Transcript

Untitled – February 11, 2026

00:00:00 Speaker: Everyone welcome once again to Podcast In Death, the weekly podcast where we discuss the In Death series of books by J.D. Robb. I am AJ, I’m Jen, I’m Tara, and this is episode two twelve of podcasts in Death. And in this episode, we are going to talk about the novella Taken in Death, which originally was part of the mirror. Mirror. I think was the yeah, mirror, mirror anthology. This is one of our last novellas, isn’t it? Is there just one more left? Isn’t this just wonderment? Wonderment comes up. Yeah, I think just wonderment. Just. Yeah. I couldn’t think of any second to the last. Yeah, which is kind of sad because I generally enjoy the novellas. They’re okay. This one’s a little wacky. This one’s a little wacky. It’s a little wacky. It’s not on the. It’s not on the level of bad that chaos is, but it’s a little. It’s not even just wacky. It’s like this woman’s a, like, cannibal. Like. Yeah. Like. Yeah. Absolutely insane. So, um, although I, you know, I listened to it, so I do appreciate Susan’s reading of it. Oh. I’m sorry. Yeah, it’s just weird, and I didn’t. So maybe I didn’t listen all that closely to it, and maybe I fell asleep during part of it. I don’t know, but because I sat there once, it was done and went. Did I miss a sex scene? No. There’s one. Okay. I must have missed it. Yeah. There’s one. It must have been really short. It’s very brief. It must have been really short. It’s when they switch off during like. Because they, you know, they’re all together at the house because they’re trying to triangulate with the toy. And so Eve decides that they’re going to go to teams and they like, we’re going to we’re going to send half of us to my place, and half of you stay here, and then we’ll switch off. So her and Roarke go home with Feeny, and I can’t remember who else. Jenkinson and somebody else. And, yeah, all the old people, I think, is what they were. All the old people, basically all the old people. And so, um, then she, you know, she has a nightmare. And. Yeah, they do the thing. Yeah. Okay. I remember the nightmare. So I don’t know what happened. And maybe it was because I, I remember rolled right into it. So it wasn’t like clear that the dream had ended and the. Yeah, that’s what I remember. Yeah. It was yeah. She was having a dream. Very murky. Yeah. It seemed it seemed weird because yeah, I remember listening to it and, and uh, we had gone on a walk and at the, by the end of the walk, I think she was starting to have the dream where she was in the dream or something like that. Okay. And then later on, and maybe it somehow, like skipped and I didn’t realize it, or if it was like one or two pages and I didn’t realize it skipped ahead a little bit. It wasn’t. Something happened. It was maybe a half a page. It was not long. It was very, very brief. So yeah, I must have missed it. But yeah, I was I got to the end and was like, I didn’t there wasn’t a sex scene. They didn’t do the thing. What? You didn’t do the thing. What? What the heck? No, they did the thing. They did. I so I swear to God, I was listening to. I don’t know what I was watching, um, on, on it was on the tick tocks. And they were talking about. It was alive. Yeah. And there was a guy and a girl, and they were talking about something, and she swear to God, said, do the did the thing as a euphemism for sex. And I was like. I don’t know. That would be funny if I that would be really funny. Yeah. But, um, anyway, I just thought it was funny, and I didn’t. I didn’t prepare enough for this one, so I don’t have a theme. I’m sure there is one. But, um, in the novellas, it’s a little harder. Cannibalism. Cannibalism? Maybe. Perhaps. Hey, I’m just going for levity here, guys. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don’t know. I didn’t, you know, it’s just I was like, ah, you know, so. But sorry, guys, I didn’t I didn’t come up with a theme. You’re going to have to do that on your own. You come up with it for us. Um, so you work for us listeners. Yeah. So, um. Just kidding. So, yeah, this starts with the prologue, and it’s from the point of view of the little boy. There’s a there’s two twins, a boy and a girl. They, uh, are being taken out of their house. And you’re seeing from the boy’s point of view. Right. And you know that. It’s just saying that he. That he saw their nanny on the floor and there was blood and everything felt funny and sleepy and wrong. And, um, he knew he was under a spell. The evil witch’s magic spell. Um, and it’s saying the evil witch made Henry and his twin gala wait while she packed bags for them. And then they went to the car, and she made the children lie down on the back seat and, um, told them that she was gonna take them to a special place made of sugar plums and chocolate icing. Uh, blah blah. You know, it’s it’s, um. So. Yeah, so it’s from his point of view. And so it’s just basically that they’re being taken out of their home. Kidnapped? Yeah. Um. And that the witch looked like his mommy. And then the list. Yes. The witch looked like his mother. So that’s how they knew it was a spell, I guess. Yeah. Um, so then it talks about the next thing we see. Chapter one is Eve at the scene investigating. Um, and the the nine one one caller is another nanny, a friend of the the nanny. Her name is Darcia because we like to reuse names. Um, uh, this this nanny, um, was, uh, worried because, uh, they were going to go do something. Are they going to go on a walk or something like that? And Darcia was a no show. Walk the kids to school. Yeah. So, um, Darcia was a no show, so she went to see what was going on, and, um, found Darcia and called nine hundred eleven. Uh, they put out an Amber alert immediately. Um, and they searched the residence for the children in case they’re hiding. Um, there’s no sign of burglary. And when he watches the security disk, she sees a woman getting out of a car crossing the sidewalk to the entrance. She rings the bell and slashes out with her knife when the door is answered, probably catching the occupant’s throat. Eve can picture the rest of the scene, cutting the hand, the arm, the shoulder, and then the throat again for the for the kill, ending it by carving a pentagram, uh, into the woman with the tip of a knife. Um, the next scene on the cam, the, the, um, Security desk is the woman leading the two children out, and they have glazed eyes and, uh, they’re carrying a bag over each arm as the kids climb into the back seat of a car. Um, they’re swaying toward each other like miniature drunks. She stows the totes in the trunk and slides behind the wheel, throws her head back and laughs, then pulls away. Because that’s that’s what evil people do. That’s what evil people do. Exactly. Definitely evil. And friends. Whoa! Yeah. Really good. Don’t do that. So the vehicle that she’s driving is registered to the children’s parents, Ross and Tasha McDermott. And the woman is Tasha. According to the officer, um, essentially, one of the officers on scene goes like, that’s the mother, right? They’ve already looked her up and saw her. They looked the parents up and saw their photos of them. So they recognized that that was the mother, or at least it looked like the mother. But they’re thinking it’s the mother. Even though the mother and the father are supposed to be on vacation. Um, so even interviews the other nanny, Elena Cortez, who tells them she was worried when Darcy and the kids didn’t meet them to walk to school together. So after she dropped her charges off at school, she came back to the house where she found the door unlocked and saw Darcy lying on the floor. As they’re investigating, uh, the mcdermotts come home and they rush up to the house wondering what’s going on and where their children are, and Eve is very like she’s convinces the mom so she’s being very like, oh, you should know where the children are. Like, yeah, like, okay. You know, because she thinks it’s the mom. And she explained that she saw everything on the security footage. And it’s. The mom came in and, uh, took the kids and the husband, Ross insists they were in New Zealand, so that’s impossible. And that’s when Tasha realizes that her twin, Madge, is the one who killed Darcia and kidnapped the children. Um, so then she tells Eve and Peabody about the horrible past with her sister and about how she’s a psychopath. That’s wild. Psychopath is mild. Like, um, there’s a word. I don’t think there’s a word for that woman. I mean, she’s like, it just, like is insane. Insane like insane squared. And it’s psychopathic and narcissistic and lots of other like. Psychiatry terms on top of that. Right. So question for you guys. Um, I know you have watched Sherlock, have you, Jen? I’ve watched a lot of it. Yeah. I haven’t watched all of it. Oh, okay. Well, never mind, because I don’t want to spoil it. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I don’t I don’t mind spoilers. This I don’t know if this if this. Um, so if anyone has not seen the final episode of Sherlock. Um. Surprise. Sherlock has a secret psychopath sister who tried to murder him when they were small children. Obviously this is in this version. It’s not, um, Conan Doyle’s version of. Right, sure. Yeah. It’s a batch. Yeah. Um, but. Yeah. Um, but as I was, as I was reading this this time, I was like, that’s very much like how this story, how she, like, was a fucking psycho as a child and was locked away by their oldest brother. So, you know, obviously their family locked away. And I was like, this is very similar. Um, when was the last episode of Sherlock? Twenty seventeen okay, this was out in twenty thirteen. I just checked the date. Yeah, yeah. So what did you do? I mean. I mean, I’m sure they didn’t really. Not. Probably not. It’s probably very much a coincidence. A lot of stories out there that we just. I’m sure there’s. I mean, evil, evil twins are kind of a trope in fiction. Yeah. That’s true. They are. Yeah. So that’s not the, uh. Cannibalistic thing is like. Well, okay. But anyway, as I was, I was like, oh, this feels very. It’s not my favorite. That is not my favorite. No, that is an understatement. That’s probably one thing I would cancel a romance hero for. Cannibalism. Cannibalism? Sorry. That’s that’s even if he regrets it later. EJ I mean, even if he regrets it later, that seems like that’s unless he was dead or something on, like, a desert island. Yeah, like, what if he’s in a plane crash and there’s nothing around to eat? He’s gotta eat something. Okay. I mean, plane crash? Sure. Haven’t you ever. Like I said, have you ever heard of the Donner Party? Yeah. Party? Yeah. Donner party. Um, yeah. So we had this discussion earlier. Um, uh, listeners that you didn’t hear the discussion, but what romance hero story arc like? Can can there be an irredeemable romance hero? Like, what could he do? You know, there’s a lot of things I will put up with for a story. But. Yeah, because everything has extenuating circumstances. In some cases. If you’re a member of the Donner Party, I suppose it’s okay, you know. Okay, we’ll let that go. Yeah, we’d still find it kind of gross, but we’ll let it go. So, yeah, um, there’s no sign of a burglary, blah, blah. The parents come home. Eve is, like, very accusatory of the mother. Mother’s like, no, you have to understand, this is my twin sister, blah, blah. And then they look up information on the twin sister and then it’s like, oh, okay. So yes, the twin sister. You really do have an evil twin sister? Yeah. The twin sister, uh, killed their father. Yes. And tried to kill the other sister on at least one occasion. Yeah. Um, so they had to put her. They had to put her in a mental institution. A criminal mental institution. And the other sister ended up changing her name and everything, so she couldn’t be found. She was kind of almost like witness protection, but not really. So the way that she, um, identified that it was, in fact, the sister was that, um, she carved a small pentagram on the left breast and shoulder of Garcia, and she did the same thing to her father, right. And she did the same thing to several other people. So that’s how they know there are like crimes to the woman. Tasha explains that, um, she had legally removed from her records after she killed their father and tried to kill her when they were twelve. Uh, she tells Eve that they are nearly identical, but for a small pentagram Marge has between her left breast and shoulder. Marge has the darkness in her and has hated Tash Tasha since they were in the womb together. That’s some pretty strong hate. That’s real strong, uh, for being part of her. For preventing her from being the only and the one. Tasha begs Eve to find the children before Marge hurts them, which she will do because she is evil and knows it will hurt Tasha, she explains to Eve that their mother died in childbirth, and and, um, Marge blamed her for that. After Marge killed their father, she was committed. Marge had tried to kill Tasha because their father had punished her for stealing Tasha’s doll and burning it. Like what? An evil little girl. Really crazy. Um, the, uh. He took Marge’s doll away, and she was confined to her room for a week. Tasha. Since Marge trying to find and kill her. So she made her mind quiet and still because they could communicate with each other through their minds. I obviously am not a twin, so I don’t know if that’s like a thing, but I’ve heard that it is. I mean, I’ve, I haven’t heard a full-on like communicating with each other the way they do in this like they do. But I have cousins that are twins. Do they talk to each other with their minds? Very unlikely They are. They are not terribly close. You always hear those stories about twins. Like weird things where like, they’re separated at birth or whatever, and then they finally find each other and they get together and it’s like, um, they they have similar hairstyles, they dress alike, they like the same things, they dislike the same things. And you go like, huh, that’s interesting. But yeah, I think this goes a little bit beyond that. So, yeah, Marge killed their father in his sleep, stabbing his heart and cutting his throat before carving a pentagram on him and drinking his blood because, uh. Yeah, that’s gross. Right? Gross. She and Ross came home a day early to surprise Darcy and the kids. She tells Eve that Darcy was her true sister. Also that Henry and Gala don’t know about mage. Uh, Henry and Gala wake up in a bedroom with no windows and a locked door. The table has a tea set with cupcakes, gumdrops, and frosted cookies. They know they shouldn’t eat or drink anything, but they’re so thirsty, so they drink some cherry fizzes from the teapot and gobble up the treats. Henry convinces gala that the evil witch is not their mother, that she cast a spell to look like her. He says their parents will send a good witch to fight the bad witch and take them home. So obviously we’re starting to get some, um, you know, Hansel and Gretel vibes here? Oh, yeah. I mean, they mention it a little bit later on in the book. They actually say something about Hansel and Gretel, but, I mean, I think it’s obvious by this time that, like, we’re getting. Right. That’s what the vibe is here. Henry telepathically tells gala that he took the jamboree to bed with him. And a jamboree is apparently like a little kind of like a walkie talkie. But it has a little bit more features because you can, like, record onto there and stuff like that. And it’s got, like, limited internet availability and right send messages and that sort of thing. Yeah. So he took it to bed with him and it’s in his secret pocket. He says he will send messages to the Good Witch to help her find them, but they can’t let the bad witch know or she’ll take it away. Madge comes in and tells the kids this is their new home, and they’ll soon be fat enough to eat. Yum yum yum. Like, okay. That’s gross. Her the the, um, the like point of view from her is just. I laughed out loud a few times. I was like, she’s just wild. So Eve has the mcdermotts move to a safe house while Peabody gets all the available info on Madge Borgstrom, Eve calls Doctor Myra and asks her to talk to the medical staff in charge of Madge while she was committed, and then calls Rorke, who happens to know the Prime Minister of Sweden. Because, because? Because of course he does. It’s like, um, is the Prime minister. Good enough for you? Okay. Yeah. Come on. I mean, he is Rorke after all, right? Yeah. He knows everyone. She puts Jenkinson and Reinecke on protection detail and brings in. Ed to set up a phone tap. Uh, Eve calls Whitney, and they justify calling Agent Teasdale of the. So since it’s an international incident, if mage entered the US illegally, um, even Peabody. Go to the garage where the Mcdermotts have their car. Uh, finding out that mage tricked her way into. Gaining access by pretending to be Tasha and saying she forgot her swipe and couldn’t remember her code. Uh, the owner being Francis, belatedly realizes that it wasn’t Tasha since there was an accident, since there was an accident, and she laughed differently. Okay, I don’t want to. I don’t want to be like. Because it’s Natasha’s fault, but like this. This is what happens when you don’t tell people about your secret past evil sibling. I mean, that’s fair. Well, you know, I totally felt bad for that guy. Yeah, I felt so bad for him. I felt so bad for being, like, poor guy. He felt terrible. Yeah, he did feel terrible. What happens when you don’t tell people about your secret evil? I mean, you can’t go around saying, oh, by the way, to every single person that owns a garage that my twin tried to kill my or tried to kill me and killed our father. I think it’s blood. Yeah, it’s not just so, you know, just not somebody that’s not something that we, you know, typically talk about if you have, you know, you don’t generally tell people about that. Fair enough. Yeah. And I You mean you would? But maybe not the the guy that owns the garage where you keep your garage, right? I know no matter how nice he seems. Um. I’m just kidding. Okay. I it makes sense now. I read it and I was like, what the fuck is going on now? Um, Eve finds a disc with a monkey in a bathing suit tucked in the back seat. Ah. And I just got the weirdest visual in my head. Sorry. Go on. And Peabody tells her it’s for a kind of PPC that has games and limited communication. Uh, Francis says it’s for a jamboree. And that he’s seen Henry with that, and that he has one upstairs that he uses with his grandson. Um, they play the disc, see that evening’s events up to bedtime. And then Henry whispers that the evil witch has gala and him, and that she killed Darcia and tell daddy to come get us. I don’t feel good. We had to drink it. It says, um. Tell the good witch to come and bring daddy. Please. We’re scared. Um. Eve calls and asks him what he knows about the jamboree and asks if he can boost the range on one, and he says yes, he can. Uh, Peabody finds galas jamboree, but Eve worms Eve warns her not to use it in case Madge is in the same room and hears it, and they need to wait until Henry contacts them. I just love that Feeney gets to play with toys well, and Feeney loves when Feeney gets to play with toys too, right? Really real happy for you, Feeney. Right? We’re always happy when Feeney gets what he wants. Eve finds out that the last two doctors who treated Madge are dead, with the second one, Doctor Phillip Edquist, son of the first one, Doctor Dolf Edquist, killed, while Maj had been escaped from a halfway house for about a week. Doctor Philip had withdrawn three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash two days before his murder, and had arranged for a private shuttle for two to Argentina. Also missing eighty five thousand dollars in jewelry and other easily portable valuables. And the secondary false ID for the woman, i.e. Maj. So yeah, she had been, um, in a halfway house. The younger doctor told everybody, oh, you know, she’s fine. She can go to a halfway house, don’t worry. Which she was not fine. Not fine. Newsflash she was not. All miracles to tell Eve that the senior doc died of a cardiac arrest thirty minutes after a session with Maj. Which is very suspicious. Yeah, um. Very suspicious. Who had been spending a lot of time in the infirmary learning about alternative medicine. There were two other suspicious deaths during her stay. A patient who was stabbed and a medical mirror tells Eve that Madge is paranoid, delusional, and believes that her sister’s very existence threatens her. Baxter, Trueheart, and the members of Ed arrive at the McDermott’s house, where they are setting up HQ. Henry and Gala are playing when Madge comes in and she grabs the doll from Gala’s hands, threatening to cut her head off. When Henry jumps to his feet, she threatens to cut Gala’s head off, slit her throat like she did with the nanny. She asks him what Henry’s doing and he tells her he built a fort. Madge then kicks it down and tells him it doesn’t look like a fort. That he doesn’t know how to build anything and that he’s stupid. She asks him if he wants to play with her knife When Henry tells her they’re not allowed to play with knives, she says that she is and proceeds to cut his arm, then lick the blood off the knife. After Marge leaves, gala tends to Henry’s wound. So yes, she’s a psychopath. Yeah. Wow. Also, like, come on. She’s like, oh, look at how much she’s enjoying, like, being mean to children. Yeah, right. It’s it’s kind of gross. Fucking stupid. Yeah. It’s. Wow. Yeah. So this is this is what, you know, maybe this is irredeemable for somebody. Um, but, yeah, I think I think this would be. I mean, for me, it would be, I don’t know. Yeah. For sure. Um, so Ed is working on boosting the range of the toy, and they figure the kids are within a few blocks based on how long the car was gone. Fini lets Eve know that the toy is manufactured by one of Roarke’s companies and nobody’s surprised, shocked and amazed. Everybody’s, you know, so shocked. What? Roarke owns that Teasdale arrives, bringing an FBI agent in with her. They agree to take the parents, moving them to a safe house closer to the townhouse. Teasdale and Eve agree that Marge won’t want to keep the kids long, since there are a lot of work and that she’ll most likely kill kill one so they can send proof of life and death to Tasha, bringing grief, panic, and a desperation to save the remaining child. Henry has been reaching out with no reply, and is now worried that the evil witch is also a vampire. I mean, you know, I can’t blame him. Yeah, she drank the blood. I mean, no, no normal person drinks blood. So Eve is trying to figure out where Marge is keeping the children, ruling out an apartment or a condo. She decides it’s going to be a locked, windowless room inside a detached unit, and she probably didn’t restrain the kids since, Henry said second. That was when they listened to the disc. He said something about second. Yeah. And she’s thinking Second Avenue calendar gets a week communication from Henry, and he’s saying a knife licked blood. Make us vampires hurry. Eve has Truehart reply to him, and when he does, he asks for more information on the location, and Henry tells them it’s a room with two beds, no windows. She makes them eat cookies and cake. She cut Henry. Uh, he says it hurts. Send the good witch in hurry. They think that Henry’s toy probably has a low battery by now. Uh, Rourke arrives with coffee and the promise of pizza. He he comforts Eve, who is worried that she’s not giving Darcia any time, instead focusing on the missing children. They agree that Madge didn’t have time to kill Darcia to take out the children, but she likes to kill and wants to hurt Tasha as much as possible. They discuss the toy and Eve picks up that it can take photos and transmit them. So that’s the plan for the next time Henry contacts them. Meanwhile, Peabody is working on a map of the area and eliminating high rise buildings and focusing on single homes or smaller buildings with basements. Eve sends Finney and Calendar out for physis and to canvass the neighborhood. Miracles to update Eve on Marge’s poor behavior during her asylum stay, including biting the tip of a man’s penis and eating it, which is disgusting. Disgusting. Yeah, that doesn’t sound very good at all. No, they were alerted when they heard the medical screaming and came to find her. Her face was smeared with blood and she was laughing. She claimed self-defense. Um, okay. Uh, the man was fired. Her meds were increased, and when she threatened to sue, they closed down the investigation. Eve says I don’t want to tell these parents. The lunatics. Sister killed their kids and ate them for breakfast. I don’t blame you, Eve. Yeah, no. Reading through Mirror’s data. Eve determines that Marge is batshit crazy with the seriously dicey element of cannibalistic tendencies. Uh, looking at her work history at the Institute, Eve thinks maybe she is working in a Wiccan shop. And Roarke suggests that maybe the knife has she’s been using is a ritual knife purchased locally. Eve has trueheart look for a cult retail in the area that are open this late. Eve thinks maybe she’s an Elsie and Feeney searches IRC for light crimes. His favorite? Yep. Yeah, well, I mean, he’s the best at that, so yeah. Yeah, even Mr. Roarke that although she doesn’t think Madge will kill the children that night, you can do a lot to the human mind and body without destroying it. We both know just how much you can hurt a kid without killing. Eve thinks Marge will contact Tasha to hear her anguish and then get some sleep after drugging the kids again. Uh, so Henry reaches out again, and when Feeney answers, she tells him that he’s not a good witch. Oh, he’s not the good witch, right? So Feeney puts Eve on, uh, she asks him to take pictures of the door and the bathroom with gala next to the door. He describes the room a little bit and the trip there. Roark instructs Henry on shutting down some of the other functions to preserve battery life before he transmit the photos to Eve’s link. Before Henry can send the photos, Madge returns and he shuts down the toy. So, Baxter and Truehart head to an occult shop that’s open until two a m. McNab has narrowed down the area to between sixty first and seventy second streets, and between Second and Fifth avenues. There’s a synagogue on sixty eighth between Third and Lexington that Henry described passing. He said it had two towers and a star, so they focus on that area. Roark and Peabody compare it to Hansel and Gretel, two lost kids. Evil witch. Breadcrumbs. Roark tells Eve the end that the children outwitted the witch and she ended up in the oven burned alive. Apparently Peabody’s free version the children escape favorite coming back with their parents, bringing healthy food to the witch. Their kindness transformed the witch, and she opened a bakery. That’s one of my favorite parts of this entire book was so distracting. That’s not right. It’s so funny. That’s not. Wait. What? That’s what happened. Yeah. I mean, yeah. To be fair, you know, the the original, um, Brothers Grimm tales are pretty. They’re a lot more gruesome than. Yeah. But we all know than than what we know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Um. Teesdale contacts Eve to let her know Madge is calling Tasha. Tasha begs Madge not to hurt the children, and she tells her that she’s already sampled Henry’s blood, which she finds Lacking, just like Tosches. She plays a video of the children screaming for their mother to come to help them. She demands five million dollars and to choose one of the children to live and the other to die, or else she will kill them both. They trace the link to where she ditched the phone at Madison and sixty fifth. E figures Marge will kill them both, but it will have destroyed Tasha to have chosen one. Baxter and Trueheart find the store where Marge bought the knife. The store owner says the Marge is a regular and just purchased some herbs, a sleep aid, and candles two days ago, paying cash as usual. At this point, it shows that Marge comes home. She’d been dressed like an old lady, so she takes that whole costume off. She reflects on how Tasha is responsible for the death of their mother, and how if she had lived, she would have smothered the weak, pale copy in her crib and lavish love, attention and power on her true and only daughter. Tasha also caused their father’s death by corrupting him and turning him against her. So yeah, Marge is batshit crazy. Crazy batshit. She unlocks the reinforced door to the basement, musing about how she purchased this building more than six months ago and thinking of the potion she’d mixed into the Fizzies she made the children drink. She could poison them, but preferred to slit their throats and drink their blood instead. You right. Just, uh. Then, after their youth, their energy and the power they didn’t yet understand was inside of her. She would spill her sister’s blood and drink of it. She decides that whichever child Tasha chooses to live, she will kill first. But Eve’s already thought about that. She sends Feni Jenkinson or Eve sends Jenkinson and Reineke to her home for three and a half hours of sleep, saying she and Roarke will follow after they stop by where Teasdale has the parents. And then. And when they come back at oh five hundred, the others can take a break, Teasdale tells Eve. Ross got Tasha to take a mild soother and they’re finally sleeping. Before that, Tasha was able to provide some bit of their childhood to try to figure out what Marge liked a dolls on makeup, baking cookies and tarts, listening to music. But Marge also enjoyed putting bugs in Tasha’s bed, locking her in the basement, and once killing the neighbor’s pet rabbit and cooking it. What a super fun sister, right? Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. Um, Tasha never what I said it’s like Scooby Snacks. Um, Tasha never told their father because Marge threatened that if she did, she would kill and cook her next. Uh, Marge thinks her birthmark is a sign of her power and legitimacy. Uh, Teasdale also knows that Marge plans to kill them both after Tasha tells her which one to save. And of course, Tasha hasn’t chosen one. They agree to hit the streets again at first light. So this is when Eve has the dream about the room in Dallas. Except Henry and Gala are in it, sitting at a table full of cookies and cakes and bubbling drinks, watching her with frightened eyes. She tells them, don’t eat any of that. But they tell her she makes us. She’ll make you eat too. Before she eats you, Eve tells them that she’s going to get them out, but she can’t break the door down because she’s only eight and cold and hungry and scared. Gala tells her they have to have a tea party, and if they don’t eat, and if they don’t eat at all, she’ll make us sorry. She made Darcia sorry she made her dead. See? And the nanny lay on the floor, soaked in her own blood. Darcia says she’s not paying any attention to me. I’m not important enough. Eve says that’s not true. But I can’t help you until I help them. Eve says she’s trying to help, but pigeons must have eaten the breadcrumbs. Darcia tells her you only have to look in the right place. And the kids say, you know, that’s really Darcia tells her. You only have to look in the right place. Oh, thanks. Thanks. You’re very helpful. Um, and the kids say the good witch is supposed to fight the bad witch and win. We’re supposed to go home to Mommy and Daddy and live happily ever after. You’re supposed to protect us. Something banged on the door, and the kids stuffed their mouths with cakes and cookies, telling Eve that she has to eat or she’ll hurt us. Eve can’t figure out which monster is at the door. Hers are theirs, and if that even matters, since both bring death. But she tries to shield the other children. She wakes up shivering, saying it’s cold in the room. I can never get warm. So that was a super fun dream, right? I just want to say that like, it makes me sad that like Eve, it subconsciously is like berating herself about seemingly not focusing on darcia. Yeah. Um, because she also, deep down knows that this is how this has to be handled, because getting justice for Darcia is still it’s still catching this woman who killed her. And this woman has these kids like, it’s no different than, you know, um, what was what was the fucking guy from, uh, portrait, you know, like, it’s really no different. Right. I’m trying to find find the guy before he killed someone else. Like it’s the same thing, you know? So I just it makes me sad that, you know, that even subconsciously berating herself about that. Because right now, it looks like she’s working a kidnapping case, but she’s working a murder the whole time. It’s a murder? Yeah, it’s a murder. She’s just not spending the time trying to find someone based on who Garcia was, because she knows who the murderer is. So she doesn’t deserve that self berating. And it makes me sad. Yeah. I mean, it is sad. And, you know, it’s sad that she’s still having, you know, these kind of gruesome dreams. But it makes sense because of this case would bring it up, you know. Well and it’s at the same time, it also kind of made me wonder if is that is that part of her, like, feeling guilty about Going to bed. Like, you know how she usually she’s like, we’re just gonna go. We’re gonna go, right this this time. Specifically this time, after all these other times where she’s like, pushing and I’m just going to try to stay awake and and do work and work. Friends are asleep at her desk at three o’clock in the morning. This is the time she actively decides we’re going to go to bed. Yeah. She knows. She knows. There’s nothing else she can do. But I think that she has like such, you know, this subconscious is subconsciously she feels horrible about it. So. So in case the people, um, reviewing this book have things to say about how well they will. Yeah, you know, they will. They’ll be like, why did she go to bed? Why did she go to sleep? She could have helped those kids. Doing what? Right, right, right. Yeah. So anyway, that’s my I thought about that a lot. Uh, so. Yeah. So she, uh, she wakes up from the dream, and Roarke is there, and he warms her up, warms her up with sex, and then they discuss the information Henry gave them, determining that the children are being held in a basement, warm three times, warms up with sex, you know. I mean, whatever works. Um. Not wrong. We were just talking about how that was a really short sex scene because I completely missed it. Yeah. So back at HQ, the McDermott home, uh, calendar and McNabb have been working on locating the toy, so Roarke helps with that. Although it’ll only work when the toy is on. Peabody has narrowed down the area to between sixty sixth and sixty eighth, Lexington or third, and Trueheart says they’ve eliminated some of the buildings. Eve sends Baxter to the mansion for sleep, saying that Peabody and Trueheart will be relieved as soon as Jenkinson and Reinecke get in, and neither calendar or McNabb will leave, with McNabb winning rock, paper scissors to say, um, okay. I mean, that’s how you I love it. I figure it out. I love them when they’re rock, paper, scissors. They’re so funny. Um, she asks Callender to come back at seven thirty. Uh, the food Rourke ordered is here, so, um, she has Peabody and True Heart eat before they leave to return at eight thirty. Afeni found in Urca, hit a guy in Paris, was killed eight months ago, sliced and diced, and his liver and heart were missing with evidence to show it was sauteed in wine. And the woman of interest wasn’t found. Gross. He was a big deal pastry chef who withdrew a half a million in cash the day he was killed. He was marked with a pentagram just over his heart. Post mortem. Based on that, Eve has narrowed the location to search units purchased or rented in the last eight months. Um, even Rourke go for a walk. Eve realizes that since Marge is making cakes and cookies, they should be looking for a bakery. Uh, Rourke finds two in the neighborhood, one regular and one called Magic Sweets. That’s just pastries. Mm. I wonder which one. A clue, a clue. Henry sends the photos, which show a tiny, cheaply built but new bathroom and a new reinforced door. He tells Eve gala is sick and won’t get up. They head toward the pastry shop, having Henry keep talking until the battery dies, while Rourke gets the pastry shop info to the rest of the team, including the feds. There’s a sign on the door saying it’s closed for remodeling, but they can see light coming from the back of the shop. Suspicious. Yeah. Rourke disables the alarms and cams, and since they don’t know Gala’s status, they go in without waiting for backup. Rorke belatedly realizes that when they break through the door, Marge sees them on the internal camera and slams the door between the kitchen and the showroom shut since that door is reinforced. Rorke has to finesse the locks. They go through the door and then the the one where Henry and Gala are being held, only to see Marge holding a knife to Gala’s throat with her arm clamped around Henry. She really is really fucking dramatic. She really is. Yeah, I mean, yes. Yeah, it’s super fucking dramatic. Friends. Yeah. Uh, Marge said she will trade both children for Tasha, and Eve asks her why gala trying to distract her so she can take a shot. Marge says that because girls are more tender. Sugar and spice and blood. Snakes and snails for him. Eve asks, Don’t you want to know which one she chose? Uh, Marge does want to know. And as the knife shifts a little bit, both children clamp down with their teeth on her forearms. Yeah. I cheered to those kids. I appreciated that, that the kids are getting a little bit of their own, you know. Right. This is for kids. When Marge jerks away the knife nicks, uh, Gala’s throat, and Eve stuns Marge. She yells at the kids to drop and then plows her fist into Marge’s face, grabbing the knife, grabbing the knife hand until the knife falls. Roarke is comforting the children and takes them out of the room. Eve tells him to have Peabody contact their parents, and Baxter comes into Cuff Marge. She sends everybody home as soon as Marge is booked at central. She sees that the room is different than the one in Dallas, but has the same purpose terrorize, torture, and confine. Henry asks if Marge is dead, and Eve tells him no, but she’ll be locked up and won’t be. Able to hurt them anymore. Gala tells Eve that she’s the good witch. She tells her that she’s a cop and gala insists that she save them. I’m a cop, kid. I know I’m not that right. I’m a cop. I am not a witch. She’s so funny. Okay, Eve, I’m not a witch. I’m a cop. Henry asks who their mother chose, and Eve tells him that she didn’t, that she lied. Their mother didn’t choose and never would. While they introduced each other, Henry calls her the Good witch Dallas. As they’re wrapped around Eve hugging her and making her uncomfortable. Her favorite. Their parents race up in a car and gather them up in a family hug. The parents thank Eve and Roarke and tells them vanquishing the bad is the job of cops and good witches. Tasha tells Eve that every day for the rest of her life, she will say a prayer for Eve’s safety and for her happiness. Roarke drives Eve to the morgue to visit Darcia, where she tells her the children are safe. They’re home, and Eve will do everything she can to make sure Marge lives out the rest of her crazy life in a cage. She tells Darcia she didn’t forget her. She just had to put the children first. She and Roarke head out with Eve kissing him after first making sure nobody was around to see. Of course. And that’s the end. Yeah. She can’t do that without making sure no one’s watching. Well, yeah. And at the end. The end. So. Yeah. Um. Commendations. I gotta go with Henry. Yeah, yeah, he’s. Oh, yeah. That little boy was badass, man. For real, though, he kept his head and did what he what did what he needed to do. Yeah, yeah. Um, I’m gonna go with Eve, actually. Okay. That’s not your choice. Now, I will say the very beginning of the book, like, she was very ruthless, and I was like, Eve, calm the hell down. Um. And I’m always like, especially since this is a novella, this is potentially more likely to be a first book of new readers. And Eve is very not likable in the first couple chapters. But then she, like, got her shit together. She really like I also, I think I think also she um, she like, let people do things, you know, like she, she didn’t like bowl over anyone when they’re like, oh, I know about this toy or, you know, like bringing in Teesdale and stuff like that. Like she, she was really a great team player and I don’t know, I just. Yeah. No, she did really well in this book. Yeah. So I guess I’m going to give mine to Feeney them because he, um, you know, he used his, uh, knowledge to. He took he boosted the toy, essentially. Yeah. And if he hadn’t done that, then they would be nowhere in the investigation. So. Right. Um, you know, he played a very important role. Oh, yeah. In this book. Definitely. Okay. So we we had a few Facebook comments. Do you want me to pull those up? Yeah. Okay, so let’s see. Karen, is it stobe? I don’t know how to pronounce her last name. I think it’s Stobe. Uh, said I recently relistened to this one, and I have to say, I’m not a fan. Most of the novellas have a little nugget included that isn’t included in any of the other books, so they are worth checking out. Even chaos, even if you don’t like the paranormal. But all of the novellas are out there, but this one just didn’t. It was just cruel. This one and wonderment are my least favorite or my least favorite pile. Um, I actually I meant to say this earlier. I’m okay if I never reread this one again. Yeah, I mean, I yeah, yeah, it’s this is like one I will read on a full reread like we’re doing. Yeah, exactly. And that one I pull out just to read for fun, you know. Yeah, yeah. But I think Karen is, like, onto something. There really wasn’t there wasn’t a little nugget where you’re like, oh, well, you know, even though we didn’t like this, this happened. And that was at least something that we appreciated. Right. So, um, so Niecy said the which was so twisted. I’m so glad Henry knew it wasn’t his mom. Yeah, that was like. I think that was kind of a a good call like that. The children were not living in terror. That their mom was right. Yeah, their mom the whole time. Right. Um. She said I enjoyed the twins. Both sets. The fantastical nature of the novellas are interesting. I wouldn’t want the whole series to be similar, but it helps to mix things up occasionally. The young twins are so adorable and loving. The evil twin is diabolical, to say the least, which made it an enjoyable read. Um, so you said I have read this one, and out of all the novellas, this is my second favorite. The first of my favorites being Interlude and Death, and those are the only two novellas that I liked. Hmm. Interesting. Interesting. Um. Michelle said haven’t read it yet, but on audible last weekend and planned to listen to it before listening to your review. Just based on the summary, though, and knowing it’s unbelievable. I’m not expecting a lot of character depth, mainly detective work, maybe a funny convo or two doing it. scene and a bad dream or two. Maybe also some strife with FBI and cancer specialists also. That’s a great quote and made me realize this is probably the first time she mentions this to Rourke, though his lack of dancing and shuffling is often part of her inner monologue musings. Yeah, that was a great quote. The quote AJ posted was the um, uh, why don’t you do the the geek boogie when you’re working? It’s heroic control, he told her and skimmed a finger down her chin. Inside, I’m a dancing fool. So that is a great quote that you chose, AJ. It absolutely is. And then the last comment on this is Pansy. I actually liked this one. It was the twins theme, but trying to find the young twins was such a rollercoaster ride. None of the novellas are in my top favorites, but this one is a novella that I actually enjoyed listening to. Yeah, we’re kind of all over the place on whether or not we like this one. Yeah, which is great. Yeah. Totally fair. I think that’s just in general for any of the books. I think everybody’s kind of all over the place. It’s just it’s it’s subjective. What you like, what you don’t like. And novellas are hard because it’s like whenever you read them and like what you what you want at the time when you’re reading a novella to. Yeah. And, you know, she has to pack a lot into very few chapters and I can’t do it. So, yeah. So I guess we go on to podcast business. Podcast business. So I don’t think we have any new patrons. Um, we do have a new email from Jan Jan Russell. Okay. And she says, I’m listening to the review, the reviews of Thankless and Death, as you discussed in your reviews, I wondered which J.D. Robb book has sold the most in which the least? I’m too lazy to do this myself, but it might make a good podcast. I don’t yeah, I don’t know that you’d be hard to find that information. I think especially since kind of hard to find. Yeah. It especially that’s a lot of information we’d have to sift through. I think even if we could find it. Right. Especially since most of the books have been, it’s been they’ve been out since the nineties. So, you know, it’s like accumulated. So you’d have to, like, narrow it down to, like, the first couple of months that they’re out. So, you know, and then you’ve got the switch from paperback to hardcover and that would probably factor in I would think. Right. So there’s a lot of yeah, there’s a lot of factors. Yeah. That would take a little bit more work than I at least I’m prepared and we’re willing to do. Yeah. Um, it’s an interesting thought, but. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. Um, next week, I haven’t I haven’t redone my schedule. Yeah. I mean, as usual, we don’t we don’t know what we’re doing next week, but I don’t know, you know, we’ll figure it out. And then the week after that we’ll probably be a review. The reviews. It seemed like there was something else I was going to bring up and I don’t remember, but, um, and then we got, you know, new new book coming out in September. We do. So that’ll be fun. Yeah. Very soon. Other than that, I think. I think that’s it. Unless you guys have something else to say. No. Okay. Well, um, I guess. Yeah. I mean, this is a fairly short episode for us, but, um, I guess that’s it, then, for this episode of Podcast and death. So. Okay. Um, yeah. For podcasts and death. This is AJ, I’m Jen, this is Tara, and we’ll see you next week guys. Bye, guys. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to podcast In Death. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give us a five star review on Apple iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. We would greatly appreciate it. Podcasts in death is hosted by Amy Ryan, Jen Terpstra and Tara Corkery and is edited and produced by Amy Ryan. The opinions expressed on this show are for entertainment purposes only, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the In Death Fandom at Large podcast. In death is not in any way affiliated with Nora Roberts, Berkley, Penguin Publishing Group, or Saint Martin’s Press. Our theme song is Justice Never Sleeps by Cosmo and is available on shutterstock.com. This episode and all of our previous episodes are available at Podcast Indeed.com. Have something to say? You can email us at show at podcast. Com or find us on social media by searching for podcasts and death on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Also, you can call us and leave a message at two zero five four seven six two seven five three that spells out two zero five four. Rourke. Thanks again for listening. And in the immortal words of Brian Kelly, fucking slainte to you.