J. Robb - Holiday In Death

"She needs to sleep. She needs to forget." He lifted his other hand and stroked Piper's hair. "When she's better, when she's able, I'm going to take her away. Somewhere warm and sunny and full of flowers. She'll heal there, away from all this. I know what you think of me, of us. I don't care."

"It doesn't matter what I think of you. She's what matters." She moved closer, so that they could face each other on either side of the bed. "Won't she heal cleaner, Rudy, knowing the man who did this to her is locked away? I need to talk to her."

"She can't be made to talk about it. You can't understand what she'll feel, what it's like for her."

"I can understand. I know what she's been through. I know exactly what she's been through," Eve said, pacing her words while Rudy studied her face. "I won't hurt her. I want to put this man away, Rudy, before he does what he did to her, and worse, to someone else."

"I have to be here," he said after a long moment. "She'll need me here – and the doctor. The doctor has to stay. If she's too upset, I want him to sedate her again."

"All right. But you have to let me do my job."

He nodded, and shifted his eyes back to Piper's face. "Will she… How long… If you know what it's like for her, how long will it take her to forget?"

Oh Jesus. "She'll never forget," Eve said flatly. "But she'll live with it."

"This will bring her out gradually." The doctor was young, with eyes that still held compassion and devotion to his art. He added the medication to the IV himself rather than ordering the pesky task to a nurse or physician's assistant. "I'm going to keep her down a couple of levels so that she won't be overly agitated."

"I need her coherent," Eve told him, and he flicked those soft brown eyes over her face.

"I know what you need, Lieutenant. Ordinarily I wouldn't agree to deactivate sedation on a woman in Patient Piper's condition. But I understand the necessity in this case. Now you understand, she needs to remain as calm as possible."

He gave his attention to the monitors while keeping his fingers on Piper's wrist. "She's steady," he said, then looked back at Eve. "Recovering, both physically and emotionally, from a trauma of this kind, is a difficult journey."

"You ever been to the rape wards down in Alphabet City?"

"There aren't any rape wards in that area."

"There were up until about five years ago, until they restructured the license requirements and standard fees for street LCs. They were mostly street whores in the wards, mostly young ones, too. Boys and girls fresh off the farm who didn't know how to handle a John pumped up on Zeus or Exotica. I worked that sector for six miserable months. I know what I'm doing here."

The doctor nodded, lifted his patient's eyelid. "She's coming around. Rudy, let her see you first. Talk to her, reassure her. Keep your voice quiet and calm."

"Piper." Rudy put on a hideous excuse for a smile as he leaned over the bed. "Darling, it's Rudy. You're okay. You're with me. You're absolutely safe. You're with me. Can you hear me?"

"Rudy?" She slurred the word, keeping her eyes closed but turning her face toward the sound of his voice. "Rudy, what happened? What happened? Where were you?"

"I'm right here now." A tear trickled down his cheek. "I'll be right here."

"Simon, he's hurting me. I can't move."

"He's gone. You're safe."

"Piper." Eve could read the panic under the sheen of medication in her eyes when she blinked them open. "Do you remember me?"

"The police. The lieutenant. You wanted me to say bad things about Rudy."

"No, I just want you to tell me the truth. Rudy's right here. He's going to stay right here while you talk to me. Tell me what happened to you. Tell me about Simon."

"Simon." The lights on the monitors scrambled. "Where is he?"

"He's not here. He can't hurt you now." Gently, Eve took the hand Piper waved as if to ward off a blow. "No one's going to hurt you. I'm going to keep him very far away from you, but you have to help me. You have to tell me what he did."

"He came to the door." Her eyes closed, and Eve could see the rapid movement behind the delicate lids. "Happy to see him. I had his Christmas gift, and he had a big silver box. A present. I thought, Simon's brought a present for me, and for Rudy. I said, Rudy's not here. He knew – No, you're all alone, alone with me. He smiled at me and he – he put his hand on my shoulder.

"Dizzy," she murmured. "I was so dizzy, and I couldn't see very well. Have to lie down, feel so strange. I hear him, hear him talking to me, but I don't understand. I can't move, can't open my eyes. I can't think."

"Can you remember anything he said then? Anything at all?"

"I was beautiful. He knew how to make me more beautiful. Something cool on my leg, tickling my thigh, and he's talking to me. He loves me, only me. True love, he wants me to be his true love. I wasn't the one, but I could be. The others don't matter. Only me. He keeps talking, but I can't answer. All the other loves are dead because they weren't true. Not pure, not innocent. No!" Abruptly she ripped her hand out of Eve's and tried to roll aside.

"It's all right. You're safe. I know he hurt you, Piper. I know how much it hurt you, and you were so afraid. But you don't have to be afraid now." Firmly now, Eve took her hand. "Look at me, talk to me. I won't let him hurt you again."

"He tied me up." Tears streamed down her face now. "He tied me up on the bed. He took my clothes. I begged him not to. He was my friend. He dressed up. Horrible. There was a camera and he posed and smiled and told me I'd been a bad girl. His eyes, something was wrong with his eyes. I was screaming, but no one could hear me. Where's Rudy?"

"I'm here." He choked out the words, pressed his lips to her brow, her temple. "I'm here."

"He did things to me. He raped me, and it hurt so much. He said I was a whore. Most women were whores, actresses who pretended to be different but were just whores. And most men just used them then left them. I was a whore and he could do whatever he wanted. And he did, he kept hurting me. Rudy, I kept calling for you to make him stop. Make him stop!"

"Rudy came," Eve told her. "Rudy came and made him stop."

"Rudy came?"

"Yes, he heard you and he came and he took care of you."

"He stopped. Yes, he stopped." She closed her eyes again. "There was shouting and noise and someone's crying, very hard. Crying for his mother. I don't remember any more."

"Okay. You did fine."

"You're not going to let him come back?" Her fingers tightened on Eve's. "You won't let him find me?"

"No, I won't let him come back."

"He put stuff on me," Piper remembered. "He sprayed something all over me." She bit her lip. "Into me. His body, it's been waxed. It's hairless. He has a tattoo on his hip."

That was new, Eve mused. He'd had no tattoo in the videos she'd screened. "Do you remember what it looked like?"

"It said, 'My True Love.' He showed it to me, wanted me to look at it. He said it was new, permanent, not a temp. Because he was tired of being temporary to everyone he loved. And I was crying, telling him I'd never hurt him. Then he cried, too. He said he knew, he was sorry. He didn't know what else to do."

"Can you remember anything else?"

"He said I would always love him, because he'd be my last. And that he'd always remember me, because I'd been his friend." The glaze had cleared out of her eyes. Now they just seemed weary. "He was going to kill me. He wasn't Simon anymore, Lieutenant. The man who did this to me, I didn't know him. He became someone else in that room. And I think it frightened him almost as much as it frightened me."

"You don't have to be frightened now. I promise you." Stepping back, Eve looked over at Rudy. "Let's step outside a minute and let the doctor examine your sister."