In Death 20 - Survivor in Death

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