Naked In Death

"Eve." He took her hand then, holding firm when she tried to yank free. "I'm sorry. Terribly sorry."

"They said I was eight when they found me, in some alley in Dallas. I was bleeding, and my arm was broken. He must have dumped me there. I don't know. Maybe I ran away. I don't remember. But he never came for me. No one ever came for me."

"Your mother?"

"I don't know. I don't remember her. Maybe she was dead. Maybe she was like Catherine's mother and pretended not to know. I only get flashes, nightmares of the worst of it. I don't even know my name. They weren't able to identify me."

"You were safe then."

"You've never been shuffled through the system. There's no feeling of safety. Only impotence. They strip you bare with good intentions." She sighed, let her head fall back, her eyes close. "I didn't want to arrest DeBlass, Roarke. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill him with my own hands because of what happened to me. I let it get personal."

"You did your job."

"Yeah. I did my job. And I'll keep doing it." But it wasn't the job she was thinking of now. It was life. Hers, and his. "Roarke, you've got to know I've got some bad stuff inside. It's like a virus that sneaks around the system, pops out when your resistance is low. I'm not a good bet."

"I like long odds." He lifted her hand, kissed it. "Why don't we see it through? Find out if we can both win."

"I've never told anybody before."

"Did it help?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Christ, I'm so tired."

"You could lean on me." He slipped an arm around her, nestled her head in the curve of his shoulder.

"For a little while," she murmured. "Until we get to New York."

"For a little while then." He pressed his lips to her hair and hoped she would sleep.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DeBlass wouldn't talk. His lawyers put the muzzle on him early, and they put in on tight. The interrogation process was slow, and it was tedious. There were times Eve thought he would burst, when the temper that reddened his face would tip the scales in her favor.

She'd stopped denying it was personal. She didn't want a tricky, media blitzed trial. She wanted a confession.

"You were engaged in an incestuous affair with your granddaughter, Sharon DeBlass."

"My client has not confirmed those allegations."

Eve ignored the lawyer, watched DeBlass's face. "I have here a transcript of a portion of Sharon DeBlass's diary, dated on the night of her murder."

She shoved the paper across the table. DeBlass's lawyer, a trim, tidy man with a neat sandy beard and mild blue eyes picked it up, studied it. Whatever his reaction was, he hid it behind cool indifference.

"This proves nothing, lieutenant, as I'm sure you know. The destructive fantasies of a dead woman. A woman of dubious reputation who has long been estranged from her family."

"There's a pattern here, Senator DeBlass." Eve stubbornly continued to address the accused rather than his knight at arms. "You sexually abused your daughter, Catherine."

"Preposterous," DeBlass blurted out before his attorney lifted a hand to silence him.

"I have a statement, signed and verified before witnesses from Congresswoman Catherine DeBlass." Eve offered it, and the lawyer nipped it out of her fingers before the senator could move.

He sca

"We are aware." She spared the lawyer a glance. "And we will be investigating her condition, and the cause of it."

"Congresswoman DeBlass has also been treated for symptoms of depression, paranoia, and stress," the lawyer continued in the same neutral tone.

"If she has, Senator DeBlass, we'll find that the roots of it are due to your systematic and continued abuse of her as a child. You were in New York on the night of Sharon DeBlass's murder," she said, switching gears smoothly. "Not, as you previously claimed, in East Washington."

Before the lawyer could block her, she leaned forward, her eyes steady on DeBlass's face. "Let me tell you how it went down. You took your private shuttle, paying the pilot and the flight engineer to doctor the log. You went to Sharon's apartment, had sex with her, recorded it for your own purposes. You took a weapon with you, a thirty-eight caliber Smith Wesson antique. And because she taunted you, because she threatened you, because you couldn't take the pressure of possible exposure any longer, you shot her. You shot her three times, in the head, in the heart and in the genitalia."

She kept the words coming fast, kept her face close to his. It pleased her that she could smell his sweat. "The last shot was pretty clever. Messed up any chance for us to verify sexual activity. You ripped her open at the crotch. Maybe it was symbolic, maybe it was self-preservation. Why'd you take the gun with you? Had you pla

DeBlass's eyes darted left and right. His breathing grew hard and fast.

"My client does not acknowledge ownership of the weapon in question."

"Your client's scum."

The lawyer puffed up. "Lieutenant Dallas, you're speaking of a United States Senator."

"That makes him elected scum. It shocked you, didn't it, senator? All the blood, the noise, the way the gun jerked in your hand. Maybe you hadn't really believed you could go through with it. Not when push came to shove and you had to pull the trigger. But once you had, there was no going back. You had to cover it up. She would have ruined you, she never would have let you have peace. She wasn't like Catherine. Sharon wouldn't fade into the background and suffer all the shame and the guilt and the fear. She used it against you, so you had to kill her. Then you had to cover your tracks."

"Lieutenant Dallas – "

She never took her eyes from DeBlass, and ignoring the lawyer's warning, kept beating at him. "That was exciting, wasn't it? You could get away with it. You're a United States senator, the victim's grandfather. Who would believe it of you? So you arranged her on the bed, indulged yourself, your ego. You could do it again, and why not? The killing had stirred something in you. What better way to hide than to make it seem as if there was some maniac at large?"

She waited while DeBlass reached for a glass of water and drank thirstily. "There was a maniac at large. You printed out the note, slipped it under her. And you dressed, calmer now, but excited. You set the 'link to call the cops at two fifty-five. You needed enough time to go down and fix the security tapes. Then you got back on your shuttle, flew back to East Washington, and waited to play the outraged grandfather."

Through it all, DeBlass said nothing. But a muscle jerked in his cheek and his eyes couldn't find a place to land.

"That's a fascinating story, lieutenant," the lawyer said. "But it remains that – a story. A supposition. A desperate attempt by the police department to fight their way out of a difficult situation with the media and the people of New York. And, of course, it's perfect timing that such ridiculous and damaging accusation should be levied against the senator just as his Morals Bill is coming up for debate."

"How did you pick the other two? How did you select Lola Starr and Georgie Castle? Have you already picked the fourth, the fifth, the sixth? Do you think you could have stopped there? Could you have stopped when it made you feel so powerful, so invincible, so righteous?"

DeBlass wasn't red now. He was gray, and his breathing was harsh and choppy. When he reached for a glass again, his hand jerked and sent it rolling to the floor.