Concealed in Death (32 page)

“Because we’re Nash and Monty. Brothers forever.”

“Why didn’t you tell Monty about Shelby, and the other girls, before?” Eve asked him.

“He was mad, so I didn’t tell. Then I had to come here, but Peter’s here, so that’s good. Then I forgot. They don’t have bad girls here, and I forgot about it. I don’t even dream about it anymore.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it, about Shelby?” Eve prompted.

“It’s all right to tell her, Monty,” Peter urged him. “She won’t get mad.”

“Shelby said she’d make me feel good a special way, a secret way. She did, but it’s bad. She’ll get in trouble if I tell you. I don’t tattle.”

He mimed zipping his lip.

“That’s okay. What happened to Shelby?”

“Nothing.”
He lifted his hands in the air, shook them. “Nothing, nothing. She wanted to stay in The Sanctuary. Me, too, but Monty and Philly said no. But the other place wasn’t
home
, so me and Shelby wanted to stay. Shelby said I could, then she said I couldn’t because I was stupid. And it hurt my feelings. She was bad. We’re supposed to help the bad girls be good. I helped her be good. And her friend, too. And I helped the girls so they could be good and stay home. Now I’m going on a trip.”

“How did you help them?”

“I don’t remember.” Slyly, just a little slyly, he tracked his eyes right and left. “I don’t think about it.”

“I think you do. You put a sedative in some drinks. You needed them to be quiet and still.”

“I had to.” Monty puffed out his cheeks, then released all the air. “They wouldn’t understand when they were bad. After, then they’d understand. Once we’d washed the bad out. I filled the tub, nice and warm. Cold water’s not fun. I didn’t want them to be cold because I had to take their clothes off. I didn’t touch. I promise!”

He crossed his heart.

“But they couldn’t have clothes in the water, they wouldn’t really get clean. I put Shelby in the warm water, and I prayed like you’re supposed to. Then she was clean, and sleeping so quiet. I wrapped her up, nice and snug, before I helped her friend. Then I took them downstairs. People would come and tell them they couldn’t stay, but I fixed it so nobody would see them, and they could stay home.”

“How?”

“I can build, so I made a new wall, so they had a secret place. Like a club.”

“Okay.” She strolled over, picked up a ratty stuffed dog from a shelf. “Where’d you get this?”

“That’s my dog. He was lost. I found him. He’s mine. His name is Baby.”

“Baby used to belong to somebody else.”

“Maybe, but she didn’t take care of him. I do.”

“You found Baby. You found other bad girls.”

“When you’re a missionary, you have to go to the people with sin, and help them. But not in Africa. It’s scary there. I don’t want to go to Africa, Nash.”

“No, you don’t have to.”

“But I’m going on a trip. I have to pack,” he told Eve.

“Yeah, go ahead. Pack for your trip.”

EPILOGUE

At the end of the long and miserable day, Eve dragged herself into the house. She wanted a shower, blistering hot, and oblivion.

Instead of Summerset and the cat looming in the foyer, Roarke walked to her, with the cat on his heels.

“This is different.”

“I wanted to be here when you got home. You look exhausted.”

“That’s how I feel. Thanks for the assist—the financial hacking wizardry, the transpo.”

“Those are easy, and fun. This?” He put an arm around her, leading her up the stairs. “This is necessary. It’s certainly in the marriage rules.”

“What is?”

“Holding on at the end of a hard day. You don’t have to talk about it.”

“Actually, maybe it would help to get it out. He doesn’t know what the hell’s going on. Monty Jones.”

“What is going on?”

She sat on the side of the bed, managed a smile when he crouched and pulled off her boots. “He’ll be spending some time in the mentally defective ward of Rikers for now. He’ll be examined, interviewed, tested, prodded, and poked. When I start to feel sorry for him, I think about the girls on my board.”

She flopped on her back a moment, stared at the ceiling. “He knew what he was doing when he killed Shelby. I’d bet my badge on it. He was pissed and hurt, and he tangled that up making her pay with making her good. But he knew. And I think that’s what broke him. Realizing what he’d done when it was too late to change it. So he had to kill Linh, then he had to believe it was a mission. But he knew with Shelby. He would’ve been judged legally sane if we’d caught him then.”

“And now?”

“Now he’s pathetic.” She shoved up again, blinked at the wine he held out to her. “Oh yeah, that’s a really good idea. Gibbons is right. He won’t go into a cage, but he’s going to spend the rest of his life in that ward. He’ll never get out, and that has to be enough. I guess it is enough, because that’s what there is.”

“It’d be easier if he was vicious and violent and sane.”

“God, yes. Like some of the vics’ parents were, like mine were, like your father. You can put that clearly and cleanly on one side of the line, and know. And when I see the faces of the victims, I can say, okay, I did my job, I did my best to stand for you.”

“You did just that.” He sat beside her. “Just exactly that.”

“Nobody saw it. Not his family, not trained staff, not even the shrink—not really. Here’s this walking, talking time bomb, but they don’t see. It’s just shy, slow Monty. There was a caginess in there at one time, Roarke. It’s gone now, but it had to be there. He was cagey enough to know how to incapacitate the victims, how to get them where he wanted, how to conceal them, how to conceal himself from those closest to him. That person wasn’t in the room today, but he existed once.”

“Maybe that’s justice as well. That person’s gone, locked up somewhere else. If he ever gets out, he’ll be dealt with.”

“He took a lot with him. Twelve young lives.”

“What about his brother?”

“I worked him. I have to buy he didn’t know about the murders. He just couldn’t conceive of it. He’s going to have to answer for how he handled what he did, but I can already figure the PA’s not going to charge him, not with what equals cage time. What’s the point? He’s going to go through his life feeling he failed his brother, his sister, knowing his brother killed. And Gibbons, he’ll get a slap, too. He may lose his position, maybe even his license. I don’t know. But he’ll bounce back. Probably bounce on Philly, too.”

With a laugh, Roarke hugged her to his side. “There you are.”

“She’s out of it. She didn’t do a damn thing but believe in her brothers and her work. You can’t blame her for that. And the doc? Mostly he tried to help a friend, tried to help the friend’s brother. I can’t begrudge them a little bouncing if it comes to that.”

“You shouldn’t begrudge yourself a feeling of not quite full satisfaction.”

“It’s closed, questions are answered. Except . . . The last victim. She doesn’t have a name. She’s not on any record anyway. If she was, Feeney would have found her. Whoever she came from didn’t bother to name her. It—”

“Makes you think of yourself.”

“They didn’t name me, because I was a thing to them. I guess I see her as something of the same. To whoever brought her into the world, she was just a thing. She didn’t matter to anyone, except, for a short time, to the man who killed her. He didn’t even know her name.”

“Give her one.”

“What? She’s Jane Doe.”

“Give her better than that. Give her a name.”

“What do I know about names?”

“You named the cat.”

She frowned at Galahad, currently sleeping on the bed with all four legs in the air. “Yeah, I did. But a person, that’s two names.”

“She was found on the West Side. West for her surname. There, I’ve done mine. What’s her first name?”

“I don’t . . . Angel.” Since that flashed into her mind, Eve went with it. “Might as well do the higher power thing. She deserves something.”

“Angel West she is then. And she matters.”

“Okay.” She let out a long breath. “Why don’t we just sit here awhile, drink this wine, and look at the tree.”

“A fine idea.”

“I like it.” She tipped her head to his shoulder. “Christmas. I guess I have to buy stuff.”

“Horrors.”

She laughed, sipped her wine.

She’d put it aside, she told herself. Take down her board, close her murder book. She’d done her job, she’d done her best. Now she was home with the fire warm, the tree shining, the cat snoring, and the man who loved her sitting beside her.

It was a lot more than enough.