“I don't know where she is.” Weary tears filled Roxanne's eyes. “Her, my nephew, my niece. I haven't seen them in six years.”
“But you know she's alive. You know she got away from him.”
“I thought she was dead. For two years. I went to the police, but they couldn't help. I thought he'd killed them. And then-”
“You don't have to do this, Roxie.” Her husband drew her closer. “You don't have to go through this again.”
“I don't know what to do. What if he comes here? What if he does, after all this time? Our babies, Joshua.”
“We're safe here.”
“You've got a good security system.” McNab drew Turnbill's attention back to him. “So did the Swishers. The nice family on the Upper West Side he slaughtered. Their good security system didn't help them.”
“We'll help you,” Peabody assured them. “We'll arrange for police protection for you, for your family. We took private transpo out of New York, under the radar. He doesn't know we're here. He doesn't, at this time, know we're looking for him. The longer it takes to find him, the better the chance he'll know.”
“When will this be over?”
“When we find him.” McNab shut down on compassion as the tears slid down Roxanne's cheeks. “We'll find him sooner with your help.”
“Joshua. Please, would you get me some water?”
He studied her face, then nodded. “Are you sure?” he asked as he rose. “Roxie, are you sure?”
“No, but I know I don't want to live like this.” She took slow breaths as he left the room. “It's worse for him, I think. Worse. He works so hard for so little. We were happy in New York. Such an exciting city, full of so much energy. We both had careers we loved, we were good at. We'd just bought a townhouse. Because I was pregnant. My sister…”
She trailed off, managed a smile when her husband came in with a glass of water. “Thanks, honey. My sister was damaged, I guess you could say. He damaged her. Years of abuse, physical, emotional, mental. I tried to get her to leave, to get help. I'd talk to her, but she was too afraid, or too entrenched, and I was the little sister who didn't understand. It was her fault, you see. I did a lot of studying on battered syndrome in those days. I'm sure you've seen your share of it.”
“Too much,” Peabody agreed.
“He was worse than anything, than anybody. Not just because she was my sister. It's not that he likes to cause pain, to harm. It's that it means nothing to him. He might snap the bone in her finger for having dinner on the table two minutes late-according to his schedule-then sit down and eat a hot meal without a single flicker of emotion. Can you imagine living like that?”
“No, ma'am. No,” Peabody repeated, “I can't.”
“She was property to him, Dian and the children. It was when he began to hurt the children that she was able to pull out of the mire. He'd already damaged them, too, but she thought she was protecting them, keeping the family together. He brutalized them, punishments, his brand of discipline. Solitary confinement, he'd call it, or he'd make them stand in cold showers for an hour, deny them food for two days. Once he cut off all of my niece's hair because he said she'd taken too long brushing it. But then he began to beat Jack, my nephew. Toughen him up, he claimed. One day, when Roger was out, she found her son with Roger's army-issue stunner. He'd put it on full, he was holding it here…”
She pressed her fingers to the pulse in her throat. “He was going to kill himself. This eight-year-old boy was going to end his own life rather than face another day with that monster. It woke her up. She left. She took the kids, nothing else. She didn't even pack a bag. There were shelters I'd told her about, and she ran to one.”
Roxanne closed her eyes, drank deeply. “I don't know if she'd have gone through with it, expect for the children. But once she did, it was like a miracle. She got herself back. And a few weeks later, she hired a lawyer. It was horrible, going through the trial, but she did it. She stood up to him, and she won.”
“She never intended to adhere to the conditions, to stay in New York, to allow him to see the kids again,” Peabody said.
“I don't know. She never told me, never even hinted, but no, I think not. I think she must have planned to run all along. I don't know how else she could have managed to get away from him.”
“There are undergrounds, for people in her situation.”
“Yes. I didn't know then. When she vanished, I was sure he'd killed her and the kids. He's not only capable, but he has the means, the training. Even when he took me, I thought-”
“He abducted you?”
“I was on the subway coming home, and I felt a little sting.” She cupped a hand around her biceps. “I felt sick and dizzy-and I don't remember. I remember waking up, still sick. It was a room, a big room. No windows and just this ugly greenish light. He'd taken my clothes, all of my clothes.”
She pressed her lips together until they went white, reached blindly for her husband's hand. “I was on the floor, my hands in restraints. And as I woke I was lifted up, by some sort of pulley, so that I was standing, had to stand on my toes. I was six months pregnant with Ben.”
Turnbill pressed his face into his wife's shoulder, and Peabody could see now that he wept.
“He stepped in front of me. He had some sort of rod. He said, 'Where is my wife?' Even before I could answer, he pressed the tip of the rod here.” She laid a hand between her breasts. “Horrible pain, electrical shock. He told me, very calmly, that he had the rod on low, and would up the power every time I lied.
“I told him I knew he'd killed her, and he shocked me again. And again and again. I begged, I screamed, I pleaded, for myself, for my baby. He left me there, I don't know how long, then he came back and did it all again.”
“He had her over twelve hours.” Turnbill sucked in breath, ignored the tears on his face. “The police-you can't file a report, a missing person's, that soon. I tried, but they said it wasn't enough time, when I called. But it was a lifetime, for both of us. It was a miracle she didn't miscarry. When he was done with her, he dumped her on the sidewalk in Times Square.”
“He believed me, finally. He must have known that I would've told him anything just to stop the pain. So he believed me, and before he knocked me out again, he told me if I went to the police-if I implicated him in any way-he would find me again. He would cut the brat out of my belly and slit its throat.”
“Roxanne.” Peabody spoke quietly. “I know this is very hard for you to speak about. But I need to know: Was Kirkendall alone when he held you?”
“No. He had that bastard with him. They were joined at the hip, claimed to be brothers. Isaac, Isaac Clinton. They were in the army together. He… he sat at some sort of console, controls. I don't know. I think he was studying some kind of readout. They had some sort of hookup on me, like in a hospital. He sat, the whole time Roger tortured me, and he never spoke. Not one word. At least not when I was conscious.”
“Was there anyone else?”
“I'm not sure. Sometimes I thought I heard voices, maybe a woman's. But I was out of my mind. I didn't see anyone else, and I was unconscious when they took me out, when they tossed me onto the street.”
“You didn't tell the police that you knew your abductors?”
“When I… when I came out of it, I was in the hospital. I was afraid for my life, for my baby's life. So I said nothing. I told them I couldn't remember anything.”
“What do you expect-” Turnbill began, but Peabody sent him a look of such sympathy his voice broke.
“I expect I would have done exactly the same,” she told him. “I expect my only clear thought would be to protect my child, my husband, myself.”
“We said nothing,” Roxanne continued, her voice a little stronger.
“We left New York, we left our lives there, and came here. My parents live nearby. I realized she'd run-Dian-but I thought he'd find her. Kill her. Two years, I was sure she was gone. Then I answered the 'link. She'd blocked the video, but she said my name. She said my name and we're safe. That's all. She broke the connection. I get those calls every few months, sometimes more than a year between. That's all she ever says.”