Reunion in Death

  She looked at Roarke, looked through him, then took a staggering step forward. She didn't see the poppies now, or the pretty flowers, the pale, clean rug.

  "I'm so cold. I'm so hungry. Maybe he won't come back. But he always comes back. Something bad could happen to him so he couldn't come back. Then I could get warm. I'm so hungry."

  She stepped toward the kitchenette. "Not supposed to touch anything. Not supposed to eat unless he says so. He forgot to feed me again. There's cheese. It's green, but if you cut that off, it's okay. Maybe he won't know if I have just a little. He'll hit me if he finds out, but he'll hit me anyway, and I'm so hungry. I forget I'm not supposed to eat because I want more. I want more. Oh God, God, he's coming."

  The hand she'd fisted opened. She heard the knife hit the floor.

  What are you doing, little girl?

  "Have to think fast, make excuses, but it doesn't help. He knows, and he's not very drunk. He hits me in the face; I taste blood, but I don't cry. Maybe he'll stop. But he doesn't stop, and now it's his fists. He knocks me down." She crumpled to her knees. "And I can't stop myself from begging him. Stop, oh please, don't. Please, please, it hurts. He'll kill me if I fight, but I can't help it. It hurts! And I hurt him back."

  She peers down at her hand, remembering using her nails to claw at his face, how he'd howled. She could hear it.

  "My arm!" She clutched it. Heard, felt the dry snap of that young bone, and the hideous bright pain. "He's pushing into me, pushing in, panting on my face. Candy breath. Mints," she realized dimly. "Mints over whiskey. Horrible, horrible in my face. I see his face. They call him Rick, or Richie, and his face is bleeding where I scratched him. He can bleed, too. He can hurt, too."

  She was weeping now, the tears pouring down her face. Watching her, knowing he had no choice but to watch her live the nightmare, Roarke broke inside.

  "I have the knife in my hand. My hand closes over the knife I dropped on the floor. Then the knife's in him. It punches into him, a little popping sound. And now he screams, and he stops. The knife made him stop, so I push it into him again. Again. Again. He rolls away, but I don't stop. He stopped, but I don't stop. I can't stop. He's staring at me, and I won't stop. Blood, the blood's all over him. All over me. His blood's all over me."

  "Eve." She was on her hands and knees, snarling like an animal. Roarke crouched in front of her, took her arms. She hissed at him, but he tightened his grip. And his hands trembled. "Stay here. Stay with me. Look at me."

  She shook violently, fought for breath. "I'm all right. I can smell it." She broke, and shattered into his arms. "Oh God, can't you smell it?"

  "We're going to leave now. I'm taking you away from this."

  "No. Just hold on to me. Just hold on. I remember what it was like. Like not being human anymore. Like the animal that lives inside us had leaped out. Then I crawled away, over there."

  She shivered still as she looked over at the corner, but she made herself see it, see herself, as it had been. "I watched him for a long time, waiting for him to get up and make me sorry. But he didn't. When it was light, I got up and washed his blood off me in the cold water. And I packed a bag. Imagine thinking of that? I hurt— my arm, where he'd raped me again—but it was buried under the shock. Still, I didn't use the elevator—had enough wit for that. Used the stairs. Crept down the stairs and went outside. I don't remember a lot of that, except it was bright out and my eyes stung. Lost the bag somewhere and just walked. And walked."

  She eased back. "He never called me by a name. Because I didn't have one. I remember that now. They didn't bother to give me a name because I wasn't a child to them. I was a thing. I can't remember her, but I remember him. I remember what he said the first time he touched me. What he told me to remember. That was what he kept me around for, and when I'd learned, that was how I'd earn my keep. He was going to whore me. Nothing like young pussy, he said, so I'd better learn to take it without the whining and crying. He had a fucking investment in me, and I was going to pay off. We were going to start here. Here in Dallas, because I was eight and that was old enough to start carrying my weight."

  "It ended here." He brushed tears from her cheeks. "And what started, darling Eve, was you."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  He ignored her request to head straight to the central police station and drove to the hotel, one he did own, and where the owner's suite was prepared for them.

  The fact that she was too tired to argue told her he was right, again. She needed time to pull herself together.

  She went through the enormous parlor into the equally sumptuous master bedroom and left Roarke to deal with the bellman. She was already stripping when he came in.

  "I need a shower. I need to... I need to get clean."

  "You'll need some food when you're done. What would you like?"

  "Wait on that, will you?" She was in sudden, desperate need for floods of hot water, for waves of clean, fragrant soap. "Let me think about it."

  "I'll be just in the other room then."

  He left her alone as much for himself as for her. The rage he'd managed to chain down was threatening to snap free. He wanted to use his fists on something. Pound them until his arms screamed for rest.

  She'd shower, he thought, with water that was brutally hot, because once she'd been forced to wash in cold. He never wanted her to be cold again, to shiver as she had shivered in that room where the ghosts, the viciousness of them, had been so tangible he'd seen them himself.

  Watching her relive that night, as she too often did in dreams, had ripped him in two. It had left him helpless, useless, and with a violence borne of fury he had nowhere to vent.

  To have birthed and bred her, beaten and raped her all for selling her to other scum. What god made such creatures as that and set them to prey on innocents?

  Riding on rage, he stripped off his shirt as he strode into the small workout area. He yanked the speed bag into place. And attacked it, bare-fisted.

  With each punch his anger grew, spreading through him like a cancer. The bag was a face he didn't know. Her father's. Then his own father's. He battered at it with a concentrated rage that bloomed into hate. Pounded, pounded, as the black haze of that hate narrowed his vision. Pounded, pounded, as his knuckles went raw and bloomed with blood.

  And still he couldn't kill it.

  When the bag snapped off its tether, plowed into the wall, he looked around for something else to hammer.

  And saw her standing in the doorway.

  She'd wrapped herself in one of the white hotel robes. Her cheeks were nearly as pale.

  "I should have thought how this would make you feel. And I didn't." His torso gleamed with sweat. His hands were bleeding. When he saw her there his heart shattered.

  "I don't know what to do for you." His voice was thick with emotion, with the accent that took over when his defenses were most compromised. "What to say to you."

  When she took a step toward him, he shook his head, stepped back. "No, I can't touch you right now. I'm not myself. I might break you in half. I mean it." His voice whipped out when she took the next step.

  She stopped. Because she understood it wasn't just her that might be broken. "It hurts you as much as me. I forget that."

  "I want him dead, and he's dead already." He flexed his battered knuckles. "So, nothing to be done about it. Still, I want to beat my fists into his face; I want to rip the heart out of his chest before ever he laid hands on you. I'd give everything I own if I could. Instead, there's nothing."

  "Roarke—"

  "My father was there." His head snapped up, his gaze boring into hers. "Maybe in that very room. We know that now. I don't know as his various and filthy appetites ran to young girls, but if the timing had been just a bit different, you might have been sold to him." He nodded, reading her face. "I see that's occurred to you as well."

  "It didn't happen. There's enough that did without adding to it. And don't say there's nothing. Most of my life I kept all this buried,
kept it in the dark. I've remembered more in the past year than I could in all the years before. Because you were there, and I could face it. I don't know if I'll ever have it all. I don't know if I'll ever want to have it all. And after today, I know that it's never going away. It's there."

  She clenched a hand between her breasts. "It's here, inside me, and it'll bite off pieces when it can. But I can take it because you're there. Because you know how it feels. You're the only one who really knows. And because you love me enough to feel it. When you look at me, and I see that, I can take anything."

  She took the last step to him, slipped her arms around him, drew him close. "Be with me."

  He buried his face in her hair. His arms came tight around her, viced them together as the rage drained out of him. "Eve."

  "Just be with me." She skimmed her lips over his cheek, found his mouth. Poured herself into him.

  Everything inside him opened for her, opened to her so that she filled the dark corners. The violence that lived with them both shrank back.

  Mouth against mouth, he lifted her, cradling her there for a moment. As he would something precious. Something rare. He carried her into the bedroom where the strong sun streamed through the glass.

  They would love in the light. He laid her on the wide bed, centered her on soft fabric. He wanted to give her softness, comfort, and the beauty they'd both once starved for. He needed to give her the beauty of what this act was meant to be, a beauty so strong it could smother the ugliness some made of it.

  The hands that had pounded with rage until they'd bled were gentle when they touched her.

  It was she who drew him down, held him close. Who sighed when he sighed. They would comfort each other now.

  Her lips met his, parted. The softest, sweetest of mat-ings. Her hands stroked his back, along the hard ridge of muscle as his body fit to hers.

  She loved the weight of him, the lines and planes of him, the scent and the taste of him. When his lips roamed to her throat, she angled her head to give them both more.

  There was tenderness in long, lush kisses, in slow, sliding caresses. And warmth, shimmering over skin, then under it until bones melted.

  He parted the robe, trailed lazy kisses down her flesh. Steeped in her, he traced fingertips over subtle curves, lingering when she sighed or she trembled. And watched with pleasure as color bloomed on her face.

  "Darling Eve." His lips found hers again, rubbed gently. "So beautiful."

  "I'm not beautiful."

  She felt his lips curve against hers. "This isn't the time to argue with a man." He closed a hand lightly over her breast, easing back to watch her. "Small and firm here." He flicked a thumb over her nipple, heard her breath catch. "Those eyes of yours, like old gold. Fascinating how they see everything but what I do when I look at you."

  He lowered his head to nibble at her mouth. "Soft lips. Irresistible. Stubborn chin, always ready to take a punch." He skimmed his tongue over the shallow dent. "I love that spot there, and this," he whispered, trailing his lips down to the underside of her jaw.

  "My Eve, so long and lean." He ran his hand down the length of her. And when he cupped her, she was already hot, already wet. "Go up, darling. Slide over."

  She was, helplessly, with a quiet moan that was both pleasure and surrender.

  He made her feel beautiful. Made her feel clean. Made her feel whole. She reached for him now, rolling with him in a kind of dance without heat or hurry. The sun splashed over them as the air went thick with sighs and murmurs. She touched and tasted and gave as he did. Lost herself as he did.

  When she rose to him, when he slid inside her, her vision blurred with tears.

  "Don't." He pressed his cheek to hers. "Ah, don't."

  "No." She framed his face, let the tears come. "It's so right. It's so perfect. Can't you see?" She lifted to him again. "Can't you feel?" She smiled even as the tears sparkled on her cheeks. "You've made me beautiful."

  She held his face in her hands as they moved together, took that silky glide. When she felt him quiver, saw his eyes go to midnight, she knew it was he who surrendered.

  After, they lay quiet, wrapped in each other. He waited for her arms to go limp, to slide away so he knew she slept. When they didn't, he brushed a kiss over her hair.

  "If you won't sleep, you'll eat."

  "I'm not tired. I need to finish the job down here."

  "After you've eaten."

  She might've argued, but she remembered how he'd looked, ramming his fists into the speed bag. "Something fast and easy then." She lifted his hand, examined the knuckles. "Nice job, by the way. You're going to have to take care of these."

  "Been awhile since I bashed them up quite this much." He flexed his fingers. "Just scraped up though. Nothing's jammed."

  "It would've been smarter to put gloves on."

  "But not as cathartic, I'd think."

  "Nope, there's nothing quite like beating something into pulp with your bare hands for relaxation." She shifted, straddled him. "We come from violent people. We've got that in us. The difference is we don't let it loose whenever we feel like it on whoever's handy. There's something in us that stops that, that makes us decent."

  "Some of us are more decent than others."

  "Answer me this. Have you ever hit a child?"

  "Of course I haven't. Christ."

  "Ever beat or raped a woman?"

  He sat up so she was forced to wrap her legs around his waist. "I've thought about giving you a quick shot now and again." He balled his fist, tapped her chin gently with his bruised knuckles. "I know what you're saying, and you're right. We're not what they were. Whatever they did to us, they couldn't make us what they were."

  "We made ourselves. Now, I guess, we make each other."

  He smiled at her. "That was well said."

  "They didn't give me a name." She let out a slow breath. "When I remembered that, back there, it hurt. It made me feel small and useless. But now I'm glad they didn't. They didn't put their label on me. And, Roarke, right now anyway I'm glad I came here. I'm glad I did this. But what I want to do is get the information to the locals and get out. I don't want to stay here longer than I have to. I want to go home tonight."

  He leaned into her. "Then we'll go home."

  * * *

  They got back to New York early enough for her to be able to say she needed to go into Central and make it sound plausible. She didn't think Roarke bought it, but he let it slide.

  Maybe he understood she needed the space, she needed the work. She needed the atmosphere that reminded her who and what she was at the core.

  She bypassed Peabody's cube, slipped quietly into her office, and shut the door. Locked it, as she rarely did.

  She sat at her desk and was absurdly comforted at the way the worn seat fit to the shape of her butt. A testament, she thought, to all the hours she'd sat there, doing the job—the thinking, paperwork, 'link-transmissions, data-formulating part of the job.

  This was her place.

  She got up and walked to the window. She knew just what she would see, which streets, which buildings, even the most usual pattern of traffic that formed at that time of the day.

  The part of her that was still quaking, the part she'd used every ounce of will to hide from Roarke, calmed just a little more.

  She was where she was meant to be, doing what she was meant to do.

  Whatever had come before, all the horrors, the fears, all funnelled into the now, didn't they? Who could say if she would be here without them. Maybe, somehow, she was more willing to live for the victim because she'd been one.

  However it worked, she had a job to do. She turned, walked back to her desk, and got to work.

  She asked for and was granted a quick meeting with Mira. Slipping out as quietly as she'd slipped in, she left her office for Mira's.

  "I thought you might be gone for the day."

  Mira gestured to one of her cozy scoop-backed chairs. "Shortly. Tea?"

  "R
eally, this isn't going to take long." But Mira was already programming her AutoChef. Eve resigned herself to sipping the liquid flowers Mira was so fond of.

  "You'd rather coffee," Mira said with her back turned. "But you'll indulge me, which I appreciate. You can always pump in the caffeine later."

  "How do you—I was just wondering how you keep it going on that herbal stuff."

  "It's all what your system's used to, isn't it? I find this soothes my mind, and when my mind's soothed, I have more energy. Or believe I do, which is nearly the same thing." She came back, offered Eve one of the delicate cups.

  "In other words, you bullshit yourself into thinking you're wired up, when you're not."

  "That's one way to put it."

  "That's sort of interesting. Anyway, I have more data on Julianna Dunne, and I wanted to get it to you right away. I don't think we have much time before she moves again. I interviewed her stepfather—"

  "You went to Dallas?"

  "I just got back about an hour ago. I want to do this now," Eve said firmly enough to have Mira arching her brows. "Okay?"

  "All right."

  She relayed the contents of the interview, citing only the facts given, then moving on to her discussion with Chuck Springer.

  "The first man she was with sexually—boy, that is— was someone her own age," Mira commented, "and working-class. And he was the first to reject her. The last, by all accounts, who was permitted the luxury of doing so. She hasn't forgotten it."

  "Yet she didn't target types like Springer. She went after types like her stepfather."

  "Because she was sure she could control them. They built her confidence and her bank account. But she was punishing Springer every time she was with another man. Look at this, look what I can have. I don't need you. Along the way, Springer became less of a personal affront and more a symbol. Men are worthless, liars, cheats, weaklings, and driven by sex."