“You understand your bail’s been revoked? You’re now remanded into custody until your trial, through your trial, and with what we have, for multiple lifetimes thereafter.”
He pressed his lips together, but tried a careless shrug. “We’ll pay another bond. You won’t keep me in here.”
As if surprised, Eve sat back. “You actually believe that. Let me tell you something Mommy won’t. You removed a court-ordered monitor, accessed false identification, arranged for a flight to a country without extradition to the United States, and were, when recaptured, about to board a private shuttle in order to escape…”
She couldn’t help herself.
“The long arm of the law. Those actions negate any possibility—I meanany—for a reinstatement of bond in any amount.”
“Whatever it is, my mother will pay.”
“Jonathan.” Now she leaned forward. “Listen to the words. There will be no bail hearing. You have forfeited the right to any consideration thereof. You have added a whole new list of charges. Serious charges. Your mother also faces a list of serious charges, and as she has proven herself to be a flight risk with the means to procure what she needs to do so, there will be no bail for her, in any amount. Mommy will very likely die in prison.”
“You don’t know her. She’ll beat you. She always wins.”
“Your lawyer has withdrawn from your case, and she’s unable, so far, to find a replacement. I’m already winning.”
She opened the box she’d brought in. “Fake ID, including passport.”She tossed them on the table. “A new ’link, registered to the fake ID with Mommy’s private numbers already loaded in. Cash, ten thousand in Venezuelan bolivars, the documentation to your bank account in Caracas under your fake name, containing a hundred million. You’ve got a hotel suite booked, under the fake ID. Just until the sale’s completed on the villa she bought for you.
“Oh, and here’s the monitor she paid to have removed. Shaun Ye’s been very cooperative. All this is cut-and-dried, Jonathan. You’re both going down. Does it bother you, at all, to know your mother’s going to spend the rest of her life in a cage?”
On a sniff, he looked away. “I don’t have to talk to you.”
“I think it doesn’t, not really. Because you first, right? Always you first.”
As Jenkinson had in the last interview, she tossed the crime scene shots on the table. Slowly in this case, one at a time.
And she watched the pride and excitement light in Jonathan’s dark blue eyes.
“I guess it’s not much to worry about when you’ll already be caged for taking the lives of these human beings.”
He sat back, tried to cross his arms. When the restraints stopped him, a bit of panic flickered. Then he shrugged.
“Peabody, why don’t you do the honors this time?”
“Happy to.” Peabody began to unload a second box. “We have the barbiturates used to dose Leesa Culver, Bobby Ren, Janette Whithers.”
“Those are my prescribed medications for anxiety.”
Oh, he couldn’t help but talk, Eve thought.
“They’re also what you used to incapacitate the three people you killed,” Peabody said, and continued. “We have the wire you used to pose their bodies after you strangled them.”
“Wire? I’m an artist! It’s wire to hang paintings.”
“Glue, used, again, on the bodies of your victims.”
“Please.” He let out a snort of a laugh. “What household doesn’t have glue?”
“These were taken from your residence.”
“So what?”
“And they match—exactly—what you used on the victims. We have these, the clothing, the other personal effects of those three victims, also found in your apartment.”
“Planted, by you.”
“Not only was the entire search recorded, but how the hell did we get the clothing each victim wore on the night they were killed?” Peabody demanded.
