Francis didn’t wear orange well, and the shadows under his eyes made it seem all the more wrong.
Beside him, his lawyer looked sharp and savvy, golden brown skin, a wave of curly black hair, a serious dark gray suit.
On the other side of Francis, his father looked pale, exhausted, and miserable.
“Record on,” Eve began, and watched that hateful rage fill Francis’s eyes as she read the necessary into the record.
“Dr. Bryce, as I’m sure your son’s attorney has informed you, you are allowed in this interview due to your son’s age. However, you will be required to leave if you interfere with this interview.”
“As you state, Lieutenant, my client is a minor, a child, and should be treated as such.”
“You want to be babied, Francis?” Her voice was a verbal sneer. “You came to the wrong place. Your client had the skill, the capacity, the intellect, and the murderous purpose to cook heroin, from the poppies on.”
She tossed crime scene photos on the table.
“To then devise a lethal formula. Peabody.”
Peabody brought up the formula, on-screen.
“This is an entry from Francis Bryce’s computer, from his lab,” Peabody said. “Along with the tox reports on Jenna Harbough, Arlie Dillon, Kiki Rosenburg, and the contents of the second syringe on his person after the attack on Delaney Brooke.”
“As you see, they match,” Eve continued.
“This is a tragedy for all involved. My client’s mother was an addict. The boy spent his first formative years living with her addiction, then her death from an overdose. Clearly, this trauma affected him emotionally, mentally.”
“Want to hide behind Mommy now, Francis?”
“Please direct your questions to me, Lieutenant. My client isn’t required to speak.”
“I bet he’s got a lot to say though. He likes to think he’s so much smarter than anyone else. So much better.”
“I know,” Francis whispered. “I know I am.”
“Quiet now.” Derwood patted Francis on the arm, and was shrugged away.
“Not as smart as he thinks.” Eve spoke directly to the lawyer. “Hell, we made his stupid shoes inside hours. Not strong enough to boost himself out of a bathroom window.”
At that Peabody brought up the wall with scuff marks.
“Worse, they’re doofus shoes. No self-respecting kid, with the money, would wear them. Add the cheap baggies. What did the first witness call him, Peabody? The one who saw him walking off the dance floor at Club Rock It after he jabbed that lethal dose into Jenna Harbough?”
“Dooser. It’s a combination of dick and loser.”
Eve kept her attention on the lawyer, but she heard Francis’s breath suck in, then quicken.
“Kids noticed the doofus, dooser clothes. His big brain wasn’t smart enough to dress like a normal teenager, and he was too physically weak to get out of the club clean.
“But he did this first.”
Eve put Jenna’s crime scene photo on the table, angled it so Francis could see.
“His early childhood—”
“Jenna had an early childhood, too. She’ll never be an adult. Neither will Arlie Dillon. He made sure they saw him. After he stuck that needle in them, he made sure they saw him. Because girls don’t look at him. I mean, why would they? But he made sure these two did before their short life ended by his hand.
“You want me to feel sorry for him because his mother was a junkie. Bullshit.” She slapped Arlie’s photo on the table. “Tell that to her mother. He plotted, he planned, and it didn’t matter who they were as long as they were pretty teenage girls. The kind of girls who wouldn’t look twice at him, avoided him, wouldn’t give him what he wanted.”
“Lieutenant, we intend to engage a top child psychiatrist to examine the boy.”
“Fine with me. We’ve got our top shrink observing this interview.”
Jerking, Francis looked up at the camera. “I told you no! I told you no psychiatrists, no therapists. I said no!”
“Francis.” Bryce reached out to him, jolted back when his son slapped his hand away.
“I said no!” Rhythmically, Francis beat his fists on the table. “I will not have it! I have rights!”
You see the monster now, Eve thought. And he terrifies you.
“We’re trying to help you.”
“Help me? Oh, that’s rich! If this is your idea of help, I can help myself, thank you very much for nothing! This is the best you can do?” He jerked a thumb toward Derwood. “This mealymouthed excuse for an attorney? ‘The boy’ this, ‘the boy’ that. I’m a man!”
He turned on Derwood. “You’re letting this bitch run all over you when you should be filing charges against her for police brutality. She bloodied my nose, bruised my wrist.” Now he turned on his father.
“I spent the night in a cell like an animal, and what do you do? You leave me there, then you come in and start on how I have issues, how I’m sick, how you love me and you’ll do everything you can to get me help. And you hire this idiot? Get out, Derwood. I’m smarter than you on my worst day. I can handle this idiot female myself.”
“Francis.” Derwood spoke with enviable patience. “You’re understandably overwrought. We’ll suspend this interview while we—”
The fists banged again.
“I said get out. Get out, Derwood. Do you have a problem comprehending a simple, declarative sentence? Let’s try another. You’re fired.”
“I do not have a problem with comprehension, but your father hired me.”
“He can get out, too. Love me? Oh yes, yes, that’s rich. You love having the sluts fall all over you. Sluts just like my mother.”
“Francis!” Bryce’s look spoke of genuine shock. “I never brought a woman home. You didn’t like it. I never—”
“But you got hot and sweaty with plenty of them, didn’t you? I’m not stupid! They’d spread out for you because of how you look, and because you have money. I should’ve killed you first.”
“Don’t speak again,” Derwood snapped. “Lieutenant—”
“You’re useless,” Francis said, his tone deliberately bored. “I said get out. I can file for emancipation, and I will. I’ll have your money one day, Dad. And all that comes with it. Then all the years I said, ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir,’ and pretended to be fascinated by your work—which doesn’t hold a candle to mine—will be worth it. But now, I’m going to say what I’ve wanted to as long as I can remember. Go to hell.”
Bryce got to his feet. His body shook. “You’re my son, and I love you. And now I’m terribly, terribly afraid you have to pay for your choices, your actions.”
He looked down at the photos. “You have to pay. I’ll help you, all I can. All you allow, but you have to pay for what you’ve done.”
Francis feigned a yawn. “Sorry, did you say something? I wasn’t listening.”
“Lieutenant, you have parental permission to continue the interview. Mr. Derwood no longer represents my son. Mr. Derwood, please come with me.”
“Dr. Bryce, there are things I can do to—”
“No. No, I don’t think there are.” Grief lived in every word. “And if there are, I don’t believe you should. Please, come with me.”
Derwood got up. “Francis, you’re making a mistake.”
He aimed those dead eyes at the lawyer. “I don’t make mistakes.”
“Dr. Bryce and legal counsel, former, exiting Interview.”
Eve shifted, smiled at Francis. “So.”
“Fuck you. I don’t know why I never used that word before last night. It’s a fine, flexible Anglo-Saxon word.”
“I’m fond of it myself. Let’s start with Jenna Harbough.”
“I don’t know who that is.” He widened his eyes, did his best to fill them with innocence. “I’ve never seen her before. I’ve never been in that club you talked about. I found those shoes yesterday, and I thought maybe I’d look chill in them.”
“For somebody who everybody says is so smart, that’s a dumbass play, Francis. The clerk who sold them to you remembers you.”
“You must be lying. Police can and do lie. Store clerks don’t remember some kid buying shoes.”
“I thought you were a man,” Peabody commented.
“Oh, I am.”
“Well, the clerk remembers you,” Eve told him, “kid or man, and your fancy Stuben loafers, with tassels. The button-down shirt, the dress pants.” Eve shook her head. “Really, Francis, wearing old man designer shoes to buy cheap kicks? Makes you stand out.”
“I’m hardly the only individual in the city who has Stuben loafers.”
“With tassels,” Peabody added. “And you’re probably the only teenager who wears them to shop at L&W.”
“Well, it’s called Losers and Wheezes for a reason.” Eve smiled at the quick, hot flush that burned over Francis’s face.
“Didn’t know that, did you? Where’d you get the wig? MHF? Major Hair Fail?”
“I found it, all of it. I went for a walk and I found this bag with all of it in there. I wondered how it would look.”
“Handy it was all your sizes.”
He sneered at Peabody. “It was. That’s why I wanted to see how it all looked.”
“And you put all that gear on last night before you went to Coney Island to kill Delaney.”
“I know her. We go to school together. Why would I hurt Delaney? We were lab partners once. I don’t know what happened.” He widened his eyes again, but in them lived the vicious. “I think I had a kind of breakdown. I put the outfit on and the wig. And I was like someone else. The next thing I remember is there were all these lights, and people. And then you knocked me down.”
“And the syringes just happened to be in your pockets?”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“You really are stupid.”
“I said fuck you. My IQ is easily the sum of both of yours combined.”
“Monumentally stupid, plus short, dopey-looking, bad hair. You got it all. No wonder you can’t get laid.”
“Shut your mouth, bitch.”
“Guess what, you pissant, you’re not in charge here. I am. I’m in charge. I have the authority.”
She got to her feet, leaned in close. “I’m in charge. You’re free to shut up if you want while I tell you what you are. Loser. I don’t add the dick because I don’t have to look at it to know it’s very, very tiny. Here’s a tip. Jerking off constantly won’t make it bigger.”
“Get out. You’re a whore. Just another whore trying to emasculate men, pretending she can do a man’s job. I don’t want a whore cop talking to me.”
“I’m in charge. You’re nothing here. Nothing out there, either. Nothing anywhere. Girls don’t go for the nothings like you. Those bitches, those stupid bitches.”
She rounded the table, then shoved the photos closer under his face. “They’d barely look at you, hardly speak to you. And when they did, they’d look at you with disgust, speak to you with pity. Pity, from them? When you’re their superior.”
“I am. I am superior.”
“You deserved their attention!” Eve whipped out the words. “Their respect. Hell, their adoration. But those whores, bitches, sluts ignored you, rejected you. Again and again. You wanted inside them, and they wouldn’t even look at you.”
“I have a right. I’m entitled.”
“You have a right to their attention. You’re entitled to do what you want with their bodies.”
“It hurt and angered you,” Peabody put in, “they wouldn’t give you what you’re entitled to. But with your intellect and skill, your dedication to the project, you found a way to take what you deserved.”
“Women are weak,” he said simply. “But conniving creatures nonetheless. Men are stronger, physically, mentally, certainly emotionally, to the female. Though they manipulate and maneuver to attempt to make us less, we’re superior. I’m vastly superior to those moronic jocks, the leather-clad idiots those weak-minded tramps lie down with.”
“You hate them, those weak-minded tramps,” Eve said. “But you want them. Want them, but despise them. Jenna, out there shaking her ass on the dance floor, showing herself off. Asking for it, wasn’t she? You made her pay for making you want what you hate. You had to make her pay.”
“Get the hell away from me.”
“How did it feel? You couldn’t jab your cock in her, but with the needle you could penetrate her. Did that get you off, Francis? And knowing you’d be one of the last people she saw. No more shaking her ass, showing herself off. Did knowing that get you hard?
“How did it feel?”
“Amazing! Vindicating! Orgasmic! Everything I’d hoped and more. They connive to make us desire them, then they refuse, they walk away. But she saw me. She felt me. Then I was the one who walked away.”
Eve flicked a glance at the camera before she walked back around the table.
“Did you intend to kill her?”
“Are you an idiot? Of course. She saw me.”
“And Arlie Dillon.”
“She let that brainless moron put his hands all over her. Oooh, a wasp, a wasp!” He threw back his head and laughed. “I almost stayed to watch her die, but that would have been a mistake. I don’t make mistakes.”
“The theater was a mistake.”
“It was not. It was an unforeseen complication, and it only pushed me further along my timetable.”
“To Coney Island.”
“Do you know how much time, skill, exacting work it took to create the proper formula? Of course you don’t. How could you? I deserved a reward for all my time, my work, my focus, my dedication.”
“You deserved to rape Delaney Brooke.”
He let out a sigh that spoke of mild annoyance.
“In the first place, rape is a lie perpetuated by women to deny men their right to intercourse. Secondly, it wouldn’t have been rape, even by your skewed definition. She was compliant. And I didn’t know Delaney would be there.”
“It didn’t matter who you raped. Raped, Francis. It’s rape when you inject someone with a drug that takes away their free will.”
“You can call it rape. That’s just a word women use to control men’s natural instincts. She let me touch her—she told me to. She touched me. She told me to fuck her. You can call it whatever you want.”
“And I do. So does the law. You had the second syringe. Did you intend to kill her with it?”
“She saw me! How did you get to be a lieutenant when you’re so slow and stupid? On your back, like the rest of your kind. Legs spread, whoring to take a man’s job.”
He beat his fists again. “I was nearly there. You spoiled it all! I had her on her back, and I was so hard! She was ready, all soft and weepy.
“You took that from me. I’ll kill you for it one day.”
“If I had a dollar for every time some schmuck says that to me, I’d have a bunch of million dollars. You, Peabody?”
“Maybe about half a million. You’ve been on the job longer, and it adds up.”
“Long enough to know Francis here has confessed, on record, to murder, attempted murder, attempted rape, and so on.”
“So what?” He shrugged, and with it could almost have passed for a normal teenager.
Except for the eyes.
“Wait … let me rephrase. So the fuck what? I’m sixteen. I’ll be out in less than two years. I have the first hit of my trust fund coming to me at eighteen, too. I can go where I want, do what I want.
“I believe I’ll take a gap year. I’d have earned it.”
Keep right on thinking that, Eve decided.
“In that case, let’s take it back, go over some details. Science is all about the details.”
“As if you know anything about science.”
“You’ll educate me. Want a drink for this round, Francis? A soda?”
“I don’t drink that swill. Spring water, flat, room temperature.”
“Peabody, would you mind? I’ll take some swill. Peabody, exiting Interview.”
“I will kill you.” He spoke matter-of-factly. “Not right away after I get out. I’ll want that downtime first. I’ll have money so I’ll have all the whores I want. You won’t know when I’m coming, or how I’ll come. Maybe I’ll keep you alive awhile, maybe fuck you first. If I’m in the mood.”
“Do you think that scares me? My cat’s got a bigger dick than you.”
He went very white, then very red. “I’ll kill you very, very slowly. I’ll make an experiment out of it. Out of you.”
“Keep talking. It’s really going to help at your sentencing hearing.”
“Peabody, reentering Interview,” Peabody announced. “Water, flat.” She set the tube in front of Francis, then a tube of Pepsi in front of Eve before sitting with her Diet Pepsi.
And reading the room, the waves of hate, the waves of disgust, said, “Did I miss something?”
“Nothing important. Okay, Francis, why don’t we start with the poppies?”
It took a very long time. He had a great deal to say, and finally someone to hear it. However many times he threatened her or Peabody during the extensive interview, he showed pride with it. Pride in what he called his accomplishments.
When they came out, Eve saw Bryce sitting on a bench, his head in his hands.
“I’ll talk to him. Let’s get Francis back in a cage.”
“We’ve got that.” Baxter and Trueheart stepped out. “The boy and I’ll take him down. Both of you have spent enough time with him. We were in Observation for a while.”
“Appreciate it.” She walked down to the bench. “Dr. Bryce.”
He looked up at her with eyes red-rimmed and desolate. “Is it over?”
“This part is. You should go home. There’s nothing you can do here. Is there someone I can contact for you?”
“No. No one right now. I’ve sat here while he was in that room, and I’ve thought of a thousand ways I could have done things differently. A thousand things from the time he was born until I walked out of that room today.”
She sat beside him. “Dr. Bryce. In my experience with someone like Francis? Nothing you’d have done differently would have changed him.”
“I shouldn’t have let him lock so many doors.”
“Maybe not. But he’d have found another way.”
“When his mother died … When I had to tell him his mother died, he never shed a tear. At the time, I was relieved. I thought, she’s been out of his life for so long now, he doesn’t feel the loss. But I see now, that was a warning of what he lacks inside.”
He shuddered out a breath.
“Now I think … Those girls. Their families. What he’s done to them. Lieutenant. Oh God.”
He feels the loss, Eve thought when he looked at her. And always would.
“I know he has to pay for what he did, but I have to try to help him. He’s my son, my only child, and I don’t know how to begin to help him.”
“Dr. Mira. She has a sterling reputation as a psychiatrist. You don’t have to take my word on that. You can look her up. She’ll be holding an interview with him in the next day or two. She’ll talk to you.”
“All right. I never saw it in him until today. I never saw it.”
“He didn’t let you see it. Can I arrange transportation for you?”
“No. No, thank you. I’m going to walk awhile, then call for a car.”
Shoulders tight, mind exhausted, she sat where she was a moment before sending Nadine a text.
Done. Full confession. Tell Jake Jenna got justice. I need to write it up, then I need to get away from this for a while. Jenkinson might give you a one-on-one. Don’t ask me now.
I won’t. We’re all wrung out. Dallas, thanks. From all of us, thanks.
She got up, walked to Reo and Mira.
“That was difficult,” Mira began. “It’s difficult to see such an active psychopath inside a young body. A challenge to find the key to unlock the psychopath for all to see.
“You and Peabody did an exceptional job in there.”
“Difficult to see, yeah. But the job was easier than I expected. He’s educated, he’s got intellect, but his arrogance, his narcissism blocks any actual smarts. It was never about getting laid. He could have paid for a fake ID, hit on a street LC. It was about hurting them, and showing them he could take what he wanted. And using his famed intellect to do it.”
“Yes.”
“You and Peabody made my job easy,” Reo told her. “We’re going to push for consecutive life terms, off-planet. Three consecutive life terms. And we’re going to get it. That’s a very dangerous individual.”
She gave Eve’s arm a squeeze. “I’m going to go start pushing. And you should find a horizontal space and get some sleep.”
“As soon as possible. Thanks.”
She walked to her office. Roarke stood from her desk, took the two steps toward her, and folded her into his arms.
“Oh. Well. I shouldn’t do this now. I still have to write it up and update Whitney.”
“He was in Observation long enough to know you did the job. And you need this now.”
“I guess I do.” And she could have stayed as they were for hours. “But I still have to write it up. We have to pack.”
“That’s done. Bags, such as they are, on the shuttle.”
“Okay, check that off. I need to make some stops on the way.”
“To the families, and the girls.”
“They deserve to hear it in person, not on a media report. Del will be thrilled to see you. I need to check if she’s still in the hospital.”
“She’s home. She texted me.”
“Good, then— Texted you? You gave her your contact?”
“I did.”
“Softie.”
“In this case, apparently so.”
Those eyes, he thought, so like Eve’s after a nightmare.
“Write your report, then we’ll make those stops.” He kissed her. “I’ll wait in the bullpen.”
After the report, after the stops, Roarke piloted the shuttle himself. Their just-you-and-me time began then and there. While he flew, she slept. Still in her in-charge outfit, including, he noted, her thick-soled boots, with her weapon still strapped on.
No dreams, he thought. Not now. And not, he hoped, for the few days they’d have alone together.
She stirred when he landed. Then sat up, shook herself awake.
“Are we there?”
“We are. I’ll grab the bags.”
“I’ve got mine. It sure doesn’t weigh much.”
“You won’t need much, will you now, for those four s’s.”
“Guess not.”
Shouldering her bag, she climbed off the shuttle.
And oh, oh, oh, the warm tropical air. The white sand, the impossibly blue sky and sea with palms so green, so gently waving.
And the lovely house, the only house on the island, with its huge windows and tile roof, its long decks. The stately veranda where they could sit, look over the colorful plants and grasses, then over the sand to the sea.
A sparkling pool stretched behind the house, with chairs and loungers under a vine-smothered pergola. At night it would all sparkle with pretty lights, and under a sky filled with stars, a tropical white moon.
Just now, she thought heaven couldn’t look more beautiful.
He’d have had supplies brought in, and the staff, a quick shuttle flight away, would have prepared everything.
She watched a bird, colorful as the plants, wing by, heard the sea gently rolling toward the white sand beach, then away again into its own rich blue heart.
Every drop of tension and stress drained out of her, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.
“We’ll have a glass of wine, won’t we?”
“I vote for a bottle.” She lifted a hand to his cheek. “You look a little tired. You hardly ever do.”
“I’d say we put a month into less than a week.”
“Feels like it.”
When he opened the door, she dropped her bag on the white tile floor. Fresh flowers filled vases and turned the air into a garden. Sparkling glass brought the views into the wide-open space, empty of anyone but them.
She tugged his bag free, dropped it, then boosted herself up, wrapped her legs around his waist.
“’Links on emergency contact only.”
“Already done.”
“I haven’t, but I will.” Completely content, she ran a hand through his hair. “I say the fourth s starts now if you’re not too tired.”
“I think I can manage that.”
When he kissed her, she knew he could, and would. So she fell into the kiss, into him, as they held on to each other in the wide-open space, with the breeze blowing through the door of the house on an island where there was no one but the two of them.