J. Robb - Delusion in Death

“That’s utter nonsense. If you had any brain at all, you’d have checked her birth records.”

“Oh, I had enough brain to do that. With enough left over to ask her face-to-face.”

Now his head came around, fast. “What did you say?”

“It’s really more what she said. I get you didn’t want us to speak to her or your father, but, hey, I’m just bullheaded that way.”

“Obviously you frightened and intimidated her. She’s not a strong woman. She’s frail, emotionally. You coerced her.”

“That would be your method. Here’s the thing—the break I’m going to give you right here and now. You can keep denying knowledge, figuring when the truth comes out, you stick to being unaware. Nobody ever told you.”

She waited a beat, gave him time to calculate. “That’s one way. Or you can admit you found out, discovered the documents your mother told me about. The shock of that sent you into a tailspin. Why, your family lied to you, and your grandfather, rather than being a decorated war hero turns out to be some homicidal lunatic mass murderer and child abductor. A religious looney on top of it. He might get mentally impaired out of that line, right, Doctor Mira?”

“The shock alone …” Shaking her head, Mira trailed off.

“It could work to your advantage.”

“I want to speak with my mother.”

“Not going to happen, Lew.”

“A mother testifying against a son,” Teasdale said quietly. “The weight of that testimony will be great.”

His jaw set. Eve imagined she heard his teeth grinding.

“She’ll never agree to it.”

“She won’t have a choice. And when we bring Menzini in—”

“He’s dead!”

Eve angled her head. “What makes you think that?”

“I—I assumed.”

Smiling, she wagged her finger. “You shouldn’t assume. He’ll tell the whole story, about your biological grandmother, the abduction of your mother, her recovery. It’s the sort of thing that might play for you, if you admit you knew—you found out and it screwed you up. APA’s on the way. I want to wrap this up, get home, have a drink. The prosecutor’s office wouldn’t like me giving you this wiggle room, however slim. Make a choice, Lew. And fast.”

“I want to speak to someone in charge.”

“You are. Oh, you mean a man. That’s not going to happen either. Make a choice. I know you found the box of documents. I know you learned Menzini was your grandfather. You found the formula. You’ve got a chance to come clean on that, help yourself. Or you can keep lying, and go down that way.”

“They did lie to me.” He turned—a deliberate move—to Mira. “All my life. I could never understand why they couldn’t love me, couldn’t give me the affection a child needs. My father … He’s a violent man. The secrets in that house … I can’t speak of it.”

All sympathy, Mira leaned toward him. “Your father abused you, physically.”

Callaway turned his head away, managed to nod. “And in every way. She never stopped him, never tried to. My mother. But she couldn’t help it. She’s weak, and afraid.”

“He abused her as well.”

“She’s terrified of him,” Callaway whispered. “Of everything. We moved constantly when I was growing up. I never knew what it was to have a real home, friends, roots. Then I found that damn box, and knew why she’d never protected me. I was a constant reminder to her of what her mother had suffered—her real mother. I even look like him a little. The coloring, the build. I stepped into a nightmare.”

“I understand,” Mira said gently.

“How can you? How can anyone? To know that runs through you. I wanted to kill myself.”

“But you kept going back,” Eve interrupted. “Hoping to find more.”

“Yes, yes. To find it all, to get rid of it. I brought it all back here, and I dumped it all in a recycler.”

“Oh please.” Eve rolled her eyes. “How stupid are you? Nobody’s going to buy that. You brought it back, and you re-created the substance. Admit it, for God’s sake. Own it. The PA’s going to push for consecutive life sentences in an off-planet cage. Hard as hard time gets. Lay it out, lay it all out and you might have a shot at a facility on-planet. You can write a goddamn book, do media interviews. You can be somebody. Find your balls, Lew.”

“I was going to kill myself. I was going to use what he made to destroy myself. I lost my mind for a while. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I took it with me, into the bar. I was going to wait until it was nearly empty, but Joe wouldn’t leave. I lost my nerve. I got up to go, and that woman bumped into me. She knocked the vial, and it fell. I panicked, and I got out.”

He covered his face with his hands. “All those people.”

“You made the substance?” Eve repeated. “You took it into the bar?”

“Yes. God help me, yes,” he said just as Reo stepped in.

“APA Reo, Cher, entering Interview. Pull up a chair. Lew’s entertaining us with fairy tales.”

“How can you be so callous?” he demanded. “So cold.”

“Me? You’re the champ there. Lew’s just confessed to creating the hallucinogenic and taking it into the bar.”

“I was traumatized! I meant to self-terminate.”

“There are easier ways,” Eve pointed out. “Did you also mean to self-terminate when you took another vial of the hallucinogenic, palmed it off on Jeni Curve without her knowledge?”

“I don’t remember any of that. There are blanks in my memory. The shock. The stress. I want to speak with your superior!”

“Fuck that.” Eve slammed her hands on the table, pushed up to lean into his face. “You needed a vessel, she was handy. You made up some story about a man in black. You were the man, Lew. You. Do you know how many buildings on that street have security cams? Do you think you avoided all of them?”

“You idiot. I never went near camera range.”

“No? You’re sure. Your memory’s clear on that point?”

“I don’t know. You’re confusing me. I want to talk to your commanding officer. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“You can talk to me,” Reo suggested. “I’m Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Cher Reo.”

“Do you think I’m going to talk to an assistant? Some secretary ?”

“That’s telling her, Lew.” Eve circled him. “Show her who’s in charge here. Who’s the fucking boss. You murdered a hundred and twenty-seven people, for Christ’s sake, without getting a drop of blood on you. And she sashays in here in her girly suit and sex-me-up shoes and expects you to give her the time of day?

“This is bullshit. Just bullshit. You put an entire city on notice, and you did it because you could , not for some crackpot end-of-days bullshit like your whacked-out grandfather. You’ve got book deals and vid deals coming. They’ll be beating down your door, throwing money at you. And fame. Everybody’s going to know your name, and fear it. That’s what you want, isn’t it? The attention, the respect you deserve.”

“That’s right, and I’m not talking to a bunch of idiot women.”

“Come on, Lew, show us your balls. Give us a thrill. When the real PA gets here, he’ll know he’s dealing with a man . A man who demands respect. Not some weak sister like Joe Cattery. That bitch Weaver was going to promote him over you. It was time for a game changer. Time to level the field. And all those happy hour assholes, slurping up the half-priced drinks. I bet they made you sick. Plenty more out there just like them, but you—you’re special. It’s about damn time people treated you the way you should be treated.”

“Joe was nothing. A flunky.”

“That’s right. That’s right. It had to burn your ass when he got the big bonus.”