Home > Leverage in Death (In Death #47)(3)

Leverage in Death (In Death #47)(3)
Author: J.D. Robb

She swung in behind the mobile medical unit. Since it was already double-parked, horns and curses were already blasting anyway.

As she stepped out, the Rapid Cab driver behind her laid on his horn, stuck his head out of the window. “Gimme a fucking break, girlie!”

Eve held up her badge, smiled with all the warmth of the early March wind. “Lieutenant Girlie. What would you like me to break?”

He steered around her, shooting her his middle finger on the way.

“You know Charles and Louise live just down the block,” Peabody commented.

“Yeah.” The doctor and the former licensed companion had an elegant brownstone within easy walking distance. “Nice neighborhood.”

Upper class, Eve thought. Reasonably quiet and safe. Brownstones and townhomes tucked back from the sidewalk, often with little front gardens or paved rear courtyards.

This one had a front garden—dormant now, but neat—with a walkway leading to a short set of stairs, a pair of bold blue double doors. One of the doors hung crookedly.

The house rose up three stories—decorative (and she’d wager effective) bars on the lower windows. All the privacy screens were engaged but for one on the second floor. Someone had broken that window. She noted the shards of glass and some sort of good-size ball, cracked, in shades of red and orange and brown.

“I think maybe that’s Jupiter.” Peabody frowned at the ball, tipping her head back to look up at the window.

Eve avoided the shards, studied the security as they approached the doors. “It’s one of Roarke’s systems, so it’s good. Palm plate, voice ID, solid locks and alarm, double cameras.”

The door opened. “Lieutenant. Officer Vols.”

“Status.”

“Sir. Officer Gregg and I arrived, rang and knocked. Automated security engaged. The comp said no one was currently in residence. Before we attempted a bypass, Gregg stepped down to check windows, go around to the back. And the ball back there? Planet Jupiter?”

“I knew it,” Peabody said with quick triumph, before Eve shut her down with a cold stare.

“Well, it nearly beaned Gregg. And the kid who managed to throw it through the window started screaming for help. Gregg called up to her, told her we were the police. She said she couldn’t get out of her room.

“We couldn’t get through security, LT, had to use the battering ram.”

“Did the alarm go off?”

“No, sir, it didn’t. Disengaged. We found the kid upstairs—holding on to herself pretty well. She said they’d hurt her mom, and had taken her away. They’d taken her dad away. Then we heard the pipes. The mother managed to bang on the pipes in the basement room. We found her down there, beat up, tied up. The kid fell apart a little then.”

A ripple of emotion ran over his stony cop’s face. “She’d thought they’d killed her mom. Two men, they both state, broke into the house sometime in the early hours of Saturday after all three were in bed. From what the wife said, it sounds like they may have drugged the husband while he slept, taken him out that way, then they dragged the wife out of bed, smacked her around a little, tied her up, hauled the kid in. Tied her and the father up.”

“Did you get a description?”

“Masks. Both say white, featureless masks. Hoods, gloves. They both say male going by voice and build, but they can’t give us race, facial features, hair or eye color. I’ll tell you, we didn’t push too hard, Lieutenant. The mother needed medical attention, and the kid . . . She holds it together, like I said, but she’s pretty shaken up. We haven’t given Greenspan notification on Rogan. She and the kid asked about him, but we didn’t want to step in it on that.”

“Okay. You and Gregg stand by. I’ve got an e-man coming to evaluate the security breach and pick up all electronics. Where do you have them?”

“There’s a family area in the back of the house, off the kitchen. Gregg’s sitting on them.”

The two MTs walked out from the rear of the house, equipment in hand. “She won’t go to the hospital,” one of them announced. “The adult female. The minor’s mostly just shaken up, but the adult female could use the hospital.”

“What’s her status?”

“Two cracked ribs, bruised kidney, sprained wrist, deep lacerations on both wrists and ankles from fighting against the zip ties, broken nose, severe facial and torso bruising, and lacerations from repeated blows. She was dehydrated, suffered a mild concussion.”

“We’ll see what we can do about getting her to agree to the hospital.”

The other MT shook his head. “Won’t budge. Wouldn’t take a tranq, either. We’ve got her splinted, wanded, stabilized, but she needs to go in.”

“Got it,” Eve said as the MTs walked out.

“She’s afraid to be a foot away from the kid,” Vols told Eve. “Like the kid’s afraid to be a foot away from the mom. You can’t blame them.”

“Yeah. I got that, too. Good work, Officer.”

With Peabody, Eve started back to tell a woman her husband was dead, and a child her father wouldn’t be coming home again.

2

The kid sat, hollow-eyed, glued to her mother’s side on a wide sofa covered with big, bold red flowers. She wore baggy cotton pants, thick pink socks, a purple sweatshirt. The bruises on her wrists added more purple.

Her mother kept a protective arm wrapped around her.

Bruises rioted over Cecily’s face. Eve noted the swelling and blackened rays at the edges of the ice patch on her left eye.

NuSkin bandages wrapped around both of her wrists. Violet-and-yellow bruises spread around her unpatched right eye.

When she shifted, the flicker over her face told Eve there was still considerable pain.

“Ms. Greenspan, I’m Lieutenant Dallas. This is Detective Peabody. We have some questions. We can speak to you at the health center of your choice, as the medics who treated you strongly recommend further examination and treatment.”

“The MTs treated us here. We want to be home.” She looked down at her daughter who cuddled a little closer, nodded. “No one will tell us about Paul, about my husband, Melody’s father. We’ll answer all your questions, but you have to answer one first. Where is Paul?”

Eve sat. Eye-to-eye was better, though there was never a better. “I regret to inform you, your husband’s dead. We’re very sorry for your loss.”

The girl stared at Eve for a long, trembling moment, then pressed her face to her mother’s side. She made a sound like a small animal in terrible pain.

Cecily turned to gather her daughter in, and the pain, all the levels of it drained her face of color until the bruises stood out like banners.

“Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you—”

“Yes. I’m sorry, but we’re sure.”

“Is there someone we can call for you?” Peabody asked. “Can I get you something? Water, some tea?”

“How? How?”

“Detective Peabody can take Melody into another room,” Eve began, and Melody pushed away from her mother, aimed a ferocious look at Eve.

“I’m not leaving my mom. They made me leave her, and they kept hurting her and Daddy. I’m not going to leave. They made him do something awful. They made him because they kept hurting Mom and said how they’d do things to me. One of them had a knife and told Daddy he’d cut me, and he pulled my hair really hard to make me yell. I tried not to, I tried, but it hurt.”

“It’s okay, Melly, It’s okay, my baby.”

“They killed Daddy, and he didn’t do anything. They hurt Mom and she didn’t do anything.”

“Neither did you,” Eve said. “Did they do anything else to hurt you?”

“They put the plastic tie things on my wrist and my feet, really tight. They hurt. When the one took Daddy away, the other came in and . . . he made the ties looser so they didn’t hurt so much. But he said if I didn’t yell for Daddy to help me in the ’link, he’d kill Mom.”

“Oh, Melly, oh baby.”

“I had to do it. I had to. And I could hear Daddy crying. He was crying, but he said it would be okay. It’s not okay. They killed Daddy.”

“Tell us what happened,” Eve said to Cecily, “from the beginning.”

“I heard Melly scream. We were all in bed. I don’t know what time exactly, late Friday night, early Saturday morning. I know it was after midnight because Paul and I didn’t go to bed until about midnight. I heard her scream, and I started to get up and run to her room. Something hit me. Someone.”

She touched a hand to her face.

“I fell, and he pulled my arms behind me, used the zip ties. I called for Paul, but he dragged me back to the bed, hit me again and bound me to the headboard. I could see that Paul was still sleeping—at first I thought he was somehow sleeping through it, but I realized they’d used something—a pressure syringe. He was unconscious, helpless. The other one came in with Melly, bound her to the chair.

“I kept asking what they wanted, begged them not to hurt my baby, told them to take whatever they wanted. They didn’t say anything, didn’t speak. They dragged Paul to the other chair. They tied him, then used another syringe. It brought him around. He tried to fight, but . . .”

“They hurt Mom again. They kept hurting Mom.”

“I’m all right now, Melly. I’m okay now. They hurt me, threatened to hurt Melly to torture Paul. They laughed when he cursed them, threatened them, begged them. They just laughed. Then one sat on the side of the bed, beside me—touched me.”

Cecily’s eyes met Eve’s, said all.

“He said it would get worse, a lot worse. And did Paul want to save his wife and child? Did he want to protect them? Would he do anything to save them? Of course Paul said yes. He said he’d do anything.”

“They took me away, even though Mom and Daddy begged,” Melody said. “One of them carried me into my room and used another of the zip things to tie me to my bed so I couldn’t get up. I was scared, and I kept calling for Mom and Daddy, but the one who locked me in, before he did, he said everything was going to be okay. He told me not to be scared, but to stop calling for my mom and dad. So I stopped calling for them. He wanted me to, so I stopped.”

   
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