Chapter 21

Later, because they were already downstairs, she had dinner with Roarke in the dining room. Another fire simmering, another tree glittering. And some really excellent chunky soup of some kind along with crusty bread slathered in herbed butter.

"Did you ever wish for a sibling?" she asked him.

"My mates were enough. I wouldn't have wished my father and Meg on anyone else."

"Yeah, I never thought about a brother or sister either. It can be complicated and full of drama, right? I mean somebody like Peabody, with all her sibs, she's good with it. Happy with it," Eve corrected. "It all adds something for her. I bet they had plenty of fights growing up, but that's part of it, I think. Probably."

"Likely."

"There's that whole rivalry thing. Who gets what, who doesn't think they got a fair shake, who wants more—or just wants yours."

"Do you think that plays into it, with the Joneses?"

"I don't know. Just spitballing. Families are minefields, even the good ones have little traps you can step into. You and me, it was what it was. It was overt and ugly and painful, and not much else. It was like that for some of the vics. Not all, but some. It's why you're doing what you're doing with what's still my crime scene."

"It was what it was," he agreed. "And when you're in it, it's just your life, however vicious."

"But when you're out of it and you look back, it's still hard. When you look at somebody else, somebody going through some of the same..."

"Who's powerless, particularly. What Dennis said about evil is absolute truth to my mind. We've both seen plenty of it, but when it's a child, it's magnified. If you have the power to stop it for some, if you have the means, it makes a difference."

"I think Jones stopped it, without knowing how far it had already gone. I don't think he could've lived with it if he'd known. Not even for his brother."

"You see him as a good man."

She shook her head. "I see him as a man, and one who's worked to try to make a difference. I'll give him that. But if this went down the way I see it, or along the lines? It's not right. All these years parents, siblings, they've had that hole in their lives. That not-knowing. And okay, maybe, probably, he didn't know. But I see it more as he didn't let himself know. How could he assume Lonna was the first, the only?"

"I'd think," Roarke considered as he tore a piece of bread to share with her, "it could be inconceivable. Your brother—and younger at that. Inconceivable to believe he'd killed, that what you found and stopped wasn't the first time."

"Maybe so." Eve bit into the bread. "Maybe, but that's just shutting your eyes. And more—even giving him that, how could he let the kid live with that nightmare, that not-knowing, or the not being able to face?"

"There we walk the same line." He touched her hand, just a graze. "Homeland did that, and worse, to you. Knowing what Troy did to you, even hearing it, and putting their mission, we'll say, above your welfare. Even your life."

He'd never forget, she thought, or forgive. That was fair, she decided. Neither would she.

"And Jones put his brother's welfare—maybe his mission—ahead of the needs and welfare of the child. The kid should've gotten help. She should've gotten justice fifteen years ago."

"I can't argue with you as I agree. But I can see the how and the why of what he did. So can you."

She shook her head again. "That doesn't make it right. He made a martyr out of a murderer, and left a lot of people hurting for a long time."

"Blood's thicker, they say."

"Yeah, I said the same to Peabody before. If that holds true, then he'll do what Mira thinks he will. He'll come back. I have to be ready for him."

···

In her home office she scraped at every detail she could find on Nashville Jones. Financials—and she sent an e-mail to her go-to ADA to see if she had enough for a warrant to freeze those financials—his medicals, his education, his travel.

Nearly all travel, right back to his childhood, was primarily what she thought of as work related. Retreats, conferences, missions. Spreading the word or gathering more words to spread and different methods of spreading them.

And they called her work-obsessed? As far as she could tell he had very little life outside the work.

She'd been there once, understood the territory.

She ran searches for anything written about him or either house he'd founded.

When she found them, she read carefully, looking for any direction he might have taken.

No favorite places she could see, no haunts, no little cabin in the woods.

Still she culled out anything she found remotely interesting, filed it, then did exactly the same on the brother she believed had died right here in New York, and not thousands of miles away in some lion-eating jungle.

"He never traveled alone," she said, jabbing a finger in the air when Roarke joined her. "Not one time I can find here. Not even to see big sis—and the locals checked her out. Jones didn't take his passport, so he's not hiding on a sheep ranch in Australia, but she let him—even insisted—they check all her communications, so we'd know he hasn't contacted her."

"Some are what they seem," he commented. "Law-abiding."

"Some. When little brother went anywhere, he was either with big brother, big sister, the parents. The father acted as chaperone or whatever they'd call it the single time he went on a mission—a youth group deal. Everything I find has one of them with corresponding travel. So I call a big pile of bullshit on him sailing off to Africa, for Christ's sake, to break his cherry."

"One way to put it. You'd already concluded the younger brother didn't go to Africa."

"Conclusions aren't proof, and neither is this. But it adds weight. I travel," she said. "Now. I travel now. We go places where there aren't dead bodies."

"We do, on occasion. And as you've mentioned it, I thought we might do just that for a few days after the holidays. Go somewhere without corpses."

"Oh."

He flicked a finger down the dent in her chin. "Your usual enthusiastic reaction. I'm thinking warm, blue skies, blue water, white beaches, and foolish drinks with umbrellas stuck in them."

"Oh," she said in an entirely different tone.

"I know your weakness, yes." Now he kissed her lightly. "I thought the island, unless you have some secret desire to see another tropical locale."

Not everybody had a husband with his own island, she thought. She'd even mostly stopped feeling weird about it. Because white sand, blue water hooked her like a fish.

"I could put in for the time, if I'm not in the middle of a hot one."

"We'll imagine us both in several hot ones—on the island. It's already, tentatively, on your calendar."

"That damn calendar has a life of its own."

"Which means so do you."

"Yeah. He doesn't." She gestured to Jones's photo. "His work's his life, and I get it. But he struck me as sort of balanced and content on that initial impression thing. Not like little brother. They surrounded him. No solo travel, like I said—at least none that shows. No particular job, and what he did have they ran. No hint of relationships unless we count Shelby and her famous bjs."

"Let's not."

"No one mentions any friends, none of the staff ever had anything but the lightest, vaguest things to say. He never left an impression. He was weightless. What time is it in Zimbabwe?"

"Too late. And here as well. Sleep on it." He pulled her to her feet. "If Mira's right, and she most often is, he'll come back. At the very least he'll contact his sister. Will she tell you?"

"I think she will. Blood may be thicker, but she's scared, and she's sick. People who are scared and sick call the cops."

"Then sleep on it."

She stopped on her way out with him, looked back at the board. "The last vic? We can't find her. No matches, not yet, and we've been running the search for hours. Feeney's doing a global, and no matches. She's no one."

"She's yours."

For now, Eve thought, that had to be enough.

···

She had all the faces, and woke with a faint memory of dreaming of them again. But she couldn't remember what they'd said. She felt as though there was little left for the girls to tell her now.

She had it all in front of her, somehow. If she'd taken the right track, if her beliefs were valid, she would deliver justice, what she could of it, to the victims. She would give answers to those who'd loved and searched for them.

And if she'd gone wrong, if she'd turned the wrong way, she'd go back and start again.

She said as much to Roarke as she dressed for the day.

"You're not wrong, not about the core of it. I've slept on it as well," he added. "And a man doesn't leave his work, work he's devoted to, along with a sister he feels strongly he's bound to protect for no reason."

"A side skirt I haven't turned up, and a sudden need to nail her like a bagful of hammers. And no," she said, "I would've found her if he had an important woman, or if he had an important man for that matter. Plus, sex isn't nearly as important to him as his mission, and his sister. He wouldn't leave her to deal with me alone without some sort of solid purpose or desperation."

"So you're left with his involvement in some way, and a woman whose memory of her experience as a child, almost certainly in that building, is partially blocked."

She sat for a moment, an indulgence, and added to it with more coffee. "I've got the core of it, you're right about that. But I have a whole ream of unanswered questions that keep it from firming up. If it wasn't Montclair Jones in Africa, and I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't, who ended up in a lion's digestive system, and why did he agree to masquerade as Jones's brother? What did Jones do with his brother's body, because the only way a serial killer stops cold is death or incarceration."

"A spanner in the works."

"That's a wrench. I remember that one. Why don't you say wrench, because this is America."

"A wrench then. Is it plausible it went somewhat as you see it, but on that night when DeLonna was taken, Jones discovered them, but rather than play Cain, his brother was afraid of the discovery, of his brother's righteous wrath, of the thought of being exposed, going to prison, he agreed to go away, to go to Africa. Where he was able to control his urges for that short time, perhaps even believed that higher power he'd been raised on had given him a sign. Then fate or justice, or whatever you chose, intervened to punish him."

"I don't like it. I don't like it because it's just over the edge of plausible. And I don't like it because I can't believe, and neither can you, that after killing twelve—and the time line reads the count comes in at under three weeks. Twelve murders in what comes out to roughly eighteen days. Somebody does that, he doesn't just stop, and say, ‘Hallelujah, I repent, and I'm going to Zimbabwe to spread the good word.'"

He gave her a friendly little poke. "You just like saying Zimbabwe."

"It's hard to give up. But regardless, my ‘I don't like it' stands. But it's plausible."

She got up. "I'm going to contact Zimbabwe now, and review my notes one more time before I head in."

"I'll walk with you." He slid a hand around her waist and they started out, and the cat streaked by them. "That's a place we've never been. Africa."

"We haven't. Have you?"

"Not to spend any quality time, so to speak. There are, however, many exceptional channels for smuggling in Africa. But that was long ago." He danced his fingers up her ribs. "We could go, take a safari."

"You've got to be kidding. I'm not sure cows aren't going to try some payback and stage a mass revolution, why would I risk going where there are lions just walking around loose, and really big snakes who'll wrap around you and squeeze and swallow you whole? And, oh yeah, quicksand. I've seen the vids. Of course, now I know how to deal with quicksand if that ever happens."

"Do you now?"

"Yeah, long story. I'll give you some tips sometime. The river's probably the thing."

"Which river? I think Africa has several."

"Not in Africa. Here. Jones could have weighed his brother down, dumped him in the river. Or taken him out to New Jersey, up to Connecticut, somewhere where there's a lot of ground, woods, buried him. They've got a van now, which Jones didn't take on his getaway. Maybe they had one then, too. Something to check."

"While you do, I'm in my office."

She went to her desk first, saw the incoming light blinking, ordered the messages up.

"Damn it!"

Roarke stopped in his doorway, turned around. "Bad news?"

"No, no, Zimbabwe sent me an e-mail with attachment a few hours ago. Stupid Earth, axis, revolving crap. It's a picture. Two pictures."

Curious now, Roarke walked over to study them with her. One showed a man wearing a safari-style hat, amber sunshades, a khaki shirt, and pants. He smiled out, a camera strapped around his neck, a little white building at his back.

"Supposed to be Montclair Jones. It could be him. Same coloring, same basic body type. Hat and sunshades make it tough to be sure. Same with the group shot here."

In that one, the man, similarly dressed, stood with several others in front of the same building.

"I can enhance, sharpen it up. I can do that. I can run a match with his last ID shot. But... before I do."

She turned to her 'link, ordered Philadelphia's personal contact.

Philadelphia answered before the first beep had completed. "Lieutenant, you found Nash."

"No. I'm sending you a picture. I want you to tell me who this person is."

"Oh. I was so sure that... Whose picture? Sorry, you don't know, otherwise why would you ask."

"It's coming your way now."

"Yes, I see. Give me a moment. There it is. Oh, it's—" Then she shook her head, sighed. "My brothers are so much on my mind, for a moment I thought it was Monty. But it's... what was his name? He worked with us for a short time, though he rarely stayed in one place long as I recall. He's actually a cousin, distant, which we discovered as he and Monty looked more like brothers than Nash and Monty. It's on the tip of my tongue. Kyle! Yes, yes, Kyle Channing, a cousin on my mother's side. Third or fourth or fifth."

"You're sure of that?"

"Oh yes, that's Kyle. But this had to have been taken years ago. He'd be in his forties now. How did you get this picture?"

"I'm coming to you," Eve said, and broke connection, then slapped her hand on the desk.

"I knew it."

"Plausible alternatives or not, it seems your theory is on the mark."

"Jones sends the cousin in his brother's name, with his brother's ID, documentation. Maybe he paid him, blackmailed him, or just asked for a favor. But Montclair Jones didn't go to Africa. He didn't die in Africa. He killed twelve girls. His brother stopped him before he could make it thirteen. And he dealt with him. I've got to go."

"Contact me, will you, if Jones reappears? I'd like to hear the whole story."

"Me, too."

She grabbed up her 'link, tagging Peabody as she dashed downstairs. "Meet me at HPCCY, now."

"Okay, I'm just—"

"No. Zimbabwe sent pictures—and Philadelphia just identified a man named Kyle Channing, not her brother."

"You were right."

"Fucking A."

She yanked her coat off the newel post. "Get there." As she swung the coat on, she remembered taking it up to her office the evening before. So how did it... Summerset, she realized, and just decided not to think about it.

···

Philadelphia was pacing the halls when Eve came in.

"Lieutenant, I'm very confused, and I'm very worried. I'm worried something must have happened to Nash. I contacted hospitals, health centers, but... I think I should file a Missing Persons report."

"We've got a BOLO out on him. He's not missing. He's just not here."

"He could've become ill," she insisted. "The stress of these last few days—"

"This goes back a lot longer." She glanced around, watching kids come out of here, head to there, clomp out of there, slump their way elsewhere.

"What's going on?"

"If I knew I'd... You mean the residents. Breakfast shifts, early classes, or personal sessions." She wore her hair down today, and pulled nervously at the ends. "It's important to keep the children on routine."

"I don't think you want to discuss this out here." Eve signaled to Shivitz. "My partner's on her way. Send her into Ms. Jones's office when she gets here."

Eve went into the office, waited for Philadelphia to follow, shut the door. "The photo you identified as Kyle Channing was taken in Zimbabwe fourteen years ago. At that time, Channing was going under the name Montclair Jones, with all accompanying documentation."

"That's ridiculous. That's impossible."

"Contact your cousin." Eve gestured to the desk 'link. "I'd like to speak with him."

"I don't know how to contact him. I don't know where he is."

"When's the last time you saw or spoke to him?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure." She sat, hugged her elbows. "I barely knew him. He spent more time with Nash. Kyle's a nomad, he travels. He stayed with us, worked with us for a short time years ago when he was between missions. My brother Monty went to Africa, Lieutenant. He died there."

"No, he didn't. Your brother Monty fit in nowhere, was troubled, was shy of people, and could never compete with either you or Nash. He developed an attachment, an unhealthy one, for Shelby Stubacker, one she probably initiated, one she certainly exploited."

She didn't pause when Peabody slipped in.

"And when she'd gotten what she wanted from him—his assistance in getting her cleanly out of the system—she cut him off. Being a kid, being a tough kid, she probably did or said something that hurt him, that pissed him off, that made him feel worthless."

"No, no. No. He would have talked to me."

"Talked to his sister about the thirteen-year-old giving him blow jobs? I don't think so. Now he's ashamed. He knows he's done something bad, something against the code, against all of his upbringing. And it's her fault. It's Shelby's fault. One of the bad girls," she added, thinking of what Lonna remembered.

"She needs to be punished, or saved, or both. He needs to make it right, to... wash it away. And the night he plans to do this, she comes in—to his home, to The Sanctuary—because this place, this bright, clean, new place isn't his—he's waiting. She thinks it's hers, that she'll have her bad girl club there, but she won't. Even though she comes in with another girl, she won't make it hers."

"You can't know this, believe this. You can't."

"I can see it," Eve countered. "I can put together everything I know, and see it. She probably tells him to get lost, but he's ready for that. Probably put the sedative in some brews. He knows she'll barter for that, let him stay if he gives her something in return."

Yes, she could see it. The big, empty building, the young girls, the man with his offering. And with his mission.

"They'll take the beer. They've got snacks they bought at the market next store, so they eat, they drink, Shelby probably shows off the place, talks about her plans with this other girl, this pretty Asian girl. They start to feel off, and by the time they understand, if they ever did, it's too late. They pass out."

"Please stop." Tears rolled. "Please."

"Over the next couple weeks, other girls come, or he brings them in himself. He knows his avocation now, his mission now. He knows enough carpentry to build the walls. I imagine he took pride in it, made sure he did good work. He'd never be alone. They'd be with him, in the home he made. Something of his.

"But the night DeLonna sneaks out, and comes there looking for Shelby, it doesn't go the way it's supposed to. Nash comes, Nash sees. Nash doesn't understand."

"DeLonna. She never—"

"Yeah, she did." Eve placed the flats of her hands on the desk, leaned in. "She wanted to see Shelby, so she climbed out her bedroom window one September night and went to the old building. I found her, and she remembers most of it. She'll remember more. That night your older brother found your younger brother in the building. They shout, they fight, your brothers, when Nash finds DeLonna, drugged, naked, the tub filled and waiting for her. You tell me what Nash would have done if he found his brother about to drown a young girl, a young girl in your care."

"It couldn't—it would have broken his heart. I'd have known."

"Not if he didn't want you to know. He's supposed to protect you, he's in charge. This terrible thing was happening when he was in charge. His brother is the one who's broken. He brought DeLonna, still unconscious, back when he'd taken care of Monty, dressed her in her nightclothes, closed her window. And he said nothing to you."

"No, she has to be mistaken." But both doubt and horror crept into Philadelphia's voice.

"He never told you. How could he? You could never know the terrible thing your brother had done, the terrible thing he'd had to do to the youngest of you. So he told you he'd sent Monty to Africa."

"But no. No. Monty told me he was going to Africa." Hope rose in her voice, into her eyes. "You're wrong, you see? Monty came to me, said Nash was sending him. He was afraid, and he cried, asked me to let him stay. Nash and I argued about it."

Eve's eyes sharpened. "When was this?"

"Just days before. Just days before he left. Nash was absolutely unyielding, so unlike himself, and pushed it all through so quickly. He said Monty had to go, for his own sake. Something about it being the only way, the only choice. He wouldn't even let me go with them when he took Monty to the transpo center."

"Was Kyle still here?"

"No. No... ah..." Little hitches of fear came back to bounce in her words. "I think he'd left a day or two before, but I don't really remember. It was an upsetting time. I felt we were sending Monty off to strangers, to a place he didn't know, to try to be something he couldn't be. But he did so well. Nash was right. He—"

"It was never him. It was Kyle. You didn't tell me any of this, the argument, the upset about leaving."

"I didn't see how our personal upset so long ago pertained. There has to be another explanation for all of this. Nash will explain everything."

"How long was he gone, supposedly taking Monty to the transpo center? Don't lie to me now," Eve said when Philadelphia hesitated. "It won't help your brother."

"He didn't come back for hours. He was gone all day. I was so angry. I accused him of staying away so he wouldn't have to face me, after what he'd done. It hurt him. I remember how he looked when I said it."

"What did he do when he got back from taking Monty away?"

"He... he went into the Quiet Room. It wasn't fully set up yet. We were still doing that, but I remember very clearly, as we were both so upset, barely speaking to each other, that he went in there, said he wasn't to be disturbed."

"In there," Eve considered, "where you put the plaque for Montclair."

"Yes, it's our meditative, restorative space. Nash stayed in for more than an hour, maybe nearer two. We avoided each other until the next day when we got an e-mail from Monty to let us know he'd arrived safe. And he said how beautiful it was, how it felt like the most spiritual place on Earth. It was such a happy, positive note, I apologized to Nash. I said I'd been wrong. Things went back to normal. We were so busy putting everything in place, getting a new routine."

"Peabody, the Quiet Room. Start going over it again. This time we're taking it apart."

"Yes, sir."

"Why?" Philadelphia demanded. "You already searched."

"We're looking again. Still setting it up, you said. What does that mean, exactly?"

"I just meant we hadn't finished the painting or having the benches installed. We didn't want it to look like a chapel as much as a peaceful, meditative space. We were still putting in the water feature, the wall fountain, the flowers and plants."

"Okay. You can go about your usual routine. I'll be with my partner. Nobody comes in there."

"Lieutenant." She stood there, the sister between two brothers, looking stricken. "Monty—Monty never went to Africa."

"No, he didn't."

"You think, you actually believe Nash... hurt him. He couldn't. He's incapable of harming someone. And he loved Monty, deeply. He would never hurt him. I swear it to you."

"Then where is he? Can you tell me where either of your brothers are?"

"No, I can't. I pray you find them."

Eve pulled out her 'link as she left the office and made her way to the Quiet Room.

"Electronics aren't allowed in there," Shivitz told her.

Ignoring her, Eve stepped in. Peabody already had the few pieces of art off the walls, running a miniscanner over them.

"Death or incarceration," Eve said.

"The two things that stop a serial killer."

"Exactly right. Roarke."

"Lieutenant," he said from his 'link to hers.

"I need a favor. Jones's financials come off balanced, nothing off."

"Would you like me to take a look at them?"

"No, his sister runs them, so there wouldn't be anything in there. It's possible he has another account, one she doesn't know about. One he's kept under the radar."

"Prying into someone else's money isn't a favor. It's fun."

"I figured you'd say that."

"I'll let you know if I find anything."

"I think he might use his brother's name in it. Maybe look for Montclair as a surname."

"You'll only annoy me if you tell me how to play my game."

"Okay. Have fun."

She clicked off. "Two ways this goes," she told Peabody. "Either Jones took baby brother off, ostensibly to transpo, killed him, disposed of the body, which makes it seriously premeditated murder. Or he took him somewhere and had him locked up."

"Death or incarceration."

"Yeah. Death, we find Jones and sweat the details out of him. Incarceration? We find out where, because locking someone up takes money and a place that locks people up, and isn't prison."

"An institution?"

"Which takes money. Roarke's looking for the money. Let's see if Jones left us anything to go by in here."

"You think he hid something in here?"

"I think he didn't just sit in here meditating for a couple hours when he could have gone to his quarters or to his office, or just stayed the hell away for a while longer. According to the all-knowing, all-seeing Quilla, he still spends a lot of time in here."

Eve rolled her shoulders. "Let's take it apart."