New York to Dallas

was stupid, and I knew it would hurt you. I didn’t even think about it. It was like a reflex.”
    He turned his head, looked at her tense, tired face. “You’ve had a miserable fucking day.”
    “Yeah, real red letter. I met my mother. I arrested her, put her in the hospital. I grilled her. I found her body, and started the murder book on her. Miserable fucking red-letter day.”
    “I contacted Mira.”
    She swiveled toward him. “What?”
    “I don’t give a rat’s damn if that pisses you off. You need her. She’s on her way.”
    “You don’t—”
    “I need her, goddamn it.”
    Her eyes widened, blinked once at the short, violent explosion. Stupid, she realized, not to have expected it, not to have seen it coming. Stupid not to understand she wasn’t the only one coiled like a spring.
    “Okay.”
    “I know what I want to say to you,” he said, calmer now. “Do for you, but I don’t know if it’s right. I also know this isn’t about me, but anything that hurts you pulls me in. And this . . . well, that’s for later. You need to handle this, finish it. I understand that. Mira can help you. She can help both of us.”
    She didn’t speak for a minute, had to settle the storm inside her—a pretty close twin to his, she imagined.
    “You’re right. It’s good she’s coming. It’s just . . . once I start talking about it, it’s real. There’s no more sliding in this block that says it’s a case to be worked. Nothing more, nothing less.”
    She sat, studying the duplex, when he stopped.
    “It’s a nice place. I was thinking when we were watching for her, how it was a nice neighborhood. Not McQueen’s kind of place. Too suburban, even though it’s one good spit from the action. Not her kind of place either, with kids on bikes and guys fooling with flowers. But he wanted her out of her element, a little off balance. She’d be grateful every time he let her come to him.”
    Let her think of it as a case for as long as she could, Roarke thought. A reckoning was coming soon enough.
    “Why did she do it? Devote herself to him?”
    “It wouldn’t have lasted, even without the knife across the throat. She’d have gotten twitchy, moved on. But he made her feel important. He treated her good—she said. He bought her things, I imagine, and the illegals. I think we may find he set up her source here in Dallas, to keep her happy. Maybe paid for them, or a portion of them.
    “Anyway.”
    She got out of the car. She saw the door of the neighboring unit crack open, and held up her badge.
    A woman Eve pegged as late twenties came out.
    “There were other police here. They just left a little while ago. They said Sylvia was arrested.”
    “That’s right.”
    “I just don’t understand it. Bill up the street said there were cops all over, and little Kirk almost got run over. I was at work, and when I came home it was just crazy.”
    “Have you lived here long?”
    “Four years. My sister and I. What about Sandra?”
    “Sorry?”
    “Sylvia’s sister. Sandra Millford. Is she in trouble, too?”
    “You could say that. Were you friendly?”
    “We try to be, Candace and I. And I guess we thought, when they moved in, being sisters like us, we’d get together a lot. Hang.” She shrugged it off with a glance toward the neighboring unit. “But they were always too busy. We stopped asking them over. They didn’t spend a lot of time at home anyway, not really.”
    “Ever have any visitors?”
    “I can’t say I ever saw anybody come by and pay a call. But Sylvia was involved with someone.”
    “Oh?”
    “A woman doesn’t dress like that unless it’s for a lover. And I overheard her talking on the ’link just yesterday, now that I think about it. Sitting outside, and I was, too, having some coffee. The way she laughed, the tone of her voice. There was somebody. What did she do?”
    “She aided and abetted in the escape from prison of a dangerous felon. She aided and abetted in the abduction of two people, one a minor female for this dangerous felon who is a violent pedophile.”
    Eyes wide, mouth open, the woman rubbed at her throat. “Well, oh my God.”
    Eve took out her PPC, brought up McQueen’s photo. “I don’t think he’ll come around here, but if he does, stay inside and contact the police.”
    “I saw him on the media reports! Oh my God. Sylvia’s involved with him?”
    “She was. He killed her a couple hours ago.”
    “Oh. Oh.” She backed up a pace, slapping both hands