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“They killed Fred. They made me watch.”
She said nothing when Roarke took a blanket from a sofa, tossed it over the shivering man. But she thought: You like to watch.
She hunkered down, looked him in his blackened, swollen eyes. “I’ll get your full statement after you’ve had medical attention, but for now, Marshall Easterday, you’re under arrest for multiple counts of false imprisonment, for rape, for sexual assault, for conspiracy to rape.”
“You can’t—you can’t—”
“Just did.” She stepped aside when the MTs rushed down, but took one by the arm. “This man is under arrest. When you transport him, he’ll be restrained, and will remain restrained. A uniformed officer will ride in the bus with him, and remain with him at all times. Understood?”
“Got it. Better let us work on him, get him stable enough to transport. He looks in bad shape.”
“Fix him up good,” Eve told them, and as they went to work on Easterday, she read him his Revised Miranda rights.
“Our two are on their way to Holding,” Baxter told Eve when he came back down. “The other two are about to be. They didn’t give our guys any trouble. How about him?”
“He’s been read his rights. I’ll have Carmichael select an officer to stick with him.” She handed her restraints to Baxter. “Lock him to the gurney when they get him on one. I need to check in with the rest of the team.”
“I’ve got it. Some place,” he added as she turned.
“Yeah.” A replica of the room in the recording. Some updates, some additions, but the Brotherhood had probably made the same. They’d brought the men into the nightmare, and turned it on them.
The women, Eve thought, had brought their past with them.
She went upstairs, saw Peabody with MacKensie and a woman she recognized from the sketches as Grace Carter Blake.
“You don’t know what they did to us.” MacKensie’s voice trembled. “You don’t know what they made us.”
“Hush now.” Blake consoled her. With the coat she’d worn on Su’s security feed over simple white pajamas, she stood, shoulders straight, eyes exhausted.
“She needs to know. They destroyed us. They took our lives.”
“You’ll have the chance to tell me,” Eve said. “Peabody, did you read them their rights?”
“Done. I can take them in.”
“No, I need you elsewhere. Have them transported. We’ll talk later,” she said to both women.
“We will all be invoking our right to counsel,” Blake said.
“You go right ahead.”
“You don’t understand,” MacKensie began, but Blake cut her off.
“Carlee, not now. Lawyer.” Blake stared through Eve. “We say nothing without our legal counsel. And as a lawyer, I’ll stand in as same until we’re able to contact other.”
“No, you won’t. If you’re a lawyer and not an idiot, you understand you’re under arrest for conspiracy to murder, among other charges, all connected to the other suspects. That conflict of interest precludes you acting as counsel, except for yourself. Get them gone, Peabody.”
She rubbed her eyes, pulled out her ’link.
“Don’t tell me.” Curled in bed, video unblocked, Reo kept her eyes shut. “Another warrant.”
“I’ve just busted the murder ring, and the raping brotherhood, and made five arrests.”
Reo’s eyes popped open.
“You’re going to want to tell your boss, and meet me at St. Alban’s, where I’ll be questioning Marshall Easterday.”
She clicked off, nearly turned into Roarke. “Don’t ask,” she said, anticipating him. “The answer is I’m fine. I need to finish this, and it’s going to take some time. But . . . I could use you and that damn copter later. I’m not going to finish until I see the Brotherhood house. We won’t have much trouble finding it now.”
