Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(84)

“It’s possible he didn’t know.”

“No—I don’t see how. You have to understand how close they were. No secrets. They were united. And my mother? Children were her greatest joy. It’s impossible to believe she would have cut herself off from a child. There has to be a mistake, another explanation.”

“If there is, I’ll find it. I’m going to ask you for two more things. First, my partner should be talking to your younger brother now. If it would help smooth the way, I’d like you to contact your youngest brother, and convince him to speak honestly with me. And second, if you would send me a copy of the letter your mother left for you. I won’t log it into the file. You have my word.”

“I need to know the answers. I need the truth.”

“When I have the answers, you’ll get them.”

Eve wrote up the conversation, copied Mira. Then she pushed up from the desk, started to head to the bullpen. And waited when she heard Peabody coming her way.

“You talked to the writer.”

“He was really forthcoming. Still a lot of grief there—losing both parents within a year—and that may have helped open him up. He didn’t know anything about his mother having another kid, changing her name, any of it. I believe him.”

“Same with the sister, and agreed. Did he admit to the suicide, tell you about the notes she left?”

“He did, and he’s sending a copy of his. Dallas, when he talked about his mother, there just wasn’t any Lisa McKinney in there. No trauma, no addictions, no wild side. Rock-solid family, happy.”

“I got that.” Eve started to continue, then stopped. “What’s your take?”

“They didn’t know. She was Violet Fletcher. She was Mama. From everything he said, it feels like she would have told her husband, but from everything he said, it jars they didn’t keep her son, or get him back if she’d lost him or dumped him. So that bugs me, but it’s pretty damn clear she remade herself, had a strong marriage, a loving family, a good home, did good works.”

Eve waited a beat. “And?”

“Okay, well, listening to Chasen Fletcher, and what he told me about the letter she left, it’s like her world, her life, started with Joe, and then ended when he died. Going on sixty years is a long time to maintain an illusion, but if that’s how it really was for her, maybe his death broke the spell. What if, during that six months between Joe’s death and her suicide, she contacted the unsub, her first child? Lisa McKinney’s son.”

“And,” Eve continued, “he learns the mother who abandoned him, one way or the other, had almost six decades of happy—add rich on top—and three other kids. Kids she tucked in at night, but not him. Kids she helped with schoolwork, but not him. Kids who had her love and attention, who blew out birthday candles and opened Christmas presents in a big house with flowers in the yard. It would just burn your ass, wouldn’t it?”

“He dresses her the way she was when she was his.”

“And kills her. His mommy’s the Bad Mommy. Chains her up—can’t walk away this time. He wants what she gave to others all those years.”

“You’d think he’d go after the siblings, want to kill them.”

Eve shook her head. “Give him time. But he came first. She’s his. She’s what matters most. Love and rage, warring. Send your notes to Mira, you can write it up when we get back.”

“Nails?”

“Nails,” Eve confirmed. “You drive.”

After Peabody picked her jaw up off the floor, she hustled after Eve. “You want me to drive?”

“I’m going to go through all this with the third sibling, and it might take some doing to push on a United States senator. So you drive.”

She ignored the elevators completely for the glides. “We’ll start in Brooklyn. If I were a crazy, mommy-obsessed killer who wanted to cover my tracks when I bought a fancy fake nail kit, I’d go over the bridge to do it.”

“I’m driving to Brooklyn!” Because Eve was slightly in front of her, Peabody risked a butt wiggle.

“I saw that.”

“You couldn’t have seen that. Only moms have the metaphorical eyes in the back of their heads.”

“Moms are just cops with kids.”

Peabody started to object, but rethought it. “Huh. They sort of are. I wonder what it was like for Lisa-slash-Violet. Did she ever think about her other life? Did she keep tabs on the child she had in that other life? Could she really just erase all that?”

“Why not? You can take the cynical route. She’s broke, pissed off, dragging a kid around, giving BJs, and working the pole. Decides it’s time to look out for number one, dumps the kid, and that makes things easier, but she needs to find a way out of the life. And here’s this young, good-looking, rich doctor. Find a way to get into his life, clean his house, pull some weeds, whatever. Make yourself over some, whatever it takes to get him in the sack. Maybe use the old damsel in distress thing. He’s a doctor, a healer according to his daughter. Work it so he wants to heal you.”

“It didn’t sound like that,” Peabody said when they switched the glides for the stairs to their garage level. “It sounded romantic, and sweet.”

“Maybe. Maybe it started out cynical and turned real. If it had been a game, if he’d just been a mark, she’d have gotten all the money she could out of him and booked it. But she didn’t.”