"Nothing's pure, Price, don't you get it? Nothing comes in or goes out of the world without a blemish. No system's foolproof. Only when this one fails, innocent people die. She was a child. You were supposed to protect her. But you can't protect them all. Nobody can protect them all.
"Was it your idea?" Eve asked. "Or were you recruited? Who's in charge of Purity?"
"I don't have to talk to you." Price was white around the lips now, and her voice far from steady. "I don't want to talk to you."
"Dukes helped create the virus. Who else? Did Dwier pull you into it, or did you pull him?"
Price shoved back from her desk, pushed to her feet. Eve could see her hands were trembling. "Get out."
"I'm bringing this down, and you'll go under with it. You and Dwier. Who the hell do you think you are? Standing in judgment, executing by remote control. Then brushing off the bystanders' deaths as victims of the blight on society. You're the fucking blight, Clarissa. All of you self-righteous, self-appointed guardians."
Eve snatched up Hannah Wade's death photos. "You killed this child. And you'll pay for it."
"I'm-I'm calling a lawyer." But tears were swimming in her eyes, gathering in the corners, ready to spill. "This is harassment."
"You call this harassment?" There was no humor in Eve's smile. It sliced like a thin-bladed axe. "Don't get me started. You've got twenty-four hours to turn yourself in. You come in, you turn evidence, and I'll push for an on planet rehabilitation facility. I come after you in twenty-four hours and one minute, you go into a concrete cage off planet You'll never see real daylight again."
Eve looked at the time. "Five-twelve tomorrow. Not a minute more."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Eve knew she'd shaken Clarissa Price, and shaken her hard. She also knew Price wouldn't be calling any lawyer unless he was Purity approved. But she would call Dwier.
She'd seen the horror on Price's face when Price had looked at the crime scene photos of Hannah Wade. There had been shock and disbelief along with it, but it was the horror that would continue to surface. That would eat at Price until she woke screaming in the night.
To keep herself from doing the same, Eve knew she had to do what came next, take the next steps. Focus on the work. That's what she told herself when she pinned the latest photos to the case board in her office.
She couldn't allow her own horror to surface again, to have it slam into her belly as it had when she'd stepped into Greene's Park Avenue condo. The horror that had taken her back, for an instant, to a small, freezing room in Dallas, where the blood had reeked and the knife, covered with it, was clutched in her hand.
Roarke came in, closed the door. Locked it.
"I need the whole team in here, except for Jamie, to update them on the latest homicides."
"In a minute." He crossed to her, took her shoulders, turned her to face him. Her eyes were shadowed. Some was fatigue, he knew. But most of it was the nightmare.
"I can see it in you." He pressed his lips to her brow. "The pain from it."
"It's not getting in my way."
"No, can't have that, can we? Hold on for a minute, Eve. Just for a minute."
His arms were already around her, and now hers wrapped around him in turn. "It wasn't the same. It wasn't anything like the same. But… it shoved me back. It shoved me right back there. I stood there, looking down at her, at him. I was so cold. I've seen that kind of thing before, and he hasn't pushed me back there."
"This was a girl. A young girl."
"Older than I was. Twice as old as I was. She could have been me." She let out a long breath after she said it. "That's what I thought when I stood there. When I stood over her. If I hadn't killed him first. If I hadn't gotten away from him, she could've been me."
Steadier, she turned her head on his shoulder, looked back at the board with clear eyes. "Do you see what they did to her?"
As much as he'd seen, as much as he'd done in his life, the image of Hannah Wade still made his blood run cold.
The girl had been hacked to pieces. The shirt and shorts she'd been wearing were in tatters, and soaked red with her own blood.
"You can," he said quietly. "You see it time and time again, and no matter how often you do, it still matters. That's what makes you."
"I need to do this now." Take the step, she thought. Do the work. "I want Jamie kept busy somewhere. He's not going to see this. I'll take the stills of her down between briefings."
"I'll send him off to the pool or the game room, have Summerset monitor him to make sure he stays well away from here until you're done."
She nodded, stepped back. "One thing. Did I coerce, bribe, or threaten you into opening sealed files?"
"No. You asked, with some reluctance and teeth gnashing."
She nearly managed a smile. "Except for the teeth gnashing, that's how I saw it. If 'requested' had been on the list, I still would've said no in the IAB query. I'd've lied. I don't like knowing that, but I can live with it."
She looked back at Hannah Wade's photo. "Yeah, I can live with it."
When her team was assembled she ran the details for them.
"Nick Greene provided services. His employment is listed as an entertainment consultant. While he did have some straight clientele, the bulk of it ran below the surface. Illegals, vids that push code as they tend to involve minors, authentic violence, and bestiality. He also provided unlicensed companions, either sex, for those looking for a little more than the law allows or who just like the thrill of breaking it. He's got a sheet, which indicates he often auditioned these companions personally.
"He'd been picked up for questioning a total of eight times, but never charged. His business apparently paid well. His digs were Park Avenue smooth."
"Is he linked to Price or Dwier?" Baxter asked.
"I don't find their names on any of the data. I have no doubt he was known to Child Services. Of the eight times he was hauled in for questioning, two involved complaints involving a minor. One of those complaints is sealed. And under that seal we'll find one or more members of Purity."
"Lieutenant." Trueheart raised his hand like a kid at a school desk. "Isn't it possible Greene was infected because of what he was alone, without any other connection to the group?"
"It's too early for them to target that way. The first wave involves personal agendas."
"Gotta be," Feeney agreed. "You start up a group like this, people are risking a hell of a lot. Most aren't going to do it just on a principle. They need some payback first. Have to have incentive for the rank and file. You'll have some raving fanatics, too. Sociopaths who just like the idea of taking somebody out without getting bloody."
"Disciples," Roarke continued, "eager to follow the path. Frustrated cops, city officials, social workers, and the like who've seen the guilty walk away free once too often. And some, I'd think, who are simply intrigued, intellectually, at the idea of this sort of man-made selection."
"They've got their first wave in place." Eve gestured to the board. "Working quickly. My opinion is they've infected or set to infect their entire first wave by this time. Give their membership bulk gratification, quick and multiple successes, and keep the media hot on the story. Focusing on targets who have, in some way, victimized children is very deliberate. Even cops have a different attitude when the victims are children."
She looked at the board again.
"According to statements from the knock-on-doors, Hannah Wade was first seen in the building ten days ago. It's possible she was there longer as her parents haven't seen or heard from her in three months. They didn't bother filing a police or CS report on her this time. She was a habitual runaway. McNab, you'll review the building's security discs and pin down the exact date she took up residence with Greene."