Vengeance in Death by J. D. Robb

always would, he paused a moment. When he continued his voice was quieter, his eyes darker. “I would have traded my life for hers. I would have done anything they asked to spare her one moment’s fear or pain. But there was nothing to be done. Nothing I was allowed to do. They tossed her on the doorstep after they’d done with her.”
    “She was so small.” Summerset’s voice was barely a whisper. “She looked like a doll, all broken and torn. They killed my baby. Butchered her.” Now his eyes, bright and bitter, met Eve’s. “The cops did nothing. They turned their backs. Marlena was the daughter of an undesirable. There were no witnesses, they said, no evidence. They knew who had done it, because the word was everywhere on the street. But they did nothing.”
    “The men who had killed her were powerful,” Roarke continued. “In that area of Dublin, cops turned a blind eye and deaf ear to certain activities. It took me a great deal of time to gain enough power and enough skill to go up against them. It took me more time to track down the six men who had had a part in Marlena’s death.”
    “But you did track them down, and you killed them. I know that.” And she’d found it possible to live with that. “What does this have to do with Brennen and Conroy?” Her heart stuttered a moment. “They were involved? They were involved with Marlena’s death?”
    “No. But each of them fed me information at different times. Information that helped me find a certain man in a certain place. And when I found the men, two of the men who had raped and tortured and murdered Marlena, I killed them. Slowly. Painfully. The first,” he said with his eyes locked on Eve’s, “I gutted.”
    The color drained out of her face. “You disemboweled him.”
    “It seemed fitting. It took a gutless bastard to do what was done to a young helpless girl. I found the second man through some data I bought from Shawn. When I had him I opened him up, one vein at a time, and let him bleed to death.”
    She sat now, pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Who else helped you?”
    “It’s difficult to say. I talked to dozens of people, gathered data and rumor, and went on. There was Robbie Browning, but I’ve checked on him already. He’s still in Ireland, a guest of the government for another three to five. Jennie O’Leary, she’s in Wexford running a bed and breakfast of all things. I contacted her yesterday so she would be on the alert. Jack — “
    “Goddamn it.” Eve thumped both fists on the table. “You should have given me a list the minute I told you about Brennen. You should have trusted me.”
    “It wasn’t a matter of trust.”
    “Wasn’t it?”
    “No.” He grabbed her hand before she could shove away. “No, it wasn’t. It was a matter of hoping I was wrong. And a matter of trying not to put you in the very position I’ve just put you in.”
    “You thought you could handle it without me.”
    “I’d hoped I could. But as Summerset’s being set up, that’s no longer an option. We need your help.”
    “You need my help.” She said it slowly as she tugged her hand free of his. “You need my help. That’s great, that’s fine.” She rose. “Do you think anything you’ve just told me takes the heat off of him? If I use it, you’ll both go into a cage. Murder, first degree, multiple charges.”
    “Summerset didn’t murder anyone,” Roarke said with characteristic cool. “I did.”
    “That hardly takes the pressure off.”
    “You believe him then?”
    He’s what I have left. She let Summerset’s words, the passion behind them, play back in her head. “I believe him. He’d never involve you. He loves you.”
    Roarke started to speak, closed his mouth, and stared thoughtfully at his own hands. The simple statement, the simple truth behind it rocked him.
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She said it more to herself, just to hear the words out loud. “I have to pursue the evidence, and I