Brotherhood in Death

22

At Blake’s request, Eve took her first, sat across from her and in the box.

Blake wore prison orange now.

“You have now suspended your wish for counsel or representation?”

“For the moment, yes. As you pointed out, I can represent myself. And though I would advise my client to remain silent, my client has a deep emotional need to make a statement. And in making it, hopes to help the three women you’ll soon interview here.

“They’re victims, Lieutenant.”

“I’m listening.”

“I was a student at Yale University. I worked very hard to be accepted into Yale, very hard to shine there. My ambition was law, corporate law. I wanted a high-powered job, planned to make full partner before I turned forty. I wanted a big, glamorous apartment, and glamorous friends. I accomplished all of that, and I was content. I told myself I was content, that the nightmares that recurred were stress-induced. They had no basis in reality.

“The nightmares where I was tied to a bed in a room with colored lights. Spinning lights, loud music. Male laughter. Where I wept and raged. Where I relived that shock, that pain, that humiliation. Faceless men, forcing themselves into me. Forcing me to drink something that, after each had had me once, turned me into an animal, so I begged them to take me again. And again when they could untie me, then hang me up by the wrists in the center of those spinning lights, and take me two at a time.”

She paused, sipped the water Peabody had set on the table. Though her hand stayed steady, her breath shuddered out before she spoke again.

“In my ambitions I had imagined men—suitable men, entertaining men. Out of them I would select a mate and build a fine life. But in reality, after those nightmares began, whenever I tried to be with a man, a panic filled me. A terrible sickness. I thought perhaps I had some condition, and began to see a therapist.”

She paused a moment, steadied herself. “I thought I might prefer women, but no matter how gentle the lover I chose, that panic would grip me. For a while, I accepted I could be with no one, could not be intimate, I’d just focus on my work, on my career. But the nightmares wouldn’t relent. My work began to suffer, and the nightmares raged inside me, like the men in them raged.

“And I began to remember more, see more. Their faces. Part of me refused to believe it had actually happened. How could such a terrible thing have happened to me? How could I live and work, day after day, after that terrible thing? But it had happened. I began to understand it had. I couldn’t work, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I thought of suicide, just to end it. And I took the medications my therapist prescribed, but it didn’t relent. One day I attended a support group, one for rape victims. I met CeCe Anson, the kindest woman I’ve ever known, and through her Lydia Su.”

“Su had the same nightmares, the same memories.”

“Yes. We became friends, and I thought, with her . . . but even with her I couldn’t bear to be touched. And it came out, what I remembered or dreamed. It came out she dreamed the same. We sat in the dark, holding each other as those memories fell out of us, twined together. It seemed impossible at first. But then . . .”

“There were too many details for it to be impossible.”

“Yes. I quit my job at the firm, sold my fancy apartment. I bought the house where you found us, thinking that one day I might create a crisis center or a school, or . . . I wasn’t clear on that. I offered my legal services to the group, to the crisis center. I continued to attend the group. It was a lifeline, and I began to do pro bono work for Inner Peace because they’d helped Lydia.”

“You found Carlee MacKensie that way.”

“Yes.”

“And you realized she’d had the same experience.”

“It was weeks, months, but we became what we’ll call wounded friends. We’d have coffee after group, talk. And then, yes, we began to see all three of us had the same dreams, and what had happened, somehow, to all three of us was too similar to be chance.”

Grace leaned forward. “Do you believe in fate?”

“What does fate have to do with it?”

“We met, Lydia and I, then I met Carlee, and we were three. One day I was called to assist another woman with a legal issue. Charity. She’d been in another group and had a kind of meltdown during a session. She’d gone after one of the other women—sexually. CeCe contacted me to help her with the legal issues. She told me she’d been speaking, taking her turn, and had some sort of flashback. The heat, the need—and it had happened once or twice before. She broke down in my little office, told me about her recurring nightmares.”

“Then there were four.”

“Yes, and no possible way this could be anything other than a pattern. I began to search through the records—and that’s certainly a violation—but we were desperate to know if there were more. I found Elsi.

“All the details—I’ll give you all I have. The timing, the where and when, but I’d like to just give you the broad points now.”

“Go ahead.”

“Elsi was so young, and her wounds, we’ll say, fresher and more intense. Maybe they’d mixed the dose. Maybe they’d experimented. I can’t say. But she would have those flashes, and find herself waking up with a stranger. She’d have nightmares so violent she’d harm herself during them. She . . . she began cutting herself.”

Blake paused for more water. “It had just happened, only the previous spring, so she saw the faces clearly—as they were now.”

“And you had Charity to draw them.”

“Yes. Edward Mira, I recognized him, and that led to the others. It led, as we’d already believed, to Yale. Only Charity hadn’t attended the university, but she’d been seeing a Yale man on and off, and sometimes attended parties or events. Lectures. On one of her visits, she found herself wandering the campus before dawn, with no memory of what had happened. At first she believed she’d had too much to drink and had blacked out, or possibly been roofied and raped. But she couldn’t remember. None of us remembered it all, until all of us did.”

“So you planned the murders.”

“Not at first. We’d meet—at the house where you found us because it became ours. A safe place, so in a way, it was a crisis center. We talked about how we could prove it, if we’d be believed if we went to the police.

“Could I have some more water?”

Peabody rose, went out to get it.

“We were five women who’d been ripped to pieces. We wanted to find proof. We needed to find justice.”

“It’s the job of the police to find proof. It’s the courts who determine justice.”

“We needed to do something after Elsi . . . I’ve left that out. It’s painful.”

She stopped again when Peabody returned with more water.

“Thank you. I researched the laws. I’d been a corporate lawyer, but I gave myself lessons in criminal law. And for all but Elsi and Charity, the statute of limitations had passed. We’d never reported a crime, as we hadn’t known we’d been victims of a crime—until it was too late for justice. For Charity, the window was closing.”

She pressed her lips together. “I can see, and I should have seen then, we put too much weight on Elsi. She and Charity were the only ones who could file charges. We would all add our own stories, and surely that would prove they’d done this, and done it, and done it. There wouldn’t just be the five of us. There would be more women, and more women would remember when it came out, but . . .”

“Elsi couldn’t handle it.”

“She was so fragile, and she broke.” Tears welled up now, spilled out. “She simply shattered, and we’ll live with that guilt. They raped her, they ruined her, but we broke her trying to put all of us back together again. And then, yes then, we began to plan how to get justice for her, for all of us. At first, we told ourselves we would find proof. But we didn’t. Carlee and Charity sacrificed more than I can tell you, and we didn’t find proof.”

“You had Carlee sleep with Edward Mira.”

“She was strong, she was willing. We’d hoped she might find something to implicate him, more victims, victims who had been more recent like our Elsi. But he was careful there. And then Charity took her place. Carlee couldn’t face any more, so Charity stepped in. But we found nothing. Then, yes, we began to plan how to get justice. For Elsi. For all of us.”

Blake set the water down, wiped the tears away. “I posed as a Realtor, and made the appointment to meet him at the house he wanted to sell. Charity came in with me. We stunned him, we hurt him. We wanted him to know who we were, and what was coming. Then the other man came. We had a moment of panic, but we knocked him out. I knocked him out. He wasn’t one of them, and we had no desire or reason to harm him. We forced Edward into Lydia’s van, and brought him to the basement.”

“One you’d set up to replicate where you’d been raped.”

“Yes. What we did was against the law—we’ll pay the price. God knows we’ve already paid worse. But what we did was earned, it was right, because the law protected them.”

“You’re wrong. You don’t get to torture and execute. You don’t get to decide what payment is made. And the law wouldn’t have protected them.”

“The statute of limitations.”

“They formed a conspiracy—and that changes things, Counselor. You should’ve stuck with corporate. A conspiracy to drug and incapacitate, to kidnap, to hold individuals against their will, to rape and cause bodily, mental, and emotional harm to same. I would have put every one of them away, if you’d given me the chance—the way I’m going to put Marshall Easterday and Ethan MacNamee away.”

“They’re wealthy, powerful men, and the law is slippery, full of loopholes. They would have—”

“Look at me!” Eve slapped a fist on the table. “I would have put them away, and they’d have paid for years. Think about that. They’d have paid for years, not for one night. You decided to be judge, jury, and hangman. So now you’ll pay, too. I would have stood for you, the law would have stood for you. Now I have to stand for the men who raped you. I have to stand for the men you killed.”

“We couldn’t take it anymore.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “We couldn’t bear it, not after Elsi. They’re monsters. Monsters. Imagine a monster forcing his way into you. Imagine revisiting that horror night after night in your dreams. We couldn’t take it anymore.”

She wiped at her wet cheeks. “Each one of us will tell you the same. But they’ll speak to you with counsel present. That’s all I have to say until I, too, have counsel present.”

Eve nodded, rose. “Subject has invoked right to counsel. Interview end. Peabody, will you take Ms. Blake back to Holding where she’ll be permitted to contact her chosen representative?”

“Yes, sir. Ms. Blake.”

Blake got to her feet. “Each one of us was on a path to a life, to work, maybe to love and family. To children. Who knows? Each one of us was ripped off that path and thrown into a dark place where there would always be nightmares. They killed who we were, Lieutenant. Who we might have been. How does the law punish that?”

“The two left will never get out of a cage—it’s their turn to be the animal. You have and had a choice, to make yourself into what you could be, and you made that choice.”

“Elsi was a virgin. Rape was her only sexual experience. She never had a chance.”

As Peabody led Blake out, Eve pressed her hands to her eyes. Her throat burned, raw and dry. Her head pounded in an ugly beat.

She dropped her hands when Mira stepped in.

“So?” Eve shrugged. “Diminished capacity? Despite the calculation?”

“It’s possible they’ll spend their years in a facility, get treatment, therapy. But they conspired to murder, and succeeded with three.”

“But the law’s slippery and full of loopholes.”

“It is. But you’ve done your job, and more. You stood for those women, too, Eve, and you’ll stand for the rest as they’re identified.”

“Harvo’s come through with more names. Do I contact them? What if they don’t remember, are living their lives? What good would it do?”

Mira laid her hands on Eve’s shoulders, rubbed at the knotted muscles as she met Eve’s eyes in the wide mirror.

“You needed to remember, or you couldn’t live your life, not fully, not as you were meant. You could pass the notifications off, with no shame.”

“It would shame me.”

Turning Eve toward her, Mira cupped Eve’s face. “Because you chose to take a terrible thing and make yourself who you are. You and I, we feel for Grace Blake, for all of them. But what you said to her was truth. It was truth, Eve. I’ll help with the notifications. I’ll offer counseling to every one you find, if they want it from me.”

“You deserve each other.”

“Excuse me?”

“You and Mr. Mira. You really deserve each other. Lucky when that happens. You’ll tell him it’s done.”

“I will.”

“I guess he told you I told him because I thought you’d already told him.”

Understanding perfectly, Mira nodded. “Yes, we talked. He’ll be your champion. He’s a quiet hero, Eve, but he’s steadfast, and he’s true. He’ll never betray your trust, and will always be there for you.”

This time when Eve pressed her fingers to her eyes, tears pressed back. “Okay. I’ve got to finish this. I just want to go home and sleep for a couple days.”

“Go home. Sleep awhile.”

“No, I need to interview the rest of them.”

“Then I’ll observe.”

“And then I have to go there. To where this all happened. I need to see it, document it, secure it. There will be other recordings. Goddamn tradition.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“No. No. You should go home. You don’t look like you’ve slept in a week. No offense.”

“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.”

—

Hours 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.”