New York to Dallas

happened to bad coffee and a stale donut?”
    “Exactly my pre-Roarke breakfast.”
    “Isn’t he eating? There may be two plates, but there’s enough on them for three. Or four.”
    “He’s got some work to catch up on.” She gestured. “Another office.” Eve studied Bree as she sat, poured coffee. “No point letting it get cold.”
    “I look at this, all this food, and I think, what’s Melinda eating? Is he giving her any food? He didn’t always give us food. Is she cold and hungry? Is she—”
    “You need fuel, Detective.” God, she sounded like Roarke. “You need it to help you get through, to help you think and act and do what needs to be done to bring your sister and the girl out.”
    Obediently, Bree picked up her fork.
    “Why did you come here, and not to your partner, or your lieutenant?” Eve asked what she already knew, to give Bree the springboard.
    “Annalyn, she’s the best. But . . . I can’t stop thinking about before, the first time. She understands. She’s worked SVU a long time, and with me, training me. She understands, but she doesn’t know. Nobody does unless they were there, part of it.”
    Bree lifted her gaze to Eve’s. “You were there. You know what he did to us because you saw. What happened then, it’s important to what’s happening now. You know him better than I do, I think. Even though . . .” She trailed off, one hand going to her heart.
    “I kept it.” Deliberately she undid a few buttons of her shirt to show the tattoo. “Melly had hers removed. Everyone told me to do that, have it erased. But—”
    “You want to see it. When you pick up your badge and your weapon before every shift, you want to see it. You want to remind yourself why you’re picking them up.”
    Bree closed her eyes a moment, nodded. “That’s why I came here. You know.”
    “He’ll put it back on her.” Eve saw Bree jerk a little, but it was better to know, to be prepared. “His pride, her punishment. He won’t starve her, but he’ll keep her hungry, and uncomfortable. He’ll keep her alive until he’s finished with me. And since I’m not going to let him finish with me, he’ll keep her alive.”
    Eve ate as she talked, primarily so Bree would follow suit. “He won’t rape her. Even the slim possibility of that lessens since he has the girl. He’s already raped the girl. He feels more powerful now, more in control, more focused with that release.”
    Pain shimmered over her face, but Bree nodded. “He’ll think hurting the girl will make Melly weaker, more malleable, will push her to grief and despair. He used us on each other that way.”
    “You told me you felt sick with relief whenever he didn’t take you, or Melinda out of the room in New York. You were one pissed off kid when you told me that.”
    “I stayed mad as much as I could, so I wouldn’t go crazy. But Melly would beg him not to take whoever he came for. She’d plead with him not to hurt his choice of the night—or day. And when he was finished, threw her back in, locked her up, Melly would just fall apart. That’s what he thinks she’ll do now.”
    “But she’s not a little girl now.”
    “No, she’s not.” Bree firmed her lips. “She’ll get stronger, put everything she has into helping Darlie get through this. She’ll talk to him if he lets her, try to bargain and negotiate, stall. If she can find or make any kind of weapon, she’ll use it. She’d kill him to protect the girl.”
    She clasped her hands in her lap. “And that’s what scares me, more than anything.”
    “He’ll contact us today.”
    “You sound so sure.”
    “I am. He has to brag about the girl. And if he wants to get his hands on me, he has to start that maneuver soon. When he does, we start our next maneuver.”
    “Which is?”
    “We play him and the woman against each other, the way we do suspects in Interview. I’m just hoping for a little more meat first. And this might be it,” she said as Roarke came out of his office.
    He held up a disc. “You were right.”
    “Damn straight. Let’s see her.”
    He passed her the disc. “Once I had her, I ran for ID. She’s going by Sylvia Prentiss, who’s clean as the proverbial whistle.”
    “Why is a whistle clean? I’ve seen whistles that weren’t. Or is it the—” She curled two fingers between her lips, released a quick, high sound suitable for hailing a Rapid Cab on Fifth.
    “If I’m using a whistle,” Roarke considered, “I insist on it being