"Daddy's got something for you, little girl. Little bitch."

In her bed she shuddered and listened.

She was not yet eight.

"I need more money. I'm the one taking the risks. I'm the one putting my ass out there."

His voice was slurred, but not enough. Not yet enough.

"We made the deal. Do you know what happens to people who fuck with me? The last employee who tried to… renegotiate terms didn't live long enough to regret it. They're still finding small pieces of him in the East River."

This voice was quiet; she had to strain to catch it. But he wasn't drunk. No, no, she knew the sound of a man who'd been drinking, and this wasn't it. Still, the tone had her shivering. There was a nasty undercurrent to the cultured voice.

"I'm not looking for trouble, Ricker." There was a whine now, which had her cringing. If he was afraid, he'd hurt her. And he'd use his fists. "I got expenses. I got a daughter to raise."

"I'm not interested in your personal life but in my merchandise. See that it's delivered tomorrow night, at the appropriate time and place, you'll get the rest of your fee."

"It'll be there."

A chair scraped the floor. "For your sake-and your daughter's-it better be. You're a drunk. I dislike drunks. See that you're sober tomorrow night."

She heard footsteps, the door opening, closing. Then silence.

It was broken by the smashing of glass, of roaring oaths. In her bed she trembled and braced for the worst.

The walls shook. He was pounding his fists on them. Better than on her, was all she could think. Let him beat the walls, let him find another bottle. Please, please, let him go out to find more to drink, to find someone else to punish.

Please.

But the door of her room burst open. He stood, a shadow, big, dark, with the light bright and hard behind him.

"What're you staring at? You been listening to my private conversations? You been poking your nose in my business."

No. No. She didn't speak, only shook her head fast and fierce.

"I ought to leave you here for the rats and the cops. Rats'll chew your fingers off, and your toes. Then the cops'll come. You know what they do to little girls who don't mind their own?"

He lumbered to her, dragging her up by the hair so fire burst in her scalp and she cried out despite her efforts to stay quiet.

"They put them in dark holes in the ground and leave them there so bugs crawl into their ears. You wanna go into a little dark hole, little girl?"

She was crying now. She didn't want to, but the tears simply spurted out. He slapped her. Once, twice, but it was almost absent-minded, and she began to hope.

"Get your lazy ass out of bed and pack your junk. I got places to go, people to see. We're heading south, little girl."

He smiled then, a big, toothy grin that left his eyes wild. "Ricker thinks he scares me. Well, hell I got the first half of his money and his goddamn drugs. We'll see who has the last laugh. Mother fucking Max Ricker."

As she scrambled to obey, stuffing what clothes she had into a bag, she could only think she was saved, for one night, she was saved. Thanks to a man named Max Ricker.

– =O=-***-=O=-

Eve shot out of sleep with her heart pounding, her throat dry.

Ricker. Oh God. Ricker and her father.

She gripped the arms of the chair to steady herself, to keep herself in the now. Had it been real or just a product of fatigue and imagination?

Real. When those little flashes of the past came to her, they were always real. She could see herself, a tangle of hair, huge eyes, skinny arms, huddled in the bed like an animal in a cave.

She could hear the voices.

Leaning forward, she pressed her fingers to her temples. Max Ricker had known her father. In New York. Yes, she was sure they'd been in New York that night. How long had it been before they'd landed in Dallas? How long before the night she'd found the knife in her hand when her father was raping her?

How long before the night when she'd killed him?

Long enough for the money to run low. Long enough, she realized, for Ricker to have been hunting, to have set wolves on the trail of the man who'd stolen from him.

But she'd ended it first.

Rising, she paced the room. What had happened then didn't apply now, and she couldn't allow it to interfere with her investigation or influence her.

And yet, what sneering twist of fate had brought this circle around again? Ricker to her father. Ricker to Roarke.

And without question, Ricker to herself.

What choice did she have but to end it again?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

She needed more coffee. She needed some sleep. Dreamless sleep. And she needed the rest of the data from the search and scan.

But something had rooted in her brain, something that had her leapfrogging over the current data and running yet another search.

She'd just begun when the summons came from The Towers.

"I don't have time for this. Goddamn politics. I don't have time to go running up to Tibble and giving him updates he can pass to the media."

"Dallas, you go up to The Towers. I'll finish the run for you," Peabody said.

Eve wanted to do the run herself. It was personal. And that was the whole damn problem, she admitted. She'd let it get personal. "Vernon's due in an hour. If he's thirty seconds late, send uniforms, have him picked up. Familiarize yourself with his profile," she added as she grabbed her jacket. "Contact Feeney. I want him and McNab in on the interview. I want the room full of cops."

She hesitated, looked back at the computer. No point in wasting time, she reminded herself. No point in it. "Add the data I'm compiling to the file, and run a probability on our three homicides."

"Yes, sir. On who?"

"You'll know," Eve said as she stalked out. "If you don't, you're in the wrong business."

"I live for pressure," Peabody muttered and sat down.

She was going to make it short, Eve told herself. And she was going to make it direct. Tibble might have to be concerned about departmental image, about politics, about the drooling and slathering in IAB, but she didn't.

She had one job, and that was to close her case.

She wasn't going to sit still for having to squeeze another damn press conference into her schedule. And if he thought he could yank her off the investigation to make the proper noises to the media, he could just…

Oh boy.

It wouldn't help matters for her to march into Tibble's office leading with attitude. Any more, she thought, than this underlying pity would help if her suspicions regarding the killer's identity proved out.

Her job was to close the case. And the dead, whoever they were, deserved her best.

As for Ricker, she intended to close that circle as well.

Tibble didn't keep her waiting. That surprised her a little. But it was nothing compared to the jolt she got when she stepped into his office and saw Roarke sitting there, cool-eyed and comfortable.

"Lieutenant." From his desk, Tibble gestured her inside. "Have a seat. You've had a long night," he added. His face was calm, blank. As was that of her commander who sat with his hands on his thighs.

It was, Eve thought, like coming in late to a high-stakes poker game. And she didn't know the price of the damn ante.

"Sir. The preliminary report on Bayliss has already been updated with initial lab reports." She glanced meaningfully toward Roarke. "I am unable to specify regarding the evidence in the presence of a civilian."

"The civilian came in handy last night," Tibble said.

"Yes, sir." She, too, knew how to hold her cards close, and merely nodded. "It was vital to arrange the fastest transportation to Bayliss's weekend home."

"Not quite fast enough."