Survivor in Death

“Yes?” The voice through the intercom was female, and firm.

“Mrs. Turnbill? We're the police. Detectives Peabody and McNab with the New York City Police and Security Department.”

“That's not a police vehicle.”

“No, ma'am, it's private.” Peabody held up her badge. “We'd like to speak with you, and will wait until you verify our IDs.”

“I don't-”

“You spoke with my partner, Lieutenant Dallas, earlier today. I understand your caution under the circumstances, Mrs. Turnbill, but it's important we speak with you. If you refuse, we'll contact the local authorities and arrange for a warrant. I don't want to do that. We've gone to some trouble to keep this visit quiet, to insure your safety.”

“Wait.”

Like Peabody, McNab kept his badge up, and watched the thin red light shimmer out, scan both. Somebody, he thought, isn't just cautious, but scared. Right into the bowels.

The door opened. “I'll speak with you, but I can't tell you any more than I told Lieutenant Dallas.” As she spoke a man came down from the second floor. His face was grim, his eyes cold.

“Why can't you people leave us alone?”

“The kids?” his wife asked him.

“Fine. I told them to stay upstairs.”

He was stocky in the way that told Peabody he did manual labor routinely. His face was ta

Six years, she thought, had made him more farmer than urbanite. And the way he kept one hand in the pocket of his work pants warned her he was carrying.

“Mr. Turnbill, we've come a long way, and not to harass you. Roger Kirkendall is wanted in co

“Only seven.” His lips twisted. “You're way off.”

“That may be, but it's the seven that concern us at the moment.”

Taking his cue, McNab kept his voice as brittle as Turnbill's, and drew crime scene photos from his field bag. “Here's a couple to start.”

He'd gone straight to the kids, and saw by the way Roxa

“Oh God.” Roxa

“You've got no right to come in here and do this.”

“Oh yeah.” McNab's eyes were merciless as they met Turnbill's. “We do.”

“McNab.” Peabody murmured it, deliberately reached out and pulled back the photos. “I'm sorry. Sorry to disturb you, sorry to upset you. We need your help.”

“We don't know anything.” Turnbill put his arm around his wife's shoulders. “We just want to be left alone.”

“You left high-powered, high-paying jobs six years ago,” McNab began. “Why?”

“That's none of your-”

“Joshua.” Roxa

She turned into a living room showing the chaotic debris of young children, the comfortable wear of family. Roxa

“We have evidence linking him to the crimes. Those children, their parents, and a domestic were all murdered in their beds. Grant Swisher was your sister's attorney in her divorce and custody case.”

“Six years ago,” she replied. “Yes, he could wait six years. He could wait sixty.”

“Do you have any idea where he is?”

“None. He leaves us alone now. He leaves us alone. We're not important anymore. We don't want to be.”

“Where's your sister?” McNab demanded, and Roxa

“She's dead. He killed her.”

“We believe he's capable of doing so.” Peabody kept her eyes level on Roxa

“I don't know where she is.” Weary tears filled Roxa

“But you know she's alive. You know she got away from him.”

“I thought she was dead. For two years. I went to the police, but they couldn't help. I thought he'd killed them. And then-”

“You don't have to do this, Roxie.” Her husband drew her closer. “You don't have to go through this again.”

“I don't know what to do. What if he comes here? What if he does, after all this time? Our babies, Joshua.”

“We're safe here.”

“You've got a good security system.” McNab drew Turnbill's attention back to him. “So did the Swishers. The nice family on the Upper West Side he slaughtered. Their good security system didn't help them.”

“We'll help you,” Peabody assured them. “We'll arrange for police protection for you, for your family. We took private transpo out of New York, under the radar. He doesn't know we're here. He doesn't, at this time, know we're looking for him. The longer it takes to find him, the better the chance he'll know.”

“When will this be over?”

“When we find him.” McNab shut down on compassion as the tears slid down Roxa

“Joshua. Please, would you get me some water?”

He studied her face, then nodded. “Are you sure?” he asked as he rose. “Roxie, are you sure?”

“No, but I know I don't want to live like this.” She took slow breaths as he left the room. “It's worse for him, I think. Worse. He works so hard for so little. We were happy in New York. Such an exciting city, full of so much energy. We both had careers we loved, we were good at. We'd just bought a townhouse. Because I was pregnant. My sister…”

She trailed off, managed a smile when her husband came in with a glass of water. “Thanks, honey. My sister was damaged, I guess you could say. He damaged her. Years of abuse, physical, emotional, mental. I tried to get her to leave, to get help. I'd talk to her, but she was too afraid, or too entrenched, and I was the little sister who didn't understand. It was her fault, you see. I did a lot of studying on battered syndrome in those days. I'm sure you've seen your share of it.”

“Too much,” Peabody agreed.

“He was worse than anything, than anybody. Not just because she was my sister. It's not that he likes to cause pain, to harm. It's that it means nothing to him. He might snap the bone in her finger for having di

“No, ma'am. No,” Peabody repeated, “I can't.”

“She was property to him, Dian and the children. It was when he began to hurt the children that she was able to pull out of the mire. He'd already damaged them, too, but she thought she was protecting them, keeping the family together. He brutalized them, punishments, his brand of discipline. Solitary confinement, he'd call it, or he'd make them stand in cold showers for an hour, deny them food for two days. Once he cut off all of my niece's hair because he said she'd taken too long brushing it. But then he began to beat Jack, my nephew. Toughen him up, he claimed. One day, when Roger was out, she found her son with Roger's army-issue stu

She pressed her fingers to the pulse in her throat. “He was going to kill himself. This eight-year-old boy was going to end his own life rather than face another day with that monster. It woke her up. She left. She took the kids, nothing else. She didn't even pack a bag. There were shelters I'd told her about, and she ran to one.”

Roxa