Devil s Due Page 0,80

to ten-year-old kids and seventy-year-old grandmothers? Who raped when they wanted, stole when they wanted, and ran their block like some kind of prison camp? Or do you mean the girlfriend, who was so high she once sold her own two-year-old daughter to a pedophile to pay off a loan? Who couldn't even sober up enough to call the cops when her kid fell down the stairs and broke her neck, so she put her out with the garbage instead? God, Lucia. What do you think?"

There were tears in his eyes. Tears on his cheeks. She couldn't tell if they were from fury, pain or regret.

Or loss, the loss of what they'd nearly had, the loss of possibilities.

She didn't answer.

Eventually, he gave her the truth himself. "No. I didn't kill them, but God, I should have. The pictures exonerating me were legit. Still, the Cross Society would have let me rot in prison for something I didn't do. I figure they arranged the whole thing the first time so that I was in cold storage, so they could have me when they needed me."

He wiped his cheeks distractedly with the palm of his hand. Now that he'd started looking directly at her, he didn't seem to be able to stop. As if he was hungry for the sight of her, and knew this was going to be his last chance. "They wanted me to meet you," he said. "And they wanted me to get you in bed as soon as I possibly could." It hit her as funny, because she'd been braced for so I much worse. She laughed out loud, involuntarily, and covered her mouth with her hand. "That's it?" she asked, and swallowed lunatic giggles. 'That's their big master plan? Get us laid? You didn't even - "

She stopped. All of the humor fell away, down a black hole that didn't seem to have any bottom to it at all. "I was going to say you didn't even try," she said slowly. "But that's not true, is it? That first night. The apartment. You thought about it."

"No," he said hoarsely. "I wanted it. I needed you. I mean, I would have done it if it had just been sex, but dammit, you were - do you understand? I looked at you and I wanted you. Not a lie. I wanted something real, not just - "

She remembered him pulling away and stalking to the window. Drinking his beer in convulsive gulps. Do they call cabs, your guys downstairs?

His choice. And again, the second time. She'd asked him back to the apartment. He'd - turned her down. She'd even been surprised by it. Hurt by it.

"I thought that this one time, at least, I could make a decision for myself. But I couldn't. They took it away from me."

"Oh, God. Ben, what's in the envelope?"

"Proof that I'm no longer necessary in all this."

"Show me."

He opened the envelope. There were pictures inside. She saw him look down at them, and he made a sound, an animal groan of pain, and slid down the door to a crouch. Staring at the photos. Shuffling through them. "You bastards," he whispered. "They made these for me. Just to show me how little I matter. How they can take everything away." She couldn't stand it. She lunged forward and grabbed for them. He moved, lightning-quick, and took hold of her forearms, pulling her down to her knees.

The photos spilled over the concrete floor between them, glowing in the lurid red light. Black-and-white photos, taken from above. Grainy, as if ripped from a surveillance feed.

A woman lying on a white hospital-style bed, wearing a loose gown.

Knees up. Feet in stirrups. Some kind of medical procedure. Some kind of...

Lucia cried out and buried her face in McCarthy's shoulder. In his warmth and strength. He kissed the top of her head and rocked her, and she twisted to stare at the photos again, silent now.

The stroking of his hand on her hair was almost hypnotic. "It's all a game to them. Percentages," he said. "Anthrax to get you sick and vulnerable, and keep you running scared. They'd planned to check you into the hospital and get it done there, but Eidolon kept disrupting things, forcing their hand. I didn't carry through on getting you in bed, but it didn't matter, they had a backup plan. When you finally did collapse, when you were unguarded - they took you."

She stared at the photographs. The details of an invasion