Chapter 1
It was hard not causingsignificant bodily harm to the poor excuse of a woman sitting across fromme.
Patrol caught her running through the middle of one of the busiest Brooklyn streets—naked with a bloody steak knife—while the middle school student she just stabbed lay bleeding in her tiny one-bedroom apartment. He was only twelve.Shewas his teacher. Another student – male, thirteen – was alsoinvolved.
Next to me sat Detective Ryan Cage. He was holding out one of the young male’s cell phones in front of the woman, swishing his fingers across the screen for her to see. “Mrs. Robins,” he began with a growl. “We know you’ve been having sexual intercourse with bothstudents.”
I swallowed hard,sickened.
The images were disgusting. Disturbing.Deplorable. To quell my nausea, I tried filling my head with images of unicorns and cooing babies; none of ithelped.
The animal across from us didn’t bat aneye.
“Right there, that’s two separate counts of statutory rape,” I explained through tightlips.
She still didn’t evenblink.
I cleared my throat a little too loudly—an unsettling crawling sensation quickly spread over my skin, and I almost choked on a swallow. Ryan angled his body toward mine and narrowed his eyes. He held the pictures on the phone away from me then, and I felt better instantly. I didn't want to see any more of them; the one kid looked like he was no more than seven years old.How could any woman find thatappealing?
“Excuse me.” I coughed softly, finding my voice again. “What we need to know now is what you were doing running naked through the street with a knife covered in Tyler Kenton’sblood.”
She shook her head repeatedly and glanced behind her as if the answers were breathing down herback.
“I was trying to…” she started to mumble, but her words faded to nothing. She then fell abnormally still; so still, I thought she might have been holding her breath, trying to make herself passout.
“What were you doing there, Mrs. Robins?” My voice was unusually loud.I needed to rein in my feelings, or I was going to vomit all over thetable.
Her eyes clouded over briefly, then focused, only to cloud over again. I glanced quickly at Ryan and rolled my eyes.Was she going to play the temporary insanitycard?
She leaned her elbows forward against the table and slipped her hands through her hair. Her fingers fisted the strands as her hands gripped at her scalp. Her eyes squeezed shut so tightly, they whitened and reddened around the edges of her temples andforehead.
“Mrs. Robins?” I repeated, without emotion. “Can you help me understand what you were doing in thestreet?”
“Naked with a bloody steak knife,” Ryan added, his knee bobbing anxiously under thetable.
With a sudden jolt, she leaned back on the metal chair and clenched her hands in her lap. “They were fighting. I was trying to stop it.” She leaned forward and pointed her finger down at the table. “I ran for help. That's why I was on thestreet.”
“But first you got naked?” Ryan deadpanned. “Then picked up a knife instead of a phone?” He turned his attention to me again and raised his eyebrows. I met with his dramatic stare. "Doyoursteak knives dial 911, Detective Ward?” he asked me in a seriously darktone.
“They certainly do not,” I answered, turning my gaze back onto Mrs.Robins.
Her eyes darted to mine with a pleading look. “Iwasgoing to gethelp.”
“Here’s the thing with what you’re saying that I’m having trouble with,” I said slowly. Her eyes drooped and looked blankly at my lips as I spoke. “There’s about a half-dozen witnesses who watched you run out of your apartment after Curtis, with a bloody knife, screaming you were going to—” I looked down at the papers in front of me—the statements from the witnesses, and read the same line on each of them. "You were quoted as saying youwere going to slice his motherfucking cheating cock off.”I leaned back against my chair, folding my hands across my chest. “That doesn’t sound to us like you were working hard to get help. It sounds to me like you were chasing down your next victim.” I shrugged. My head was starting to pound, and my lips felt cracked and dry. I grabbed my water bottle off the table and twisted off the cap. Mrs. Robins licked her lips and followed my movementscarefully.
“You do realize the knife you were holding? It matches the stab wounds on Tyler’s arms and legs,” Ryan explainedslowly.
He bit down on his lips, trying to stifle a yawn. I felt his exhaustion like a living, breathing entity sitting at the table with us. We’d been at work for twelve hours when they brought Mrs. Robins in. And she’d been seated in the interrogation room for at least three hours, unable to explain athing.
“I would never hurt…” Her eyes were suddenly huge, darting back and forth between me and Ryan frantically, chin quivering. "I would never hurt either of them. They were fighting, and I…uh…I stopped it.” All the color from her face drained instantly. “I took the knife out of Curtis’ hand. He was hurting Tyler…I…I would never hurt thoseboys.”
I had to brace myself not to recoil at her in utter disgust. “You were havingsexual relationswith both thosechildren, Mrs.Robins.”
I grabbed the cell phone out of Ryan’s hand and tapped open a video of her andboth boysin the most heinous, revolting child pornography I had ever witnessed. The sounds alone made me press a hand to my stomach and my throat burn withbile.
“You are a thirty-two-year-old adult—theirmarriedteacher. I think you were already way beyond hurtingthem—”
An ear-shattering shriek tore out of her throat as her fists slammed down on the table. “No, no, no! You wouldn’t understand, you stupid dyke cunt! I would never, never hurt them! I love them.” She bared her teeth and jutted her chin high. “They love me. You don’tunderstand.”
