Four of a Kind

by Kate Kessler

  “Are you Dr. Harte?” she asked from the door.

  Audrey smiled as she stood. “I am. Come in, Kendra.”

  The girl walked in, clutching the strap of her purse, and sat down on the love seat. “You don’t look old enough to be a doctor.”

  “Thank you, but I assure you I am.” Audrey went to the door and closed it before sitting down again.

  The girl moved her purse to the other side of the couch, as though saving that seat for a friend. “My mother made this appointment for me. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to talk about.”

  “Well, the school set this up so that anyone upset by Tala’s death could discuss it.”

  “With you.”

  “Yes.” Audrey tilted her head. “I get the feeling you think I was the wrong choice.”

  The girl shrugged and looked away. “No offense, but didn’t you kill somebody once? Why would I want to talk about my friend who was murdered with someone who did the same thing?”

  It wasn’t as though Audrey hadn’t considered this sort of response from some of the students. She’d lived with what she’d done to Clint for the past twenty years. But she was a little surprised to have it delivered to her in such a matter-of-fact tone. Kendra wasn’t afraid of her, just wary.

  “You don’t have to discuss this with me at all,” Audrey informed her. “I can’t make you talk to me, and even if I could I have no desire to do that. But I also know what it’s like to have had a friend killed, and what it’s like to have to say good-bye knowing there are so many things I didn’t get to say.”

  Kendra regarded her for a moment, as though weighing that against the crime that Audrey had committed. “What good is talking going to do? It can’t bring her back.”

  “No,” Audrey agreed. “But it might make you feel better. Do you want to give it a try? Or do you want to just go back to class?” The nosy side of her protested at this. She wanted to know what Kendra knew about Tala, her life, and her death. But she couldn’t force Kendra to confide in her or to trust her.

  “I don’t see how it will make me feel better, but sitting here with you is better than Mr. Wilson’s theories on the female reproductive system. I’m pretty sure he has no practical experience with it.”

  Audrey had to smile at that. “Then he hasn’t changed much in the last fifteen years. Still, I’ll take it as a compliment that you’d rather be here.”

  Another shrug, the universal teenage symbol of antipathy. “Take it however you want.”

  Audrey had dealt with her share of moody and surly teenagers, so Kendra’s attitude didn’t offend. And since the school was paying her her regular hourly rate, the girl could spend the next forty-five minutes however she liked. Audrey was still going to get paid for it. Sometimes, you just had to let it go.

  Kendra lasted all of a minute. “She was my best friend and I hated her. How’s that for a place to start?”

  “An honest one?” Audrey smiled faintly. “You wouldn’t be the first female to have felt that way about her best friend.”

  “Have you ever felt that way?”

  Getting personal was a professional no-no, but sometimes you had to give a little bit in order to get. Especially with teenagers. “Yes. That friend I told you about who was killed was sometimes my best friend and sometimes my worst enemy. Why did you hate Tala?”

  “Lots of stupid reasons. She was tall and thin. She had perfect boobs. She was gorgeous.” Kendra paused. “She was so perfect and such a girl, and she’d been born a boy. How unfair is that?”

  “Very, I guess,” Audrey allowed. “I imagine she envied you for having been born a girl.”

  “She did. She said I had to do less work than she did. I didn’t understand it until one night we were getting ready to go out. It took her forever to get ready. Everything had to be perfect. She had to be perfect. Even though I cursed her out for taking so long, I still wished I’d looked as good as she did.”

  Audrey didn’t comment on the fact that Kendra was gorgeous. She had a feeling the girl knew it, despite having been insecure around Tala. “But you were best friends despite that.”

  “Everybody loved her. She liked everybody she met, and she made people smile. She was funny and liked to make people laugh. She was really popular. A lot of guys wanted to get with her. We were all surprised when she picked Luke.”

  And a little hurt too, Audrey surmised, given the change in Kendra’s tone. “Why’s that?” From what she had seen, Luke Pelletier was a good-looking kid. If Alisha liked him, he had to have something going for him.

  “Luke’s pretty quiet. He’s smart, likes to read. He’d rather watch a movie than go to a party. He likes to be alone. Tala liked to be the center of attention. They were, like, total opposites.”

  “Maybe that’s what brought them together.”

  Kendra shrugged. “Didn’t keep them together, though. She still dumped him. I didn’t even know she was going to do it. We were supposed to be best friends. I told her when I broke up with him.”

  “You and Luke dated.” She knew this already, but sometimes in her line of work it was helpful to pretend you had little or no prior knowledge.

  A nod. “When he asked her out, she asked me if it was okay. Like I was going to be a bitch and say no.”

  “She respected your friendship enough to ask.”

  The girl’s gaze was sharp enough to cut glass. “She wanted to cover her ass. I cause a scene, I’m the bad guy.”

  This anger toward Tala might have been alarming if Audrey hadn’t once been a teenage girl. She’d spent a lot of time bouncing back and forth between loving and resenting Maggie when she was a teen. Even without their unique circumstances, she would have had moments.

  “I was jealous and a bitch. When she told me she and Luke had broken up, I told her he obviously wasn’t the great guy she thought he was.” She looked down at her hands. “She looked like I’d hit her. Next thing I know, she’s dead.”

  Audrey studied her, looking for any indication that she might have been with Tala when she died—or that she might have been the one to kill her. She’d built her career on studying kids who committed crimes or were victims of one, and she couldn’t just turn that off, regardless of why the school had brought her on board. Still, she reminded herself of why she was there, which was to be a support to the kids who came to her, not treat them like suspects.

  “Aren’t you supposed to ask me how that makes me feel?” Kendra asked.

  “I have a pretty good idea, but okay, how did that make you feel?”

  “Like shit. She wanted to come over to my place, but I told her I was busy.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t want to listen to her crying over him, and I didn’t want her to see that part of me was glad they were through.”

  “You still have feelings for Luke.” So much of therapy was spent stating the obvious—she’d forgotten about that.

  She laughed humorlessly. “Yeah. Mom doesn’t think my feelings are real. She says I didn’t want him, but I didn’t want anyone else to want him either.”

  Nodding, Audrey smiled faintly. “I remember feeling the same way a time or two.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s true. You can be best friends with someone and still have negative feelings toward them, or be jealous of what you think they have that you don’t.”

  “Tala called me a jealous cunt.”

  Audrey knew she shouldn’t be surprised, but she was. Everything she’d ever heard about Tala had her painted as a sweet girl who rarely swore. “That must have hurt.” And Tala must have been in a lot of pain to have said it.

  “It did. I told her to fuck off, and—” She stopped.

  Audrey watched her patiently, studying how her expression went from anger to horror and then regret. “And?”

  Kendra cleared her throat. “I told her Luke had no problem getting it up for me.”

  Ah, the precision cruelty of a teenage girl. “Was that the last thing yo
u said to her?”

  Tears filled the girl’s eyes as she bobbed her head in a jerky nod. “I’ve spent the last two months hoping that she’s out there and that I haven’t heard from her because she’s pissed, or that she’s miserable and thinking I hate her. Anything was better than thinking she was dead. She died hating me.”

  The poor girl was going to carry the guilt with her for a long time, Audrey thought.

  A tear trickled down Kendra’s cheek. “Most of the time I just really, really miss her. I just wish I could tell her that I’m sorry—for everything.”

  A hard lump formed in Audrey’s throat as she offered the tissue box. She couldn’t help but think of Maggie. “Yeah. I remember that part too.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Neve really wanted to talk to Luke Pelletier, but she didn’t want to cause a spectacle by dragging the kid out of class. From what she’d gleaned from Audrey, he was getting picked on enough as it was, and she didn’t want to add to that, even though he was a possible suspect.

  Although she seemed to be the only person who thought he might be capable of killing Tala. Everyone else she spoke to seemed to think he was great.

  But people had thought Ted Bundy was a nice guy too. And Tala Lewis’s wounds had definitely been caused by someone with physical strength, but also strong emotions toward her. Neve knew all too well just how heated some people in the town could get when it came to someone being “different.”

  Lincoln Tripp had once hit on her because he’d “never been with a black girl before.” She’d told him that she’d never been with a moron before either, and planned to keep it that way. Unfortunately, she did eventually succumb to his charms one drunken night. Most women her age in Edgeport had at some point. Lincoln could be a good guy when he wanted, but he was no Gideon.

  She wondered how Audrey was getting along at the school. It drove her frigging nuts to think one of those kids might tell her something important to her investigation and that Audrey wouldn’t share it because of privilege. She had to trust that Audrey would at least point her in the general direction if anything like that happened. But she and Audrey sometimes had…issues where trust was concerned.

  Her father hadn’t helped matters when he stopped by the house that morning. Everett Graham had strong opinions where Audrey Harte was concerned, and he never hesitated to voice them.

  “I’m not surprised she’s got herself involved in the investigation,” he commented, running a hand over his bristly square jaw. He was a tall, strong man with graying hair and piercing blue eyes. He was used to people doing what he wanted them to do, and he hated that Audrey had never actually confessed to being the one that killed Clint. Maggie took the blame for the killing blow.

  “Dad, the school asked her to work there.”

  “She didn’t say no, did she?”

  “Because she’s a juvenile psychologist. She wants to help the kids.”

  “She’s a psychopath with a death fixation.”

  “She’s not a psychopath.” The other part she couldn’t really argue. “And it doesn’t really matter because there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Nothing you can do about it? You’re in charge of the investigation.”

  “Yes, I am. Please remember that and refrain from telling me what to do.”

  He looked offended. “I wasn’t going to tell you how to do your job.”

  “You were, because you think you’re the only cop who was ever good at it.”

  Stiffening, he stared down his slightly crooked nose at her. “I do not.”

  “Then it’s just me you think you’re better than.”

  “You’re acting like a child.”

  “And the highlight of your career was arresting one.” Two, actually, but whatever.

  He’d walked out, slamming the door so hard the windows rattled. Gideon came into the kitchen with a worried look on his rugged face and hugged her. He knew how her father could push her buttons. Neve still felt a little guilty about getting into it with him, but experience told her that the old man had been maybe two minutes away from actually lecturing her on the lousy job she was doing. He couldn’t help himself—he tried to butt in on every case, and then tried to make her work it like he would.

  He would have delegated as much as possible—and he would have gone to the school and yanked Luke out of class. That was why Neve went to the Falls instead. They still hadn’t found Tala’s phone, and she wanted to take a look on her own.

  It was a nice day, cool but sunny, and she was crouched on the bridge above the falls studying a stain on the wood. It looked like blood. CSU had gone over the site, so she assumed she’d hear if it was Tala’s or not. They had found fabric matching her coat caught on a splinter on the handrail, so they knew Tala had been on the bridge that night. Could she have dropped her phone? They hadn’t found it in the water, or on either side of the bed, but then they were still looking downstream. Still looking for the murder weapon as well. And that glove they’d found? There were two blood types on it—B positive and AB positive. Tala was AB, and Annette had confirmed the blood was hers, so the other contributor might have been the killer. She just hoped they were in the system.

  Neve glanced down, over the side of the bridge. She took a small pair of binoculars from her pocket and put them to her eyes, scanning the rocks and trees below. She stopped and came back, focusing on a tree below where the bloodstain and fabric were. What was that? She moved slightly, adjusting her angle and trying to block the glare of the sun for a better look.

  Was that a small backpack or purse? Her heart gave a little thump. It was, she was sure of it. But how the hell was she going to get it? It was too far below for her reach from where she was, and too high to reach from the ground.

  She got Vickie on the radio. “See if you can get hold of Gareth, will you? Find out if he’s got tree-climbing gear and tell him to get back here ASAP.”

  “You find something?”

  Staring down at the tree, she tried to make out what it was. “Yeah, I think so.”

  A few minutes later, Vickie let her know that Gareth was on his way. Fortunately, he’d been working on one of the trails when she called him and had climbing equipment in his truck. Neve spotted him making his way down the steps a little while later, said gear slung over his shoulder. He was built in a similar way to Jake—tall and lean and ripped. Muscles in his forearms and biceps stood out beneath his tanned skin. Summer was still six weeks away and already he was the color of a walnut. By August he’d be as brown as her favorite leather jacket. She carefully picked her way down the side of the falls to meet him.

  “You’re my new favorite person,” she told him.

  He grinned, revealing a space where a canine tooth used to be. “Whatcha got?”

  “This way.” She led him into the other bridge that spanned the river, this one much lower than the one she’d just left. It led to the picnic area. It also was the only way to get to the tree she wanted him to climb.

  Gareth had gloves with him to assist in the climb, so Neve didn’t offer him a pair of the nitrile ones she had in her pocket. She pulled some on, however, as he secured his gear on the towering pine. She pointed to the general area he needed to get to and told him what to look for. It was barely visible from where she stood.

  He didn’t have to climb far, but it was higher than could have been reached by a regular ladder. Neve was pretty sure it would take her forever to do it, but Gareth scampered up the tree like a monkey. She remembered someone telling her that he used to work for the phone company, so maybe he just had a lot of practice. Regardless, he made it look easy and graceful. When he came back down, she saw that it was indeed a little backpack—the same kind Tala Lewis’s parents said she’d had with her the night she disappeared.

  Neve practically snatched it from his hands when he offered it to her. Having arrived, Vickie was right there beside her, eyes wide. “Is that hers?”

  “I think so.” Neve opened the bag. Inside
was a wallet—with Tala’s ID. Her driver’s license had her new name on it, while the social security card still had her birth name—Matthew. There was also a lipstick, compact, tweezers, tampon, and cell phone.

  “Why would a trans girl have a tampon?” Vickie asked.

  Neve shrugged. “Maybe it made her feel more like a girl to have it? Think of how many times you’ve had a friend ask if you have a spare.”

  “Fair enough. You think the cell phone still works? It’s been out here a couple of months.”

  “I don’t know,” Neve said. The phone was the same make and model as hers. A teenage girl’s phone was her life—her diary, social gateway, entertainment center, and window to the world. It was the next best thing to actually being able to talk to Tala herself. “But I have a charger in my car.”

  When Alisha came to meet Audrey for lunch she had Luke with her. Audrey took one look at the kid, the dark circles under his eyes—compounded by the shiner developing around one—and his posture, and knew she couldn’t leave him there alone. For Alisha’s sake, she wanted to believe he had nothing to do with Tala’s death, but even if he had, she didn’t think she’d abandon him. He looked desperate, and she knew all too well the things desperate people were capable of doing.

  “You okay?” she asked him.

  He hesitated, then glanced at Alisha, who was digging through her bag for something, and quickly shook his head. Poor kid was a mess.

  Audrey handed him her phone. “Call your mother for me.”

  He didn’t ask why, didn’t say anything. In fact, he hadn’t spoken since walking into her temporary office. Once he’d entered the phone number on the screen, he handed the phone back to her. Audrey stepped out into the main office as she held it to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Linda? It’s Audrey Harte.”

  “Audrey! How’s that place of yours coming along? Your mother was telling me all about it at the Hannaford the other day.”