A/N: Ok, guys, I normally like to do a closer proofread before I post a chapter, but I was not able to get this posted yesterday, and today's been extremely busy, so I'm just going to update now and hope for the best. I'll go through it later tonight when I have more time and hopefully there's not too many glaring (or embarrassing) mistakes, lol. Sorry for the delay. It feels like I haven't updated in about a million years. D: Don't think this one needs a trigger warning. Enjoy.
Chapter 26.
The Arc of the Moral Universe
. . .
"Will you at least accept fresh ice?" Dana extended the rubber ice pack with an impatient thrust, disapproval written all over her face. She might be FBI, but she had the no-nonsense schoolteacher thing down pat. When she didn't get a response, she snatched the old pack away and plopped the new one unceremoniously onto Amanda's swollen knuckles.
"Gahdamn." Amanda hissed through her teeth, wincing at the sudden shift of pressure, the clunky weight of the cubes as solid cold replaced lukewarm liquid. The knocking sound of the cubes reminded her of dice shaken inside a fist, tossed out into space like wishes and prayers, like the hope that everything would come out right in the end. God, she wished she was an alcoholic instead of a compulsive gambler. At least then she could have a drink to calm her nerves, rather than getting the jitters over clacking ice. "Watch it, will you? Ain't like I asked for your help. And I sure as shit didn't ask for your opinion."
"Honey, it ain't my 'opinion' that your hand is done swole up to the size of a Cornish hen at Thanksgivin' dinner, it's cold hard fact." Dana gave a succinct nod, leaving no room for interpretation. She had the annoying habit of acting as though every word out of her mouth was gospel, and the even more annoying habit of often being right.
About the hand, at least. It did look a bit like a plump, plucked bird, each finger fat as a sausage. The right side had fared a bit better, its dominance offering Amanda more control over her punches. The left had swung wildly, blindly, colliding with Matthew Parker's face—and teeth—half a dozen times, or more. The ME who examined his lumpy, blood-smeared face said it looked like he had gone through a windshield, face-first. "And I would know, I've seen more than my share of head-on collisions," the examiner had said, eyeing Amanda warily from the corner of his vision.
She didn't understand why everyone was looking at her like that, it wasn't as if she had killed the fucker. So what if she'd broken his nose in two places, fractured his cheekbone, knocked out an incisor, and split his top and bottom lips like they were a single unit? He had raped her wife and attempted to kidnap her child, she was more than justified in beating him senseless. Anyone else would have done the same thing in her position, including self-righteous Dana goddamn Lewis.
"Just like it's cold hard fact that you near 'bout killed that boy in there," Dana said, jabbing a thick index finger at the one-way glass that separated them from the interrogation room and the men inside it.
Something about her appearance had rung familiar to Amanda the first time they met, and again, now, with the clipped movements and features that should have belonged to a stockier person—it clicked into place then, when Dana tapped the glass with the flat of her blunt fingernail. She resembled a snub-nose revolver. And she had the temperament of one too. "You know how much harder that makes our job, you going off on him like that? You better hope and pray he doesn't decide to press charges, little missy. We'll proly never get information out of him now. And you can forget talking to him yourself. You shot that all to hell."
Amanda opened her mouth to argue that Parker, who was glaring up at Fin from beneath an eyelid the size and color of a hyacinth bulb, didn't have a leg to stand on if he wanted to press charges. But the truth was, he might actually have a case after the beating she'd given him. William fucking Lewis had raped, tortured, and murdered multiple women, then kidnapped and brutalized Olivia until he broke down her executive function, rendering her incapable of controlling her own actions. And the motherfucker still convinced a jury that she was guilty of police brutality.
Goddammit.
"Yeah, well, I ain't sorry for what I did," Amanda said with more indifference than she felt. If her violent outburst made getting Parker to disclose Olivia's location more difficult—or, God forbid, impossible—she would never forgive herself. Once again, Amanda the screw-up had reared her ugly head and jeopardized Olivia's safety. Jesus, no wonder Dana was looking at her like that. "Bastard had it coming, and don't tell me you never roughed up a suspect before. Especially a rapist. Heard you got in a few shots of your own with those boys back in the day."
The color drained from Dana's face at the mention of other rapist boys, filling Amanda with a smugness she didn't much like. She didn't know all the details behind the potshot Dana had taken at her attacker, just enough generalizations to use it against her. It felt low, but Amanda was low right then.
She'd been short with Daphne, practically blaming Matilda's attempted kidnapping on her, when all the blame belonged on the ugly sonuvabitch in interrogation one. She felt awful for the way she'd sent her friend and daughters off, with only brief hugs and kisses for the girls and multiple warnings to Daphne not to engage with anyone other than the two officers who had taken over for Montero and the rookie. "I don't care if Jesus Christ himself knocks on my door and asks after the kids, you do not let him anywhere near them, you got that?" Poor Daphne had been on the verge of tears, and Amanda still hadn't shown her any mercy.
What she hadn't managed to say to Daphne was that she blamed herself much more. Amanda could have prevented the whole damn mess with Parker if she'd just made Daphne stay at home with the babies. If she hadn't wanted to see them, hold them, so badly. But she could hardly look at them by the time they left; the bloody handprints she had left on Tilly's overalls and Sammie's little onesie, grabbing them up so soon after pummeling Parker, were too terrible. At first she had thought it was their blood, and she'd upset Tilly all over again by frantically checking her for injuries. "I not hurt, Mama," said the little girl, trying to push Amanda's hands away. Little Tilly hated getting her pretty clothes dirty.
And now Amanda was taunting Dana Lewis with rape. Because that was exactly the kind of piece of crap human being she was. The kind who let her wife get snatched right out of her grasp and ravaged so brutally she wanted to die. Amanda knew what the belt was for as soon as Olivia had taken it from beneath the mattress, she hadn't needed to see her fitting it into a noose to figure it out.
The men had come and confiscated it before Olivia could get the loop around her neck, of course. She was too valuable for them to let her kill herself. Instead, Liam Sandberg and Riva took turns choking her with the belt while they raped her. She'd been lying on the mattress, half dead, wrists bound above her head with the strap, ever since. Only an occasional blink or inaudible movement of her lips, whispering words no one would hear, gave outward physical proof she was alive. Nothing existed behind her eyes, though. They were as empty as the black dots stitched into the face of Matilda's Raggedy Ann doll.
Amanda looked up from the iPad even angrier than before. She understood Olivia wanting her suffering to end, wanting to escape by any means possible, but the captain—her captain and wife—didn't get to make that decision alone. She didn't get to give up before Amanda rescued her. Please don't give up before I rescue you, Amanda prayed, even as she spoke to Dana: "Anyway, I figure you've got some enhanced interrogation skills up your sleeves. Why don't you go in there and make him tell you where my wife is? You can bitch at me later."
"And leave you out here to do God knows what?" Dana gestured up and down the hallway outside the interrogation rooms as if she were ushering a crowd past the one-way.
They could have watched Fin questioning Parker through the mirror in Olivia's office—the sergeant had provided the key again—but Amanda hadn't been able to set foot in there since her failed attempt to retrieve a charger the other day. She wouldn't have been able to tolerate watching Dana strut around Olivia's personal space like it belonged to her, anyway. She might end up breaking more than the agent's nose this time.
"No, ma'am. I've been assigned as your handler, thanks to them little hissy fits you been throwin'. I'm telling you, Detective, you got to get that shit under control or you're gonna blow this entire case. And where'll that leave Captain Benson?" Dana started to tap the glass screen of the iPad, directly above Olivia's wilted form, then thought better of it. She clasped her hands behind her back instead, assuming an erect military stance.
Had Amanda compared her to a snubbie? More like a pit bull standing guard, ready to sic 'em, girl, the moment she stepped out of line. And that bit about being assigned as Amanda's handler was complete bullshit; Dana had the authority here, even more than the prodigal chief, so if anyone had put her in charge of Amanda, it was Dana herself. Amanda was about to call her on it, to tell her exactly where and how far she could shove her "handler" status, when something in the agent's voice changed, taking on a smooth, deadly calm that made Amanda's blood run cold. She wasn't speaking to anyone else but the woman reflected back at her in the observation window.
"These situations are delicate. You go in half-cocked, fists a-blazin', you're going to upset the balance. You've got to bide your time until you strike, and when you do, it has to be the very second you get the signal. Then you get in, get what you came for, and you get back out like the devil's on your heels. And that sumbitch is fast." Dana leaned toward the glass, eyes narrowed, like she was confiding a secret. To herself, to the man on the other side, or to Amanda was anyone's guess. "This fool ain't him. But he is a tool to get there. Now, I'll do my best to wear him down, and maybe that'll be good enough. I hope it is. But if it's not, you've got to keep a clear head, clear eyes, and clear heart. And be ready."
Dana and her reflection glanced past her shoulder, not quite meeting Amanda's questioning gaze. Her eyes lingered on the iPad and the vestige of Olivia, trussed to a metal anchoring point designed for lashing cargo inside the container. For humans too. "You understand what I'm saying to you, Detective?" She looked up then, a meaningful glint in her shrewd brown irises. "Clear head, clear eyes, clear heart?"
Perhaps Amanda had broken entirely from reality, and perhaps this conversation was just a figment of her imagination, brought on by complete psychotic meltdown. It was possible. She might still be beating the hell out of Parker on the sidewalk to Bryant Park, or herself trussed up to a hospital bed with wrist restraints and horse tranquilizer humming in her veins. But she didn't think so. She thought she had a pretty good idea of what Dana was getting at, and it was more real, more tangible, than any of the hope she'd been offered in the past two days. "And be ready," she replied, matching Dana's sharp nod. "Clear head, clear eyes, clear heart."
Dana gave her an atta girl pat on the back, rounding behind her to be on the side nearest the interrogation room entrance. "Good. Now, stick to it. I'm gonna go talk to this ass-clown and relieve Sergeant Tutuola, and you're gonna stay out here and do as he says til you hear different from me. Ain't that right?" She paused with her hand on the door handle, an expectant look on her bold features. Her quirked eyebrow resembled Olivia's so much, it took Amanda's breath away.
"Copy that." Amanda inhaled deeply through her nose and released it slowly through her lips. For the most part, she had forgotten her breathing exercises during the last fifty-two hours, but she relied on them now, trying to restore some balance to her reeling senses. Some clarity. "I won't go off like that anymore." Her gaze flicked to the iPad, propped in her throbbing right hand. Olivia's respiration was much too shallow and rapid, her arms twisted at uncomfortable angles overhead. "But don't draw it out too long, huh? I don't know how much more of this she—or I—can take."
"Copy that," Dana echoed. She opened the door as though anticipating a rush of heat to come flooding out. Or that tidal wave of blood from The Shining. Redrum and all that jazz. "Hey, Sergeant, sorry to interrupt, but how's about you give Mr. Parker and me the chance to get acquainted? No sense in keeping such a fine, upstanding citizen all to yourself." Before she sallied into the room, she tossed a wink back at Amanda, as bright as the On Air sign outside of a recording studio.
"The hell's she doing?" Fin asked when he joined Amanda in front of the one-way. His expression was even more peevish than usual, and he looked like he needed some rack time. Honestly, he'd probably gotten less rest than Amanda had since this waking nightmare began. "I been working on this guy for three hours, and she just comes waltzing in like it's antebellum Georgia and they gonna converse White Anglo to White Anglo?"
"She's from Virginia," Amanda said absently. She was so busy watching for her signal, she no longer felt the unpleasant stiffness in the knuckles of her left hand, the dead sensation in her ring finger where the wedding band pinched the swollen digit, the stabbing pain. Clear head. Clear eyes. Clear heart. Nothing else existed, save for Olivia out there somewhere, tied up like a dog in a shipping container.
"You know what I mean," Fin groused. "What's with you, anyway? Figured you'd be just as pissed—"
"Shhh." Amanda leaned toward the glass, forcing her sergeant and the sound of his voice into the background. If he said anything else—if he was even still present—she didn't notice.
She went on clearing her head, her eyes, her heart.
She was ready.
. . .
Dana flicked the vented hem at the back of her blazer out behind her and settled into the chair opposite Matthew Parker. His CO jacket, including the rap sheet he'd incurred before landing at Sealview Correctional—probably what kept him from joining NYPD—had been left open on the table by Sergeant Tutuola. She pretended it wasn't there, folding her hands neatly on top and flashing her widest Miss Roanoke Valley grin. She'd made first runner-up for that dog and pony show.
Not too shabby.
"Hi, handsome," she said, spreading the accent on thick. It annoyed these true blue New York-types, and that made it extra fun. She might as well trot a decrepit horse down the middle of Broadway during rush hour, as speak Southern to a city person. "Quite a shiner you got there. Do they still call it a shiner when it covers your whole face like that, I wonder?"
"Eat me, Sarah Palin." Parker peered at her through the slit of his right eye, which felt very much like being watched by an overripe plum. She got the urge to poke him in his other slightly more open eye for that comment, but then he might start crying like a great big baby again. The big lummox had actually been blubbering when Officer Montero first carted him in. "That crazy bitch Rollins did this to me, and she's gonna regret it. You hear that, Detective Rollins-Benson? She's— You're gonna pay for this."
A bemused smirk worked its way onto Dana's lips. She disguised it behind her hand for a moment, tapping her pinky fingernail against her front teeth. The dumb ones never realized just how dumb they were. But damned if some of them weren't running on sheer dumb luck too. "Ms. Palin's from Alaska, got all them youngsters, sound like they're named after racehorses or boats or some such. I'm a bit farther south regionally, and a whole lot more to the left, politically speaking. You can call me Agent Lewis."
"Agent? You FBI?" Behind the bruises, Parker's color drained a few shades lighter. He looked like one of those transparent human anatomy dummies, the colorful organs visible beneath its clear plastic skin. No, strike that, he looked like an actual cadaver, postmortem contusions surfacing beneath a fluorescent overhead light. Dana had seen plenty, and the resemblance was uncanny. Matthew Parker was a dead man walking. "Why'd they call you in?"
"Haven't you heard, Mattie my boy? Mind if I call you Mattie?"
"Yes, I mi—"
"This here's a federal case now, Mattie. See, when someone gets trafficked across state lines, it becomes an FBI matter. And true, NYPD might not be our— what do they call it?—our ride-or-die. But I can promise you we take the kidnapping and assault of a decorated police captain very seriously." Dana made a show of scanning his dossier for the employment history, despite having it nearly memorized by now. Lots of bouncing around from job to job, until he landed at Sealview. Must have found his calling. "Especially when a lowlife CO with a criminal record as long as his dick is involved."
"Hey, I've only been arrested once, and that was a—"
"My point exactly." Sitting forward in a low and predatory posture, all traces of Southern charm gone in an instant, Dana got down to business. "That's all going to change, now that you've orchestrated the abduction and rape of Captain Benson. You'll be going away for the rest of your life for this one. If she dies, you might even get the death penalty."
Parker's smugness, restored at the mention of his questionably sized member, faltered again, but too briefly for Dana to latch onto it. She would have to be quicker next time. He might not be the devil incarnate, but he was still slick enough that he had almost succeeded in walking away with Detective Rollins' daughter while a hundred cops were milling about the precinct. "I don't know what you're talking about, ma'am. I don't even know a Captain Benson, let alone have anything to do with her being kidnapped and raped. I'll tell you the same thing I told that sergeant fella—you got the wrong guy."
Sergeant fella. Dana checked the urge to reach across the table and slap his ugly face for that snide remark disguised as a respectful form of address. It was one step shy of calling the sergeant "boy"; Dana knew from her own experience living as Star Morrison, the anti-Semitic racist Nazi bitch that first put her in contact with SVU. That assignment was not only deeply unpleasant, as law enforcement and as a decent human being, it had also given her the unfortunate ability to think like the assholes she was investigating.
Parker might have pretended not to remember Fin from their brief stint as coworkers while Fin was undercover at Sealview, but Dana had spotted the glimmer of recognition in his puffy lizard eyes when the sergeant first entered interrogation. Parker knew exactly who he was dealing with, and that wasn't confined to just inside the walls of this precinct.
"You know damn well who Captain Benson is, Mattie my boy. You sexually assaulted her back in '08. Way I heard it, you had your hands and your crotch halfway up her backside 'bout five minutes after you met her. That the only position you prison boys know? Hey, you think this is funny?" Dana slapped the table hard with an open palm, the sound impressively loud in the hollow room. Parker didn't startle as easily as she hoped, but his sleazy little smirk vanished at once.
"I've never sexually assaulted anyone," he said, and sucked his teeth as he looked her over like she was sitting there stark naked with her legs cocked open. What a prince. "Don't need to. Women are always throwing themselves at me. So, you'll have to be more specific about this captain broad. She someone I dated? Keep in mind, I was getting a lot of play back then. You got a picture or something, might jog my memory? Measurements?"
There was a heavy thud against the one-way mirror, and if Dana had to wager a guess, she would say it was either the ice pack or Amanda's fist. She hoped for the detective's sake it was the former, and she hoped for Olivia's sake that her hotheaded wife took Dana's advice and didn't come storming in to throttle Parker. Pretending she hadn't heard the noise, she kept her eyes locked on his face. Her interrogation gaze had been called everything from penetrating to unnerving by her colleagues, and she'd gotten a handful of confessions over the years just by staring them out of people.
Guilty people, of whom Matthew Parker was not one. Okay then, new plan. He had tried to cover a cringe at the strident tone of her voice when she raised it at him a moment ago. If he didn't like loud, aggressive women, she would be the loudest, most aggressive bitch he had ever met. "You met and assaulted her while she was undercover in that rat-infested dump where you work. And even you can't be dumb enough not to remember when your captain got arrested after he assaulted her. Think, Mattie, tall girl, brown hair, way too pretty for the likes of you."
"Oh. Her." Parker sneered, as if the concession left a bad taste in his mouth. "Yeah, I remember. But whatever she said about me assaulting her is a lie. I was just restraining her, which is part of my job. Sounds like Captain Benson accuses every guy she meets of rape, huh? Maybe she's got herself a little rape fantasy going, you looked into that yet?"
Dana held her breath, fully expecting Amanda to burst into the room, leap onto the table, and kick Parker backwards out the window. But even more troublesome was the total silence outside the mirror. She hoped it just meant that Fin was holding his detective back, or that Amanda was exercising more self-control than she had thus far. Head, eyes, heart, Dana reminded herself, her patience with Matthew Parker just about shot.
"Oh, Mattie, you love to hear those gums of yours flapping, don't you?" she said, and pushed up from the table. Grabbing the chair she'd been sitting in, she dragged it with her around the table, fighting the urge to pick it up and bash him over the head with it a few dozen times. Calmly, she positioned it backwards beside him, swung a leg over the seat, and straddled the cushion, hands planted on her knees. She was close enough to smell the antiseptic the ME had applied to his split lips. "The inmates are gonna love that about you when you're in with them. Will it make a difference, do you think, that you were a CO in a women's prison? Or will the fellas have it out for you just as much?"
For once, Parker kept his mouth shut and set in a deep frown, nose wrinkled like he smelled something nasty. Apparently he didn't appreciate the idea of servicing his male counterparts nearly as much as he enjoyed forcing that job on the ladies. "See, Mattie, you're the one I been looking into, and it turns out you're no different from all the other pig COs who opt for female prisoners. Easy prey, right? Yeah, I ran into plenty of guys like you in Bedford. Undercover, mind you, but my ass still got grabbed like all the other girls."
She had caught his attention with the name dropping, as expected. That's right, I speak your language, you sick prick, she thought, trying not to breathe in his smell any more than necessary. Vaguely she wondered if he had showered since raping Olivia. "And one thing I learned about you CO boys is that most of you got some sweet thing on the inside, ready to do whatever you tell them. And vice versa. Guess y'all plan to get hitched after the girl's released, and what, live happily ever after with your little hoosegow babies?
"Anyway, my point is, I know who the lucky lady is that holds the key to your heart. And I bet you carry the key to hers on your belt with one of those little retractor clip thingies." Dana made the general shape of the device she was describing with her hands, then waved it away as unimportant. It was all part of her tactic. You threw as much at them as you could, anything to get them off balance so you could go in for the kill while they were confused, their defenses down. And she needed him off balance for the next part, because she was about to lie right out of her ass.
"Huh?" he asked, ears practically pricking up.
Perfect.
"That's right, Mattie my boy. I know all about you and Sondra Vaughn. She and I had a nice long chat about how you two've been carrying on. Tsk, tsk. Took a long time to get it out of her, but once we tossed her cell and found proof, she didn't really have much choice." Dana shrugged her shoulder. It is what it is.
"Pshh, you're lying," said Parker, and for a moment, Dana thought she'd blown it by over-embellishing. But there was doubt in what was visible of his bloodshot eyes when he turned them on her, looking for something to confirm his assessment. Dana closed herself off like a blank, featureless wall around a fortress. "Vaughn'd never give it up to you. If there was anything to give up. Bitch's got ice water in her veins. Just like you."
Dana smiled at that as if he'd told her she was pretty. "Maybe she felt like we were kindred spirits, 'cause honey, she turned on you like that." She snapped her fingers in his face, and this time he jumped. Now she was getting somewhere. She softened it a bit so her next strike would be a surprise, her fingers trickling the air in front of him. "Told us how all of this was your idea, to get back at Captain Benson for spurning your advances a million little years ago. How you forced 'er into helping you 'cause you knew she had history with Benson's wife. Detective Rollins-Benson."
"Hey, wait a min—"
"You tried to abduct their baby girl, not more'n a few hours ago, right out there on the street, Mattie." Dana resumed the big voice, the big gestures, pointing to the windows as she launched up from the seat and shoved her chair aside. It clattered across the floor, making Parker start and turn to look like he'd just witnessed a head-on collision on the freeway. She clamped a hand on the back of his chair, the other flat on the table, and crouched down to be face-to-face with him.
"What were you gonna do to that sweet little thing, Mattie? Tie her up and fuck her like they're doing to her mama? Like you did to her mama? I saw you, you sick fucking sonuvabitch. You and your dumbass MAGA hat." She slapped the back of Parker's head hard enough for her palm to sting. He jerked forward with a convulsive grunt. "You know he lost, right? Takes a loser to know a loser, that it? You think you can go around grabbing pussy and getting away with it, too, don't you, you nasty-ass fuckin' pig. You goddamn—"
"Agent Lewis!"
Fin's voice finally cut through the freight train of anger and noise that roared in Dana's ears, in her brain, under her skin. It had been a while since she'd had quite such a dramatic PTSD flare-up—she wasn't even aware of when she'd gotten to her feet—but it could be used in her favor. Parker was looking at her like she had lost her mind, which in fact she had, and the chickenshit perps were the easiest to manipulate. Yeah, yeah, coerced confessions didn't stand up in court, blah blah. She wasn't so much concerned with getting a confession out of him as she was with finding Olivia.
The rest would work itself out later. Dana would see that it did, one way or the other.
She straightened, pulling the panels of her blazer taut at the hem, smiling. Kill them with kindness, Mama used to say. And if that doesn't work, there's always your gun. (Dana added that part herself.) "We're okay, Sergeant. Just gettin' a little fired up because Mattie-boy here thinks he's got the upper hand. Don't worry, I'm impressin' upon him exactly how deep the shit is that he's in. Takes a bit more effort with skulls this thick, though." She rapped her knuckles on the top of Parker's head, rolling her eyes when he ducked as if he were dodging gunfire.
"Hey, bro, get her out of here, will you?" Parker asked, phrasing it as more of a demand than a request. He looked expectantly at Fin and jerked a thumb at Dana. Tell this broad to take a hike, the gesture said. It was one she'd seen many times over the years, and she was old enough to remember when it still worked.
Thankfully, those days were over and she was no longer at the mercy of male agents or felons whom she was just too intense for. Dana Lewis was at the mercy of no one. "She's as crazy as that detective bitch of yours. Aren't there any sane people around here? Preferably ones with balls. You got big black cojones, why don't you take over?"
Dana made an inviting gesture, pretending to step back and give Fin the floor. There was no way she would let him take over, but it didn't hurt to appear willing to share. Besides, she was pretty sure the sergeant had no interest in giving Parker anything he wanted, so there would be no turf wars or pissing contests in the one-six today. On the off chance that he might chew her out or report her to a superior for excessive force, she was prepared to stand her ground. But judging by the curled lip and the deep disdain on his features when he spared a glance at Parker, that wasn't going to be a problem, either.
"I ain't your bro," he said. "And she's in charge, so you best get your tiny white-boy cojones in gear 'fore she rips them off and stuffs them down your throat. You good?" He directed the last part at Dana, and when she nodded, looking him square in the eye, he turned on his heel and exited the room. The door closed solidly behind him, the observation window shuddering in its frame.
Detective Rollins wasn't the only one awaiting a signal, and Dana took the closed door and the flat reflection in the one-way as hers. She flashed herself a smile, aimed a wink in Amanda's general direction on the other side, and bent over Parker once more. "Fuck," he groaned under his breath, sitting back in the chair to distance himself from her face, looming like a thunderhead. God, she loved the jumpy ones.
"Okay, listen," he said, slicing his hands in different angles on the tabletop, as if he were enthusiastically cutting a pie. "That was all a misunderstanding, with the kid. Brat wandered off, was I supposed to just let her walk into traffic? Then you'd be in here trying to pin me with negligent homicide. I saved that little carrot top's life."
"Why'd you misidentify yourself to the child's caretaker Ms. Tyler? And why does she claim you intentionally absconded with the girl when there was a distraction?"
Parker threw his hands up as if he, too, were at a loss. "I guess she misunderstood what I said. Does she even speak English? Most of these nannies don't. I showed her my badge, can't help it if she assumed I was something other than a correctional officer like it says right on the front. She's probably trying to cover her ass for not watching the kid better, and using me to—"
"Why were you running away from the precinct with someone else's child in your arms?" Dana boomed, not waiting for the lightning flash to cue the noise. She shook the back of his chair, simulating the quake after a sky-splitting clap of thunder. "Detective Rollins saw your buddies in the van drive away. Same way they abducted Captain Benson three days ago. You're lucky the people working for you are smarter than you are, Mattie." She knocked on his forehead, and he hissed and grabbed his head like he was auditioning for a migraine commercial.
"Look, she said her mom was at the park, I wasn't trying to, what'd you call it, abspond with anyone. I don't know anything about a van, either. If there was one, I had nothing to do with it." He swiped his palms together, miming washing his hands of any responsibility. "Same with the Benson chick. Whatever Vaughny said is a lie. She's delusional, got this whole fantasy that I'm her boyfriend. If I don't play along, she tries to get me in trouble. That's why she's saying I'm involved. Bitch is crazy."
"Sounds like you think every woman you meet is a crazy bitch. That why you can't get laid? Have to go around raping vulnerable women like Liv and, what'd you call her, Vaughny?" Dana overpronounced the name, rolling her eyes at the corniness of it. She hadn't exactly foreseen the romance angle when she started fudging Sondra Vaughn's confession, but it fit. COs often exploited inmates for sex, or sometimes the other way around. Sometimes it was a two-way street.
Whatever the case with Vaughn and Parker, he had real feelings for her. It was written all over his dopey purple face. "I've never raped her! I wouldn't— did she tell you that? Why would she say I raped her?" He cast a distraught look to the observation window, as though he might cry out for help. He didn't go that far, but he did drop his palms heavily onto the table, like he meant to push to his feet and exit the room. "I need to make a phone call. Don't touch me. I've got the right to make a call, so gimme my cell or a landline or something. I said get off."
Dana put her hands up when he batted them away from his shoulders. She was tempted to keep returning them to the same spot, pulling them back, returning them, and so on, until he lost his cool completely. Childish, perhaps, but also highly satisfying. There wasn't time to play, though. He was already dragging this out longer than she had hoped. He should have caved and given up the other men as soon as he heard he was taking the fall for the rest of them. Maybe he was in deeper than Dana suspected.
She could let him beat around the bush some more, continue her solo rendition of good G-woman/bad G-woman, and hope he finally cracked. Meanwhile, Olivia was tied up in that disgusting shit hole, hanging on to her life and her sanity by a thread, possibly even being raped again, for all Dana knew, while she was in here dicking around with this jagoff. Or she could bend that arc of the moral universe a little more toward justice with her own two hands.
She always did have a mighty strong grip.
"I suppose we can accommodate you on that one, Mattie my boy," she said, unable to resist vigorously ruffling his thinning hair before she stepped back. It was a cheap shot, but sometimes you had to take them when you could get them. She hoped Amanda had enough life experience to have learned that lesson, in spite of her youthful appearance. The distant throbbing in the bridge of Dana's nose and the myriad of bruises splattered on Parker's face like paintball pellets were a pretty good indication that she had. "It's been a few hours. You probably need a potty break and some snacks too, huh?"
Parker peered at her, mystified and distrustful. He knew she had given in far too easily, but he was just stupid enough to take the bait. He hadn't even asked for a lawyer yet, probably thought he was still going to waltz out of the precinct a free man. "Yeah. Yeah, that'd be good. How about some pretzels and beer? Maybe a flat-screen to watch the game on?" His bloated lips quirked into a lopsided grin, his lame attempt at boyish charm.
Or maybe it was a sly reference to "the game" everyone in the squad room had been riveted by for the past three days. He was brought directly from holding into interrogation, his exposure to even a brief glimpse of the livestream as limited as possible, but he definitely knew they were watching. That was the whole point of streaming the rapes to begin with. Old Mattie boy might not realize it, but he had just sealed his fate, as far as Dana was concerned.
"Don't push your luck," she said, wearing a crocodile smile of her own. She hauled him up by the back of his shirt collar and cinched the bracelets on his wrists, giving him a motivating shove toward the exit. "Sprite and soda crackers will suit you just fine. Wouldn't want to send you to lockup with an upset tummy, now would we? Hey, Detective Rollins, you got any change for the vending machine?"
"No way I'm going out there if she's out there." Parker stopped short a few steps from the door, refusing to budge. He was a large man, about as solid as a tank, and Dana didn't have the strength to force him while he resisted. She couldn't tolerate his body against hers anyway. It was too similar to the physique of her rapist, Seth Coleman. She'd memorized him while he was inside of her, and once Dana Lewis had something committed to memory, she never forgot it. "Bitch tried to kill me."
"You're afraid of that itty-bitty little thing? Come on, Mattie, you probably got eighty pounds or more on her. She just had a baby not that long ago, you telling me you're that much weaker than a new mama who's unarmed and sleep-deprived from being up all hours with a baby caterwauling in her ear?" Dana stepped around him and went to the door, the handle in her grasp when she looked back. "Or you can hide in here, forget the phone call, piss yourself, and go hungry? Your decision."
Parker glanced at the one-way, his internal struggle written all over his face, despite the darkening bruises. In the end, his needs outweighed his fear. He really wanted that phone call. "Okay, fine. Just keep that blond hellcat away from me. She's worse than the meth heads they dump on us at Sealview. She ever been drug tested? 'Cause she has to be on some—"
His professional analysis of Amanda's so-called substance abuse—and she could very well be feeling the lasting effects of the shrink's ketamine ambush, he wasn't wrong there—broke off when they stepped out of the room and encountered the blond hellcat herself, iPad clutched protectively to her chest, and a deadly glare hardening her pretty features to cool, spiky quartz. She looked like she might open her mouth horror-movie wide, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth, and consume Matthew Parker whole, right there in the observation area of the one-six.
It would be one hell of a show.
Unfortunately, Fin stood in the way, blocking Amanda's path to the suspect and the source of her unfinished business. He intercepted Parker before anyone else got the chance, tugging the man's arm from Dana's grasp, frowning with displeasure. Most people had dimples that showed up when they smiled or laughed, but Sergeant Tutuola's were clearest when he was judging you. "I'll take his whiny ass to the bathroom," he said, grudgingly. "You two worry about the snacks and the landline. Asking for his cell phone like he's the queen of Sheba or some shit. Dumbfuck. Get going, Proud Boy, you got two minutes until I come in there and haul your ass out, finished or not." He jabbed the back of Parker's shoulder with his fingers, goading him down the hall to the men's room.
A lot can happen in two minutes, Sarge, thought Dana as she watched them go. With that in mind, she turned to Amanda and formed a plan on the spot. There were probably a million and one ways for it to go deeply, tragically wrong, but she was trained to make split-second decisions that ended in life or death all the time. You didn't second guess. You didn't turn back. "Go get that boy his snack, Detective. Grab a little something for yourself, too. You're lookin' a mite bit peaked."
"I don't want a goddamn snack, I want—"
"Amanda." Dana looked the detective hard in the eyes, infusing her words with as much meaning as she could, a hand propped on the grip of her sidearm, holstered at her hip. "I said get yourself something too, is that clear? I don't need you passing out and being wheeled out of here on a stretcher again. It's a distraction to the rest of us, and when people are distracted, mistakes get made. Details get overlooked, bad guys get away. Then I look like I can't do my job."
She paused just long enough to be certain Amanda was following, and caught a slight nod of the girl's blond head. At least she hoped it was a nod, for Olivia's sake, for Amanda's, and for Dana herself. "Right now, my job is to take Mr. Parker downstairs to make his phone call, and I can't very well march him through the squad room with what's on all those monitors out there, now can I?"
Amanda hugged the iPad tightly to her chest. The device returned only silence. "No, ma'am. You can't."
"Exactly. Which means I'm gonna have to walk his giant ass down all those stairs like I'm mama to a six-foot toddler, and I ain't in the mood. If he gives me trouble, I gotta know everyone's on their A-game. So you go get what you need, and make damn sure I can count on you to back me up if he pulls somethin'. Understood?"
"Yes." Amanda searched Dana's face with a hint of uncertainty, as if expecting it to burst into a big jokester grin or shout a belated "April Fool's!" at any second. But she was met with an unflinching gaze, a jaw as rigid as her own, and this time the nod left little doubt that she remembered the rules perfectly: clear head, clear eyes, clear heart. "I hear you, Agent Lewis," she said, giving vocal confirmation, "loud and clear."
Dana watched after the detective as she headed in the direction of the lounge area, instead of the break room and vending machines. "I hope you know what you're getting yourself into," she said under her breath.
To herself or to Amanda, she didn't know.
She got to work.
. . .
