“Hurt how?”
“I don’t know, okay?” Mavis snapped it back again. “I don’t. He saw the media reports, and he’s been working on convincing her to talk to you.”
“So he tags you up, puts you in the middle of it.”
“Yeah, he tagged me up because he figured I’d have a better shot at getting you to agree to her conditions than he would going direct. Tell me he’s wrong.”
“Conditions, my ass.”
“You’re really being an asshole, so Number Two and I are going to take a walk around the room and simmer it. Peabody, could I get some water?”
“Sure.” And reading the room, Peabody left it rather than using the AC.
“He didn’t tell me a lot,” Mavis continued as she walked. “But I saw the reports, too. And he told me enough for me to figure out it’s more than that poor dead girl and this scared-out-of-her-shit one. It’s all these. We know what it’s like.”
She turned back, eyes still hot, but brimming now. “I don’t know exactly what this is, but I can buy a fricking clue, and we know what it’s like, you and me. So you’re really pissed off, and I’m really pissed off. And all I can think is what if somebody took Bella, took her and hurt her, and—”
“Don’t. Don’t do that.” Struggling to find her calm again, Eve pressed her fingers to her eyes. “He had no business bringing you into it, because you know what it’s like, and because you’d go there.”
“You don’t get pissed for me.” Mavis jabbed a finger toward Eve. “I can do that all by and for myself. And if you stop being pissed for a minute, you know why he came to me.
“You don’t have to like him. You don’t have to like or get what he does. But I know without him at that point in my life, I could’ve been on that board. He was what I needed when I needed it. Right now he’s what this girl needs.”
“What she needs is medical assistance and police protection. And those girls on the board, what they need is for her to tell me every goddamn thing she knows.”
“Great, mag, awesomelutely.” Mavis sat again, one hand running light circles over her belly. She glanced over as Peabody came back. “Thanks. So here it is.”
She took the moment to crack the tube, sip some water.
“She’s agreed—and I get the impression he had to tap dance, do backflips, and juggle at the same time—to talk to you, at a neutral location. Which is the house, our house.”
“Mavis—”
“Please.” Reaching out, Mavis took and gripped Eve’s hand. “She won’t come into Central. Jesus, neither would I back in my time. But she’ll meet you, talk to you at my place if you make some promises. Sebastian knows—and he’s convinced her—you won’t lie to me. And I won’t lie to them.”
“What promises?”
“You don’t arrest her. Dallas, she didn’t kill that other girl.”
“I know that. Peabody?”
“Whoever did,” Peabody began, “tried to throw it on Dorian. We know that. She’s a witness, not a suspect.”
“You have to promise not to arrest her,” Mavis repeated. “Or send her back to her mother, or yank her into the system, a foster home, a safe house. She feels safe right now.”
“You want me to promise to let a key witness go off to an unknown location with a guy who runs a gang of kids who grift and steal?”
“It’s not a gang, really. It’s more a kind of family. But wait. Sebastian thinks, once she’s talked to you, we’ll be able to convince her to go to an official safe house until you find who murdered Dorian’s friend. Especially if you let one of the kids, the kid who found her, go with her.”
“Dallas?” Peabody, very carefully, dipped a toe in again. “First priority is to find her, talk to her, get everything she knows. We can work out the rest. EDD’s still working on the op in the meantime.”
“You can’t charge or arrest Sebastian, either,” Mavis said quickly. “She trusts him, Dallas, and if you go after him for this, she’s not going to trust you.”
“You know if I agree to this, I’d have to go around command for it. More, they’ll know where you live, or will live.”
“I know what you think of him, but I know what I know. Sebastian would never do anything to hurt me or mine. And guess what? That includes your stubborn ass.