The In Death Collection, Books 26-29

by J. D. Robb

  “Yes.”

  “We understand this is a shock, Mrs. Jennings,” Peabody said. “If we could have a few minutes with Jo, it might help us.”

  “Jo. Jo doesn’t know anything. Jo’s been home all morning, fighting with her brother. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “She’s not in any trouble,” Peabody assured her. “We’re talking with all of Deena’s friends. It’s routine. You knew Deena for some time?”

  “Yes. Yes. They’ve been best friends since they were eight. She’s—they—oh God. My God. What happened?”

  “If we could speak with Jo,” Eve interrupted. “You’re free to remain in the room.”

  “All right. Yes. All right.” She walked to the base of the stairs, gripped the banister until her knuckles went white. “Jo! Jo! I need you down here. Right now. Do I tell her? Should I—”

  “We’ll tell her.” Eve heard the clump that translated into resentful feet, then a girl with an explosion of brown curls and violently angry brown eyes appeared. She wore knee-length black shorts and, in a fashion that baffled Eve, had layered a trio of tanks so the blue peeked out from the red, and black peeked out from the blue.

  “Why is it always me?” Jo demanded. “He started it. He won’t . . .” She trailed off, flushing deeply when she spotted Eve and Peabody. “I didn’t know anyone was here.”

  “Jo, baby—”

  “I’m Lieutenant Dallas. This is my partner, Detective Peabody.”

  “Police? Are you going to haul that freak off?”

  “You’re the freak.” A boy, curly brown hair shagging in the current style, eyes just as violent as his sister’s, snarled as he stormed down the steps.

  “Stop! Both of you! Now!”

  At last, Eve thought. Obviously stunned by the tone and the order, both kids stopped and stared at their mother as they might a two-headed alien.

  Eve stepped up, pointed to a chair. “Sit.”

  “Am I in trouble? I haven’t done anything. I swear.”

  “Freak,” the boy muttered under his breath, then visibly shrunk under Eve’s frigid stare.

  Eve turned back to Jo. “I’m sorry to inform you that Deena MacMasters was killed this morning.”

  “Huh?” It was knee-jerk disbelief. “What?” And the tears welled and spilled instantly. “Mom? Mom? What is she saying?”

  Though Eve preferred to leave weepers to Peabody, she sat across from Jo, kept their faces level as the mother squeezed into the chair to put her arms around her daughter.

  “Someone killed her. Someone she knew. A boy she’s been seeing secretly. What’s his name?”

  “She is not dead. We went shopping on Saturday with Hilly. Why are you saying that?”

  The brother moved to her other side, all anger forgotten.

  “She let someone into the house while her parents were away. Who was she dating?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Lying doesn’t help her now.”

  “Lieutenant, please. Can’t you see how upset she is? We all are.”

  “Her parents are upset, too. They came home and found their daughter dead. Who was she seeing, Jo? What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know. Mom. Mom. Make her go away.” She turned her face, pressing it to her mother’s breast. “Make it go away.”

  “It can’t go away.” Eve said it coldly, before Mrs. Jennings could speak. “It happened. Were you her friend?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “I’ll get her some water,” Peabody murmured, and turned away to find the kitchen.

  “Tell me everything you know. It’s the only way to help her now. If you’re her friend, you want to help her.”

  “But I don’t know. I really don’t. I never met him, or even saw him. She just called him David. She said his name was David, and he was wonderful. They met in the park a few weeks ago. She ran there a couple times a week. More sometimes.”

  “Okay. How did they meet?”

  “She liked to run, and this one day he was on the same path, and he tripped. He went down pretty hard, so she stopped to see if he was okay. He was all embarrassed, and he’d banged his knee a little, turned his ankle, you know? And he told her he was fine, not to stop, but when he tried to get up, his water bottle was broken and spilled all over, and he was more embarrassed because it got her shoes wet. They went over to sit on the grass, started talking a little, so she could make him feel better. And he was really cute.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t really know. She just said he was really cute. Adorable squared, and he was from Georgia and had an accent that just made her go wizzy. He was clumsy and really sweet and courteous. Old-fashioned. She really liked that about him.”

  Peabody brought in a glass of water. Jo stared at it. “Thank you. I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

  “Why did she keep him a secret?” Peabody asked gently.

  “It was romantic. She didn’t even tell me until, like, last month, and only because she said she’d burst if she couldn’t talk about him. And . . . well, she knew her parents would ask questions, and he told her he’d gotten in some trouble back home in Georgia when he’d been in high school. With illegals. Her father wouldn’t have liked it, even though he told her straight out, and he’d done his rehab and community service and everything. She wanted some more time before she said anything about him.”

  “But you never met him either,” Eve pointed out.

  “He was shy, and he said—I think—how he liked it just being the two of them for a while. They didn’t do anything. Honest, Mom, they didn’t . . . you know.”

  “It’s all right, sweetie. It’s all right, Jo.”

  “They just met in the park sometimes, or went for walks or rides on his board, and they went to see a couple vids and talked on the ’link a lot. It was weeks before he even kissed her. And he was nineteen. She was afraid her parents wouldn’t like that he was older.”

  “Did they have a date last night?”

  Jo nodded, miserably. “She was going to have him over, just to eat and hang out a while because he was going to take her to a show. She liked going to the theater, and he got tickets to Coast to Coast. It’s why we went shopping, especially. She wanted a new outfit. She bought this really mag purple skirt—it’s her favorite color, and new shoes to go with it. She was really excited.”

  Eve thought of the shoes near the table by the stairs, the purple skirt rucked up on the bruised thighs.

  “She went out yesterday afternoon for a mani and pedi.” Eyes streaming, she burrowed into her mother. “She tagged me to see if I could meet her, but we had to have dinner at Gram’s and Poppa’s. She wanted it to be special. She was so happy. He wouldn’t have hurt her. He was nice. There has to be a mistake.”

  “Who else did she tell about him?”

  “Nobody. She wasn’t supposed to tell me, they’d made a promise to each other to keep it just the two of them, at least for a while. But she couldn’t, she was so happy she just wanted to talk to me, to tell me. I had to swear absolutely not to tell, not even Hilly or Libby. And I didn’t. I didn’t tell. He was so mag, she had to tell somebody. And we’re best friends. There has to be a mistake,” Jo insisted. “Please? There has to be a mistake.”

  There’d been one, Eve thought as they walked back to the car. And young Deena had made it. David from Georgia—and what bullshit that was—had played her right from the first meeting in the park. Shy, clumsy, sweet—with just that one shadow in his past. Irresistible to a girl like Deena.

  He’d created the boy of her dreams.

  But why?

  4

  “WAS SHE A TARGET BEFORE HE SAW HER RUNNING in the park habitually, then set up the play,” Peabody wondered, “or before even that? I mean, specifically Deena MacMasters rather than just a teenage girl, maybe one with certain physical characteristics?”

  “It’s a good question.”

  “It seems like, if it was luck of the draw, he’d have backe
d off when he found out her father was a cop. Easier prey out there.”

  “Which may have been part of her appeal to him,” Eve said. “She’d make a challenge. He knew enough about her at the setup meeting. He’d already done or at least started research on her. He knew her father was a cop when he staged the meet—cute. Knew her tastes. Shy boy, awkward boy, gentle boy.”

  “Specifically her then.” Peabody frowned. “So why was it a good question?”

  “Because we can’t rule out the other option. I’m going to drop you off at the next pal’s, leave that one to you. I think Jo was being straight when she said nobody else knew about this guy—but we’ll cross the Ts. When you finish interviewing the friends, head down to Central. I’ll book a conference room. I want EDD to come in with a prelim report asap.

  “They went for walks,” Eve murmured, thinking of what Jo had said. “You can bet he didn’t walk with her in her own neighborhood. Nowhere they’d be likely to run into someone who knew her. To vids, where it’s dark. Keep it all a secret. It’s more romantic, and I’m ashamed of my minor transgression. I’m shy. A few weeks, Jo said. A long time to play out the string. Patient bastard.”

  “Young, if he’s really nineteen.”

  “Maybe he is, or maybe he knows how to look nineteen.” She swung to the curb. “We’ll run like crimes. I’ll start on that after I go by the morgue.”

  “Tell Morris . . . well, just tell him welcome back.” Peabody climbed out.

  Hell of a welcome, Eve thought, but bulled her way back into traffic. The barricades, the swarms of pedestrians trooping toward Fifth for the parade, the seas of entrepreneurs with carts and wheeled cases loaded with souvenirs jammed the streets and sidewalks.

  Within blocks her bulling slowed to inching. She narrowed her eyes at the throng of tourists and locals forming impenetrable walls—and thought if she saw one more person sporting a peace sign or waving a flower flag, she might just pull her weapon and give them one good zap.

  I’ve got your peace right here, she thought.

  She glanced at the time, blew out a breath, then used her dash ’link to contact Roarke.

  “Lieutenant. I take it this isn’t to let me know you’re on your way home.”

  “No. I’m fighting through freaking Peace Day mayhem. If these people want peace, why the hell don’t they stay home?”

  “Because they want to share goodwill with their fellow man?”

  “Bullshit. Because they want to get drunk and cop feels in the crowd.”

  “There is that. Where are you heading?”

  “The morgue. It’s a bad one.”

  “I’m sorry. Can you tell me?”

  “Sixteen-year-old daughter of a decorated cop, one who recently earned his captain’s bars. Rape-murder, in her home. Her parents found the body this morning when they returned from a weekend holiday.”

  “I’m very sorry.” Those intense blue eyes searched her face looking, she knew, for cracks.

  “I’m fine.”

  “All right. Is there anything I can do?”

  You just did it, she thought, by asking. “I’m trying to fit the pieces together. One of them is Jamie.”

  “Jamie? How?”

  “They were friends.”

  “Surely you don’t think—”

  “No, I don’t think. I’ll check out his alibi simply because I don’t want to leave any blanks, but he’s not a suspect. She had a secret boyfriend—one it’s looking like targeted her, laid all the groundwork. I’m on my way to the morgue to see if some of the pieces in my head fit the evidence. After that, I’m hitting the lab.”

  She saw a minute break in traffic, gunned it, flipped her vertical, soared over—she loved this new ride—and swung west.

  “I asked Whitney to order Morris in today. Then I’m convening a briefing at Central. We need to run like crimes, go through the electronics, start a sweep on her areas of interest, so—”

  “I believe I’ll come down and watch you work.”

  “Look—”

  “I can stay out of the way if that’s what you want. But you won’t keep Jamie out. I may be some help there. You’ve said her parents—one a police captain—returned home to find her dead. But you don’t mention security discs or the system. One assumes a veteran cop would take all necessary means, including strong security, to protect his family. There’s some e-work here.”

  “That’s Feeney’s aegis.”

  “I’ll be contacting him then.”

  Knew you would. “Wouldn’t you like a nice quiet Sunday at home?”

  “I would, if I had my wife here. But she’s having a different sort of day.”

  “Suit yourself. Question. Why didn’t you tell me you were supplementing Jamie’s scholarship?”

  “Busted.” He looked mildly disconcerted.

  “It’s not a crime.”

  “Well now I’m not altogether sure, as you’d see it as a bribe, wouldn’t you, to lure him into one of my companies?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Damn right, and a fine one, too. But the boy’s determined to be a cop. If he’s still of that mind when he’s finished at university, your gain is my loss. He’s bloody brilliant.”

  “As good as you?”

  Those wild blue eyes sparkled. “No, but a good deal more honest. I’ll see you at Central.”

  “Don’t take Fifth. Jesus! I wish you could see this. There’s some asshole dressed like a peace sign. He’s a big yellow circle, with naked limbs. People are so damn weird. I’ll see you later.”

  She’d known he’d come, just as she’d come to know how useful it was to have a thief—former—help analyze the bypassing of locks and codes.

  Deena might have given her killer the passcode for the control room, if she’d had it. But if he’d shut down the cameras, wiped the hard drive, accessed the discs, he’d needed more than the code. He’d needed excellent e-skills.

  And there her thief—former—was unsurpassed.

  “Bloody brilliant,” she muttered, using Roarke’s own term.

  A skeletal holiday shift manned the morgue, and those who remained behind to deal with the dead wore colorful shorts under lab coats. Music danced jauntily out of offices and cutting rooms.

  She doubted the residents cared overmuch one way or the other.

  She paused long enough to scowl at Vending. She wanted a tube of Pepsi, and didn’t want any bullshit from the damn machine.

  “You!” She jabbed a finger at a passing tech, and the gesture had his face going as white as his bony legs. “Two tubes of Pepsi.” She pushed credits at him.

  “Sure, okay.” Dutifully, he plugged them in, made her request. Even as the tubes plopped into the slot, and the machine began the soft drink’s current jingle, Eve snatched them out.

  “Thanks.” She strode away.

  The first sip was shockingly cold, and exactly what she was after. She continued down the white tunnel, chased by the echo of her own boots and the sticky hints of death that clung to the air under the blasts of citrus and disinfectant wafting out of the vents.

  She paused outside the double doors of the autopsy suite not to brace herself to face that death, but the man who studied it.

  She drew a breath, pushed through the doors.

  There he was, looking the same.

  He wore a clear protective coat over a suit of moonless night black. He’d paired it with a shirt of rich gold, and a needle-thin tie where both colors wove together. She frowned at the silver peace sign pinned to his lapel, but had to admit on Morris it worked.

  His ink-black hair drew back from his exotic face in a single, gleaming braid.

  He stood over the dead girl he’d already opened with his precise, almost artistic Y cut.

  When his dark eyes lifted to Eve’s, she felt her belly tighten.

  He looked the same, but was he?

  “I guess this is a crappy welcome back.” She crossed over, offered the second tube. “Sorry I had to pull you in earl
y, and on a holiday.”

  “Thank you.” He took the drink, but didn’t crack the tube.

  Her tightened belly began to jump. “Morris—”

  “I have some things to say to you.”

  “Okay. All right.”

  “Thank you for finding justice for Amaryllis.”

  “Don’t—”

  He held up his free hand. “I need to say these things before we go back to our work, our lives. You need to let me say them.”

  Feeling helpless, she stuck her hands in her pockets and said nothing.

  “We deal with death, you and I, and with that death leaves grieving. We believe—or hope—that finding the answers, finding justice will help the dead, and those the dead leaves grieving. It does. Somehow it does. I no longer believe it, or hope it, but know it. I loved her, and the loss . . .”

  He paused, opened the tube, drank. “Immense. But you were there for me. As a cop, and as a friend. You held my hand during those first horrible steps of grief, helped me steady myself. And by finding the answers, you gave me, and her, some peace. It’s a day to remember peace, I suppose. The job you and I do is often ugly and thankless. I need to thank you.”

  “Okay.”

  “More, Eve.” He rarely used her first name, and using it now, he closed his hand over her arm to keep her still. “Though it discomforts you.” And smiled, just a little—just enough to loosen the tightest knots in her belly. “Thank you for suggesting I speak to Father Lopez.”

  “You went to see him?”

  “I did. I had thought to go away, stay away until . . . Until. But there was nowhere I wanted to be, and frankly, I felt closer to her here. So I stayed, and I went to see your priest.”

  She had to fight not to squirm. “He’s not mine.”

  “He gave me comfort,” Morris continued over her flustered response. “He’s a man of unassailable faith, with a flexible mind and limitless compassion. He helped me with those next difficult steps, and helped me accept I’ll have more to take.”

  “He’s . . . good, but not a pain in the ass about it. Much.”

  Now the smile reached those dark eyes and eased more of her tension. “An excellent summary. And thank you for trusting me when I wasn’t sure I trusted myself.”