Page 90 of Devoted in Death

“Get a plate,” she suggested. “Work and eat.”

She went to her desk, contacted Feeney.

His hangdog face seemed a little baggier, his explosion of silver-threaded ginger hair a bit more electrified. But since he hadn’t blocked video, she assumed he wasn’t still in bed.

“Wait,” he said, and glugged what she knew was coffee from a bright red mug. “What?”

“We’ve caught a break on the spree killers. I’ve got some security feed from a loading dock cam.”

“Those cams are crap.”

“Yeah, which is why I’m asking if you can give me some time on it. Roarke and McNab are already on it, at the home lab. We’ve got a decent image of the vehicle, some partials on the unsubs. Maybe part of a plate, and some sort of rear window sticker. We’ve got them taking out the latest vic.”

“The girl?”

“She’s not the latest. They got one last night. Male, just turned twenty-one. No word if they dumped Campbell’s body, but it’s early.”

“Tell me.” He rubbed one of his baggy eyes. “I can be there inside thirty. Put the coffee on.”

“You got it. Thanks. Peabody,” she said the minute she clicked off. “Status.”

“Carmichael and Santiago have a couple of lines to tug. One they’ve got a buzz over, but they crapped out on it last night. Hitting it again this morning.”

Peabody shoveled in some eggs. “Bubba’s Body Shop, Towing and Pies.”

Eve started to speak, thought again, then shook her head. “You’re making that up.”

“Hand to God.” Peabody took a moment to lay one hand over her heart, raise the other. “Carmichael says Bubba’s wife makes the pies, and Bubba and their son run the rest. She and Santiago got a guilt vibe off the son, but they aren’t giving it up.”

“They need to get the son on his own.”

“That’s the plan.”

With a grunt, Eve turned back to her comp to write the report on Mulligan, and update all salient parties. She’d run a probability on Campbell’s chances. Dead or alive. But she wanted to run it by Mira.

Something was going to break, and soon. She could feel it, almost hear those first cracks in the wall.

But would it be soon enough?

•••

He’d wept while he raped her.

No, no, that wasn’t right, Jayla thought. She couldn’t and wouldn’t call it rape. Not when they’d beaten him first, and cut him.

And her.

Not when they’d forced the sex drug into him, and held a knife to his throat unless he’d crawled on top of her. She’d tried to talk to him with her eyes. Tried to tell him to just do it, it didn’t matter, she didn’t blame him.

His tears had fallen on her. She wondered she didn’t drown in them.

They’d put a knife to her throat, too, when forcing him to push into her wasn’t enough. And Ella-Loo had pulled the gag off, told her to scream, to beg.

Beg him, beg him to stop. Scream!

So she had, though her screams were hoarse and weak, she’d screamed and begged. And all the while her eyes told the weeping boy it didn’t matter. It wasn’t his fault.

Once she’d believed, absolutely, rape was the worst that could happen to a woman. The ultimate violation. She knew better now. This—what they made him (Reed, she remembered. She would think of him as Reed) do to her was nothing compared to what they’d already done.

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