Beata, her face pale with exhaustion, her eyes empty of hope, wore a white, filmy skirt, topped by a bodice glittering with gold like the ring that crowned her.
The same costume as all the others. All the pretty dancers.
Beata rose, fluid as water, en pointe and into an arabesque before turning into the arms of the devil.
He gripped her waist, lifted her high, while his eyes shone through the holes in his mask. His cape flowed from his shoulders as he dipped her head toward the floor.
Eve's weapon seemed to burn in her hand. She longed to fire it, craved it as her heart raged in her chest. And the words, the thoughts that roared through her head were in Romany.
Roarke touched a hand to the small of her back, just a bare brush of fingers. “Your move, Lieutenant,” he murmured beneath the swell of music.
Her move, she thought, and took it when the dancers leaped apart.
“Nice jump,” she called out, training her weapon on Sasha. “Now freeze, or I'll drop you off your twinkle toes.”
She heard Beata's cry, swore she felt it rip through her soul, but kept her eyes on Sasha.
“You're interrupting the performance.” He spoke with some heat — as a man would when bumped violently on the street by a stranger.
“Show's canceled.”
“Don't be ridiculous.” He dismissed her with a wave of the hand, then reached it out for his partner. Roarke had already moved in and put himself between them.
Sasha pulled the dagger from his belt. “I'll kill you for touching her.”
“You can certainly try, and I admit I'd enjoy beating you to hell and back again, but I believe the lieutenant will indeed drop you if you take a step toward this girl.”
“She's mine.” He whirled back to Eve. “No one takes her from me. She is my Angel, and here she lives forever.”
“I am Beata Varga.” Beata yanked the crown from her head, heaved it. “I'm not your Angel, and you go to hell.”
Sasha lunged for her, and even as Roarke braced to counter the attack, Eve kept her word. She dropped him, stunned and shuddering, to center stage.
As he fell, Beata covered her face with her hands and slid to the floor at the edge of those glittering lights. “I knew someone would come. I knew someone would come.”
Eve moved forward, went to her knees, and wrapped her arms around Beata as Peabody's team rushed in.
Once again Roarke stepped between. “I think you might want to restrain your suspect before he recovers, and take him out. Give Beata a moment.” He gave the dagger a light kick across the stage. “And there's your murder weapon.”
“Yeah.” If Peabody thought it strange to see her partner rocking the weeping girl, she said nothing of it. “We'll clear him out, and I'll tell Father Lopez and Dr. Mira to stand by.”
“Crazy fucker.” Baxter looked around the room as he locked restraints on Sasha. “All his world's a freaking stage. Trueheart tagged the MTs. For her,” he added, and with Trueheart's help, hauled Sasha to his feet.
Eve let the police routine play out behind her — under control, she thought and concentrated on Beata. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”
“Not really, not much. How long? How long have I been here? Sometimes he gave me something that made me sleep, and I lost track.”
“You're all right now. That's what counts.”
“He locked me in. In there.” Though she continued to shake, she lifted her chin toward the inner door. “This horrible, beautiful room. He brought me flowers and chocolates, and all these beautiful clothes. He's out of his mind, out of his mind.” She dropped her head back on Eve's shoulder.
“Did he touch you? Beata.” She drew the girl back.
“No, no, no. Not that way. I thought he would rape me, kill me, but it wasn't what he wanted.”
She continued to tremble under Eve's hands, but even as they streamed with tears, her eyes held fury.
“He said we would be together forever, and I would do what I was born to do: dance. Always dance. And night after night he would come and put on the costume. If I wouldn't wear mine, he'd give me the drug, and when I woke I'd be in it. So I put it on rather than have him touch me. And I danced, because if I refused or if I fought, he'd tie me and leave me in the dark.”
“You did what you had to do,” Eve told her. “You did exactly right.”
“I called, but no one heard, and I tried to break the door, but I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't.”
“Okay. It's okay.”
“Every day I'd try to find a way out, but there wasn't one. I don't know where I am. How did you find me?”
“You're in the basement of the school where you took classes. We'll get into all the details later. We're going to get you out of here now.”
“My family.”
“You can contact them.” Eve laid a hand on Beata's cheek. “Your family is always with you, wherever you are, wherever you go.”
Beata closed a hand around Eve's wrist, let her head rest in Eve's hand. “That's what my grandmother would say to me whenever I was sad or scared.”
I know, Eve thought, and helped Beata to her feet. “I want you to go with these officers now. They'll take you out.”
“Aren't you coming with me?”
“I'll be there soon. There are things I have to do. Beata, did they know, were they part of this? Natalya, Alexi.”
“No. He said it was only us, our secret — that they wanted him to be calm, to accept, to live without me. Her, Arial, the one whose name he called me. But that he never would. He wouldn't share me with them or the world. He wouldn't lose me this time. He told me often.”
“Okay, go ahead now. Go outside. Go breathe the air.”
Eve knew what it was to be locked up, to be trapped and helpless. And to want to breathe free.
Eve shut off her recorder, looked at Roarke. “It's not done. I hoped, when we found her . . . I have to find the others. I know where they are,” she said before Roarke answered. “They're pressing on me. The dead. I know where they are, and I think — hope — I know what to do.”
“Then we'll go find them.”
She turned her recorder back on, reengaged her mic. “I need a unit down here with tools. We need to take down a wall. And I'll need Morris. I'm on the move. Key in on my location when I get there, and send a team down to process this goddamn prison.
“Let's go,” she said to Roarke.
She didn't have to ask him to hold her hand, to keep her close as they walked those dim corridors, or to talk to her quietly, soothingly.
“He must've built that place years ago,” she said. “And updated it, maintained it — down here in the bowels of the building. There were tools in that utility room we went through. A sledgehammer and — ”
“I'll get something.” She was pale again, he thought, feverish again. It had to end. “Are you all right alone?”
“I'm not exactly alone, but yeah.”
While Roarke doubled back, she walked straight to the void, the empty room Peabody had reported, stared — her eyes burning dry — at the far wall. Old wood, old brick, so it looked patched and repaired and nondescript. But she felt the misery, the horror, and had to force herself not to attack it with her bare hands.
Morris came in behind her. “I passed Roarke. He told me to bring this.”
She grabbed the pry bar out of his hands, began to drag at the boards, the spikes and nails.
“Dallas — ”
“They're back there. Trapped in there.”
“Who?”
“The others. All the others. They can't get out, can't get to the other side. They need to be seen, need to be shown.” Her muscles trembled with the effort as boards splintered. “They need help.”
“Step back,” Roarke snapped as he strode in. “Eve, step back.”
He slammed the sledgehammer he carried at the brick, exploding dust and shards. As he pounded again, again, she moved in, away from the arc of his swing to rip and pry.
The stench seeped in, one she knew too well. Death entered the room.
“I see her.” Eve grabbed for the flashlight on her belt. “Her — them. Three, I think. Wrapped in plastic.”