’ patron saint of lost causes.”

  “All right. Let me get started.”

  “I’ll be in Observation if you need to pull me in for the deal.”

  “If I do, we play it up. I’m going to be really pissed. I may call you rude names.”

  Reo smiled again, sunnily. “Wouldn’t be the first.”

  16

  Eve tagged Peabody as she gathered what she needed.

  “One of the injured who’d stabilized has taken a turn,” Peabody told her. “I don’t have all the details—it’s medical and complicated—but she’s back in surgery.”

  “Name?”

  “Adele Ninsky.”

  The woman Summerset was treating when she’d arrived on scene, Eve thought, then set it aside.

  “I want you to play up the father-daughter connection. Parental duty, poor young girl. You can be tough on him, but soften up with the girl.”

  “Got it. I guess it’s not much of a stretch.”

  “It should be. Look at the board. It damn well should be.”

  Scooping up files, Eve strode out.

  Peabody quickened her pace to catch up. “Baxter and Trueheart hit one wit they think saw her minutes after the Times Square attack. He didn’t recognize her until they interviewed him, showed him Yancy’s sketch. He says he was heading into the building as she was coming out. He held the door for her. She was carrying a large metal case, and a rolling duffle. Had a backpack. He remembers because he said, like, ‘Let me help you,’ and held the door, and he claims she gave him this, quote—‘scary smile’—unquote, and said she didn’t need anybody’s help. He was a little steamed so he stared after her for a minute. He thinks she was headed for the bus stop. Half a block down. They’re checking it out.”

  “Good.” Eve paused at the door to the Interview room. “No mistakes,” she said and then walked in.

  “Record on,” she began, reading the data into that record as she sized up the two men at the table.

  Mackie, pale, defiant, his eyes shielded behind lightly tinted goggles. Through them she noted the eyes were bloodshot, bruised, and she felt nothing.

  The lawyer wore a cheap suit and a skinny black tie. His face sported a night’s worth of scruff, with his idealism shining bright under it.

  Eve sat, stacked up her files, folded her hands over them. “Well, Mackie, here we are.”

  “My client is under medical care for severe injuries sustained under questionable circumstances. Therefore—”

  “Bullshit. If you reviewed the record, Counselor, you know there are no questions. Your client fired on police officers.”

  “It’s questionable if said officers clearly indentified themselves as same. We will be pursuing charges of illegal entry, police harassment, and excessive force.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that.” She smiled at Mackie as she spoke. “You know that’s lawyer bullshit, and it doesn’t change a thing. Here we are.”

  “Due to my client’s injuries, you’re limited to one-hour intervals for Interview. My client will take his guaranteed thirty minutes after the hour. I request on my client’s behalf that he be returned to the hospital for a full medical evaluation after said hour.”

  “Denied, which is within my authority, as his medical team has signed off. He can take his thirty in a cage, or if you insist, be evaluated here, medically, by a doctor. He’s done with the hospital. You’re done with the outside, Mackie. It’s all cages all the time now. That’s going to be fun for you in general population. You know how much they love ex-cops in GP. Don’t waste my hour,” Eve snapped at Pratt. “I have questions for your client. Here’s the first: Where is she? Where is your daughter? Where is Willow Mackie?”

  “How would I know? I’ve been in the hospital.”

  “Did you keep up with current events? Has your counsel informed you of what your daughter did last night? Eighteen dead this time around. Must swell your chest with pride.”

  “My client was held incommunicado during the time of that incident, and cannot be held responsible for—”

  “And the bullshit keeps coming. You’re responsible. You’re responsible for turning your own flesh and blood into a stone-cold killer. Eighteen people. Fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. And all because you had some bad luck.”

  “Bad luck?” Mackie lunged forward in the chair.

  “Yeah, bad luck. Your wife didn’t look where she was going. Now she’s dead.”

  “They ran her down in the street!”

  “No, she ran out into the street, into traffic, because she was too stupid to pay attention. And you couldn’t handle it so you went on the funk. Look at your hands shake. Pathetic. What they give you to keep you level just isn’t enough, is it? It’s never going to be enough. You destroyed yourself because your wife couldn’t remember to walk down to the fucking crosswalk. And when that didn’t fix it for you, you decided to destroy everyone else you could think of.”

  “Including his own daughter.” Peabody said it just loud enough to be heard, and in a voice that rang with emotion. “That’s what I can’t get under, can’t get throug
h. She’s just a kid, and he used her, he screwed her up. You destroyed her, Mr. Mackie. How is she ever going to live with what she’s done? What you, her own father, told her to do?”

  “You don’t know anything about my Will.”

  “I know at fifteen she should be thinking about boys and music and schoolwork and meeting friends for pizza and vids. I know she should be angsting over what to wear.”

  “Not my Will.”

  “Not your Will,” Peabody repeated, with disdain. “Because you wouldn’t approve. You think all those things are frivolous, aren’t important, but they are. They’re building blocks, they’re rites of passage. They’re part of the childhood you stole from her. Now she’s a murderer, a fugitive. Her life’s over.”

  “Just beginning,” he replied.

  “He thinks she’s going to Alaska,” Eve tossed out with a deliberate smirk, “to live off the land, free as a . . . What the hell do they have in Alaska?”

  “Bear. Moose. Wolves, too, I think. Deer. Lots of deer.”

  “There you go. Like a deer. But people hunt deer, don’t they? Don’t they do that up there? Isn’t that part of living off the land?”

  Eve leaned back. “I’m hunting her right now—like a deer. I’ve got some of my best trackers on her. She’s left a trail, Mackie.” Eve opened a file, read off the addresses of the three nests. And saw his trembling hands close into trembling fists. “Already got a wit at one of them who saw her exiting the building. Here’s what I wonder. Did you tell her to get her ass to Alaska when you sent her off, or did you tell her to finish the job first?”

  “My client denies any and all allegations pertaining to his daughter, Willow Mackie. She is missing due to her fear of the police, due to your department’s false accusations against her.”

  “Right. I’ll wade through the lawyer bullshit all day. A decent father would have told her to run, run far and fast.”

  “He’s not a decent father,” Peabody put in.

  “I’m a good father!” Insult and rage flashed hard color into Mackie’s cheeks. “I’m a hell of a lot better than that useless prick her mother married.”