Desperation in Death--An Eve Dallas Novel Read online

  “Easy for you. I have to clean up your mess. Lights, ten percent,” she ordered. “So you don’t miss the bucket.”

  She stalked out.

  Since Mina didn’t have a clock, she counted off the minutes.

  Nurse had to get cleaning supplies, mop up the puke, then she’d probably go back and clean up her shoes. She had a little room with a sleep chair and a screen.

  Maybe she’d sit at her desk first, write up the report on the puking incident, but if she did, she’d face the comp screen, not the glass door.

  Quietly, Mina slipped off the cot, moved to the door. She pressed her ear to it, heard nothing.

  Now or never, she told herself, and eased the door open a crack.

  No alarm sounded, so she picked the nasty gum off the latch, then crept out. Nurse sat at the desk, and everything inside Mina trembled.

  She pulled the door closed behind her, heard the lock click. Though it sounded like an explosion in her head, Nurse didn’t even glance away from the screen as she worked.

  Mina made the dash to the elevator.

  “Come on, Dorian. Please, please, please.”

  If Dorian didn’t come—

  No, no, she would. She had to. They had to get out, go to the police. She had to call her mom and dad. They’d come get her. And Dorian, too.

  They’d be safe, and all these terrible people would go to jail.

  But the minutes ticked by.

  What if Nurse decided to check on her? What if someone else got sick, and a matron brought them down? What if Auntie—

  She heard the elevator hum, and instinctively stepped back, looked wildly for a place to hide.

  Then braced her shoulders. If the doors opened and she didn’t see Dorian, it was over anyway. Everything. She’d be punished, beaten, tossed into the box. She’d be sold at auction like a—like a painting or some fancy necklace.

  A thing. She wouldn’t live as a thing.

  When the doors opened, she nearly cried out. Slapping a hand over her own mouth, she leaped in with Dorian.

  Forgetting the gum, she gripped Dorian’s hand.

  “What the—”

  “Sorry. Gum. I used it on the latch. SB? Subbasement, right? That’s got to be it.” Mina pressed the button.

  Authorization required for that level.

  They both jumped a foot.

  “Swipe card, try the swipe card on the pad. It has to work. It has to.”

  Dorian gripped her own wrist to steady her hand, swiped the card. Mina pushed the button again.

  Authorization verified.

  The elevator started down.

  “Someone could be down there,” Dorian said. “What do we do if somebody’s right there?”

  “I don’t know. We—we run, or try to fight. I don’t know. We got this far. Oh God, oh God, I guess I never really believed we’d get this far, so I don’t know.”

  It took forever, or seemed like it as they wrapped arms around each other.

  Then the doors opened, and still wrapped around each other, they stepped out into dim light.

  “It really is a tunnel.”

  “It goes both ways.” Dorian pointed right, then left. “Which way is out?”

  “We have to pick one. You pick. I feel like I might puke again.”

  Dorian chose right. “We should run. We might not have much time. The Matron Monster might need her swipe.” She shoved it in her back pocket in case they needed it again. “Maybe she’ll think she dropped it, but maybe she’ll put it together.”

  Hands clasped, they ran. The tunnel echoed, so they spoke in whispers, filling each other in.

  Then the tunnel forked.

  “You pick this time,” Dorian said when they stopped.

  “We went right,” Mina replied, “so this time left. It has to lead somewhere because that’s how they removed that poor girl. We just keep going until we escape. Then we have to determine where we are. You were in New York, I was in Devon. We could be anywhere now. We break free, find out where we are, get somewhere I can call my parents. And the police.”

  “The police? But—”

  “All the others, Dorian.” In the dim, yellowish light, Mina’s soft green eyes went fierce. “We have to think of all the other girls, like us.”

  Maybe she felt bad for them, but Dorian’s instinct said just get out and run.

  “My parents will know what to do,” Mina told her. “They’ll come get us, no matter where we are. I miss them so much, and my stupid little brother, too. I know he’s a pest and annoying, but not always. And I know I get pissed at my parents sometimes. I mean, so clueless, right? But I never ever felt afraid until the Academy. They never ever hurt me. And your mom—”

  “She’s not like them.”

  “You’ve been gone all this time. She’s got to be worried. She—”

  “She’s not like your parents, okay?” Everything inside Dorian hardened, coated over even the fear. “I felt afraid plenty, and she hurt me when she felt like it. If we go to the cops, they’ll send me back to her or toss me in juvie or a foster. I might as well stay here.”

  “Don’t say that, don’t. My parents will take care of you, too. I promise. I swear it. Nobody’s going to screw with you. They won’t let that happen. And they won’t let these—these fucks get away with everything they did.”

  Rather than argue, Dorian shrugged. Mina had plenty of smarts, but she didn’t know how the real world worked.

  “Did you hear that?” Dorian’s hand vised on Mina’s.

  Voices echoing, footsteps running.

  “They’re coming. We need to run.”

  “No, no, they’ll hear running,” Mina hissed. “Like we hear them. Keep walking, close to the tunnel wall, keep moving, but quiet, quiet. Look, look up there! A ladder in the wall. We climb up, right? It has to be a way out.”

  When Mina reached it, she gripped the sides. “There’s a cover on it. We’ll need to push it off. Careful, it’s a little slippery.”

  They wedged together on the narrow ladder.

  “It’s not heavy. I’m taller, let me.” Dorian gritted her teeth, shoved. “I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”

  As she used both hands to push the metal cover, Dorian’s foot slipped. Even as Mina grabbed for her, she went down, banging her knee on a rung, then feeling her ankle twist and go out from under her on the fall to the concrete.

  She bit back a scream of pain as Mina pulled her up. “You’re okay, you’re all right. I see light. We have to go up now. They’re getting closer.”

  She shoved Dorian up, climbed behind. “Hurry. You have to hurry.”

  The pain made her sick, made her dizzy, but she climbed. Climbed into pouring rain and roaring thunder.

  Mina popped out like a cork behind her, then dragged the cover back in place.

  Through the storm, they saw what looked like a huddle of derelict and abandoned buildings, a couple of rusted-out cars slumped on weedy gravel, a heap of busted-up planks, a lot of trash.

  It smelled like a broken recycler filled with rotten fruit.

  But in the distance, lights gleamed through the wall of rain.

  “That way!”

  “I can’t run, Mina. I can barely walk. I maybe broke something.”

  “Lean on me. If we can get to those lights—”

  She broke off as the cover shifted. With an arm around Dorian, she dragged her friend to the old lumber pile.

  “We hide,” she whispered. “Stay down until they go away.”

  A man pulled himself out of the hole. Spoke to someone below him. “There’s blood on the ground, the ladder. One of them’s hurt.”

  The Matron Monster climbed out. “I hope to fuck it’s the little shit who stole my swipe. She’s going to pay for it.” Already soaked to the skin, she spoke into a ’link. “We found their exit, and one’s banged up.”

  The man gave a location and orders to send more for the search. Ordered vans for a street sweep even as a third climbed out.


  “They didn’t get far,” he said. “We were a minute behind them. Spread out and find those bitches.”

  “They’ll find us,” Mina whispered in Dorian’s ear. “I’m going to lead them away.”

  “No!”

  “I can run faster than they can, and it’s raining so hard, I can get a head start maybe. Stay here, stay quiet. I’ll make them think you’re with me so they’ll stop looking. I’ll send help.”

  “You can’t—”

  Mina picked up a broken piece of wood with a jagged edge, and shoved at the bright hair the rain plastered to her face. “Stay down, stay quiet. We got out, Dorian. We’re not going back.”

  She gripped Dorian’s hand one last time. “Partners,” she whispered, then ran.

  “There! I see one!”

  “Go, Dorian,” Mina screamed. “Keep going! Don’t stop!”

  As Mina ran, Dorian squeezed her eyes shut. She’d tried praying a few times in her life, and it never worked. But she tried again, as hard as she could.

  She heard a shout, and then a scream. Mina? Following her gut, she lurched to her feet, managed one running step before her leg crumpled under her. Her head cracked hard against a plank on the way down. She saw stars. Then nothing at all.

  Under a black umbrella, Auntie stood over the body. The trainee she’d put so much time and effort into, had such high hopes for, lay like a soaked rag, impaled with a jagged spear of wood.

  Useless now, she thought. Useless.

  “No sign of the other one.” Her head of security stood next to her. “What a fuckup. I’ll have a full report for you after I debrief. Do you want her taken to the crematorium?”

  “No. 238 may go to the police. It’s not her nature, but in case she does, we’ll turn this on her. Have that idiot Nurse get the last blood draw from 238. When the cops find the body where you’ll deposit it, it’ll have 238’s blood on it. And have whatever 232 was wearing when we recruited her brought up. Get this disappointment in a van. You’ll take care of this tonight.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll relay precise instructions. I want no more carelessness. Understood?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “Stupid, ungrateful bitch.”

  Auntie kicked the body once, viciously, then walked away.

  2

  Dorian woke with her head pounding like an airjack. Her knee felt sick and squishy, like her stomach. She didn’t know where she was or what had happened. For a terrifying few minutes she didn’t know who she was.

  Everything went blurry when she tried to sit up, so she lay still. The air smelled bad, and the ground felt rough and bumpy under her. Her ankle throbbed.

  She tried hard to think of the last thing she remembered, but just couldn’t, so she concentrated on what she did know.

  Somebody had hurt her, and she didn’t want to be wherever she was. That somebody might come back, hurt her again.

  This time when she sat up, she braced against the dizziness, hissed her way through it. She saw some buildings—crapholes—some junk.

  She wore gray pants—they looked like good pants except for the bloody tear in the left knee. Wet and clingy pants, like her shirt—her white shirt.

  She pressed her fingers to her knee, squawked in pain before she could stop herself. She wore plain white sneakers, and the ankle above the left foot swelled like a balloon.

  She’d had bumps and bruises and swollen parts before. Her mother got pissed and dealt them out like a hand of cards.

  Had her mother done this to her?

  No, no, she didn’t think so. She’d gotten away, again.

  Spend Christmas in New York. Wasn’t she going to do that? But it didn’t feel like Christmas. It felt hot. Even though she couldn’t stop shivering, it felt hot.

  Maybe she had a fever.

  Wherever, whenever, she had to move. Maybe find a place she could steal some medicine, an ice pack.

  She picked around the woodpile—got a splinter for her trouble—until she found something she could use as a kind of crutch.

  Tears streamed, watering the pain as she used the wood to pull herself up. She hobbled her way toward the lights in the distance.

  Lights meant people, people meant pockets to pick or stores with ice packs and blockers. Once she had those, she’d find a hole somewhere and sleep. Just sleep until the pain went away.

  Dazed, her mind heading toward numb in defense, she walked.

  And walked. And walked.

  * * *

  About the same time Dorian crawled through a broken window in a condemned building and fell into a blocker-and-tranq-induced sleep with ice packs strapped to her knee and ankle, Lieutenant Eve Dallas stood over a body on the north edge of Battery Park.

  Last night’s storm had cleared the worst of a late June three-day heat wave and left the air in Lower Manhattan oddly refreshed.

  Wouldn’t last, but it made a nice morning.

  Except for the kid—just a kid, Eve thought. Hair in a frizzy red cloud around a sweet, heart-shaped face. Green eyes stared out behind the film death smeared on them.

  Blood stained the white shirt, spreading out from the spear of wood in the girl’s chest.

  No blood on the grass or ground, she noted. Could’ve washed away in the rain, but the body lay fairly sheltered under the leafy branches of a tree near the bike path.

  She glanced toward the path—light traffic at this hour—then at the uniform who stood by.

  “What do you know?”

  “Sir. Not a hell of a lot. Guy decides to do some yoga in the park at sunrise.” The uniform chin-pointed at a man of around seventy in compression shorts and tank holding a rolled mat. He stood by a second uniform. “Wilfred Meadows. He lives a couple blocks away and says he likes this spot for his, ah, sunrise salutations. He saw the body, contacted nine-one-one.”

  The officer cleared his throat. “When we arrived on scene, the witness was sitting cross-legged a few feet away from the victim, with his hands pressed together.”

  The officer demonstrated. “He said he was trying to send positive energy to her spirit on her journey. And he cried a little because she’s just a kid. Says he’s got a redheaded granddaughter about her age.

  “He comes here most mornings, he said, and rides his bike on the path three afternoons a week, leads a tai chi class in the park two afternoons a week. He hasn’t seen the victim around before. He thinks he’d have noticed because of the hair and his granddaughter.”

  “Okay, get his information and let him go home. We’ll follow up. Wait.”

  She spotted her partner, Detective Peabody, walking fast toward the crime scene tape. “We’ll follow up now. Peabody.” Eve crossed to the tape.

  “Sorry! Subway glitch, so I ditched it. I put half a mile on my feet and shift just started.”

  “Yoga guy there found the body. The uniforms got his statement. Follow up before you let him go.”

  “Got it.” Peabody took off her rainbow sunshades, slid them into a pocket of her jacket. Maybe the sun beamed, but she knew how Eve felt about rainbow sunshades on the job. “She looks like a kid.”

  “She was. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen. I’ll take the body, you take the wit.”

  Eve turned, walked back, crouched down.

  Opening her field kit, she took out her Identi-pad first and pressed it to the victim’s right thumb.

  “Victim is identified as Mina Rose Cabot, age thirteen, of Devon, Pennsylvania. Caucasian, red and green. Five feet, four inches, a hundred and six pounds. Parents, Rae and Oliver Cabot, same address, one sib, Ethan, age eleven.”

  She got out her gauges. “TOD, twenty-three-oh-six. COD appears to be the approximately eighteen-inch-by-three-inch piece of wood or wood product impaled mid-chest. ME to confirm, lab to verify weapon.”

  With her sealed hands, Eve picked up and examined the victim’s. “Some bruising on the knuckles, some dried blood.” She took a sample of the blood, sealed it, then put on microgoggles, stud
ied both palms. “Looks like a couple splinters in the palms, both hands. Blood on the shirt around the wound consistent with the injury. Some drops on the cuff of the shirt, some on the pants. Not consistent with the wound.”

  She shook her head. “Where the hell did that spear thing come from?”

  She sat back on her heels. “Put up a fight, didn’t you, Mina? Grabbed for the spear of wood—or maybe you held it to begin with and the killer used it against you.”

  “Victim has pierced ears—two on the left, one in the right. No earrings. No shoes, no ’link, no wallet or purse. She’s got a little—looks like silver—heart on a chain. Chain’s broken.

  “So the killer takes her earrings, her shoes, whatever else she had on her, but doesn’t take the necklace. Maybe heard somebody coming and ran before he could grab it. Maybe.”

  She replaced her tools. “No visible facial wounds or other visible injuries. Clothes are intact. ME to check for sexual assault or rape, but it looks like a mugging gone way wrong. What the hell were you doing in New York, Mina from Pennsylvania?”

  Family trip, Eve thought, a runaway? She sure as hell didn’t look like a kid who’d spent any time on the streets.

  She pushed up as Peabody walked to her.

  “Mr. Meadows’s statement jibes. I’ve got all his information. He’s lived here for eighteen years, works as a life coach for Healthy You and Me—thirty-three years there. Married for forty-one years. His wife’s a fitness coach, same company. His wife’s a redhead, so are their daughter and their oldest granddaughter. He said he had one horrible instant when he thought the victim was his granddaughter, Abigail. He knew it wasn’t—but he had that instant.”

  “She’s Mina Cabot, from Devon, Pennsylvania. Looks like a mugging, but…” Eve looked back. “See how she’s laid out? Not posed or anything, but it’s still neat. Not like she took the spear in the chest and fell. And no grass stains on her clothes. No blood on the ground—we’ll have the sweepers check that, but … Let’s roll her.”

  Together they went back to the body. Peabody sealed her hands with the can Eve passed her, then they carefully turned Mina on her side. “Let’s amend the size of the spear to closer to twenty-four inches,” noted Eve. “Look at the blood on the back of the shirt. It pierced her back. But there’s no blood under her.”