Brotherhood in Death (37 page)

“None taken, as I have a mirror. Will you do something for me?”

“Sure, if I can.”

“When this is finished, and we both get some sleep, will you come to dinner? You and Roarke. Come to dinner. Dennis will make his chocolate trifle, and you haven't lived until you've tasted it.”

“I'm not sure what it is.”

“Amazing.” She kissed Eve's cheek. Then, maybe because she needed it just as much, left her cheek pressed against Eve's. “I'm going to cook you and Roarke a lovely meal, followed by Dennis's amazing trifle. And we won't talk about any of this.”

She drew back now. “Will you do that for me?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it sounds good.”

“Go finish it, because you must.”

Eve went to where Peabody waited discreetly outside the door. “Let's take Downing next, once her lawyer's here. She's the one closest to the edge.”

“I'll have her brought up. She's contacted the lawyer. She can wait in the box. They should have trusted us. Trusted cops like us to find the proof, to work for justice.”

“Yeah. But they didn't.”

—

H
ours later, what felt like days later, she sat in the cockpit of the copter, winging toward Connecticut.

“They all told basically the same story, but not so exact that it felt
rehearsed. I think, yeah, they talked it all through before. If we get caught, we have to say this and that. But they're not lying.”

“Easterday?”

“Took the deal. Contacted his wife. My intel is she came in, and within thirty minutes, walked out of his hospital room. She kept walking.”

“And the last one?”

“MacNamee. He took Reo's deal. Both of them are smart enough to know a trial would slaughter them. The recordings—of which there are forty-eight more locked in a safe in the basement of the house—would slaughter them. They don't want the public humiliation. They don't know real humiliation. Just how to inflict it.”

He laid a hand over hers. “And you?”

“I'm holding. I had to talk to Edward Mira's son and daughter. And that slaughtered them. No way around it. Same with Wymann's family.”

She closed her eyes. “And Harvo's ID'd more than half of the women. I ran them. Two are dead—self-termination. Another death by misadventure. Two are street LCs. One's doing time for assault—illegals junkie. Two more have done a revolving door in and out of rehab. But a few of them seem to have reasonably stable lives. Mira says they need to know.”

“Some part of them does know, as some part of you always did. Bringing it to light may help them in ways you can't see.”

“Maybe. God, I hope so. That road down there? That's the one Betz racked up speeding tickets on. I wonder how many times he drove up here to watch those tapes. That's the campus?”

She looked down at it—snow-covered and elegant, spires and dignity.

“Monsters can grow anywhere,” he said. “We both know it. It wasn't the place or the time. It was the men.”

“Dennis Mira went here, same time, same place. That's good enough for me.”

When Roarke touched down, with snow shooting up like a storm, she sat, studying the house.

Large, old, dignified, beautifully kept. Even now the walks were cleared of snow, the trees glistened with it.

She saw the Celtic symbol for brotherhood carved into the center of the main door.

It sickened her.

“Su told me they'd found it. Thought about burning it to the ground when they couldn't get through security. But they were afraid there would be some evidence in it, and didn't want to risk destroying it.”

“They didn't know they were being recorded.”

“No. By the time they were involved, the fucking brothers graduated from handheld or tripod to installed cams throughout the room. I got that from MacNamee.”

“Are you ready?”

Was she? She sat another moment waiting for the answer. Found it.

“Yeah. I couldn't go in there without you. It would be like that room in Dallas. I'd make myself go in, but I couldn't do what I need to do, and do it right, without you.”

She felt that hot wash roll over her again. “I have to get this out, get it out before we go in.”

He turned to her, took her hands. “What?”

“I understand what drove those women to this, understand how they could do it, all of it. Whatever I said in the box, whatever I said on record, I understand.”

“How could you not? How could anyone human not? Whatever the law, the rules, Eve, how could you not feel for them?”

“I wish I had stopped them before Edward Mira. Before they made the choice that's going to take away their freedom. But—they'll get help. They'll lose their freedom, but the law, the rules, may save their lives. I talked to them, Roarke, every one of them. And Elsi Adderman might
not have been the only one in their group to kill herself to end it. I think the law they disregarded, the law they didn't believe in, will save them. That's going to help me sleep at night.”

“They don't need to know how much effort you put into saving them. Because you do. You know it.” He kissed her hands. “My cop.”

“Your cop has to go in there, deal with this. Then she really wants to go home. With you.”

“Then we will. Let's get this day over with, and take the night for us.”

She could, Eve thought as she climbed out into the ankle-deep snow. She could leave the day, and all its miseries, behind—soon. And take the night, and some peace, with him.

She could let go, she realized, of the old. Of an old desk, an old chair—old pieces of an old life.

She had a new one. Reaching for his hand, she held it firmly in hers. She had a real one, built by both of them.

“We're going to get rid of that desk.”

He arched a brow as they approached the door of a house where brutality had lived far too long.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. You know why?”

“I'd love to know.”

“Because we deserve each other.”

Roarke laughed, brought her hand up to kiss. “We bloody well
do.”

J. D. Robb
is the pseudonym for the number one
New York Times
bestselling author of more than two hundred novels, including the futuristic suspense In Death series. There are more than five hundred million copies of the author's books in print.

jdrobb.com

facebook.com/jdrobbauthor

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