Hide (Detective Harriet Foster #1)(13)

Lonergan frowned. “Jumped you?”

Foster shot Lonergan a warning look and gave a slight shake of the head. She didn’t want him antagonizing the kid, shutting him down. Lonergan scowled and let her take the lead, but he didn’t look happy about it. “Do you remember being on the Riverwalk?” she asked. “Maybe meeting someone there?”

Ainsley’s brow furrowed, as though he was trying desperately to recall something. Anything. “The Riverwalk? No, I don’t remember being there. I was . . .” He stopped. “Somewhere else.”

She focused on his face. It appeared he was being truthful. “Alone?”

“And what’s ‘somewhere else’ mean?” Lonergan asked.

“I’m a little fuzzy . . .”

“You were found unconscious on the Riverwalk,” Foster said. “In close proximity to a murder victim. A young woman. She’d been stabbed.”

Lonergan took a step closer to the bed. “And you had blood on your clothes. Remember anything now?”

“What? No. I . . . I . . .” Ainsley’s eyes searched the walls for anything that would ground him. “That doesn’t sound right. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“Would you mind lifting up your hands?” Foster asked.

Ainsley narrowed his eyes, suddenly suspicious. “What for?”

“Just for a moment.” She followed the request with an open smile.

When he slowly lifted his hands, turning them over and back, she could clearly see there were no cuts or nicks on his fingers or palms. You would expect an injury from such a brutal assault. The knife would have been bloody, and the hand of whoever wielded it would have skidded along the slippery hilt and caught the edge of the blade unless they were wearing some really heavy-duty gloves, which they hadn’t found at the scene.

“Thanks,” Foster said. “You can put them down now.”

“A young woman was stabbed to death not ten feet from you,” Lonergan said. “What can you tell us about that?”

Ainsley looked like he wanted to cry as he scrubbed his hands across his baby face. “You’re saying I killed a woman? No way.”

“Her name’s Peggy Birch,” Lonergan continued, his voice stern. “You don’t remember meeting her? Maybe you two went down there to party and somethin’ went wrong? What’d you take?”

“You’re wrong. I don’t know anybody named Peggy.”

“You seem pretty sure of that,” Lonergan replied, “seeing as you can’t remember much else.”

Ainsley was getting agitated. Foster needed to slow things down. “Let’s all take a minute.” She locked eyes with Lonergan again, talking to him more than to Ainsley. “Slow things down.” She gripped the bed rail. “Okay,” she said gently. “You don’t remember the Riverwalk? Tell me what you do remember.”

“I . . . I don’t remember last night. I . . .” He shook his head. “I think I was with my friends? Saturday?”

“Sunday’s what we’re interested in,” Lonergan said harshly. “Midnight, so technically early this mornin’. Well past the time you shoulda been down there.”

“Sunday.” Ainsley repeated it. “Midnight?” He shook his head again, adamant this time. “I was with my friends, I think. Or I could have been up late studying. I don’t remember going to the Riverwalk.”

“You were found there this morning,” Foster said. “Try to remember what you were doing. You mention your friends. Which friends?” She could see the freak-out coming as Ainsley got agitated, then frustrated. And then he broke completely down.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I . . . I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I don’t feel safe,” he yelled, trembling. “Where are my parents? I need to call them.”

“Look, kid . . . ,” Lonergan started.

“No. This isn’t right. I didn’t do it. I’m not saying anything else until I see my parents.”

Ainsley clamped his lips shut and turned his head to the wall and closed his eyes. A child’s response. This was as far as they could go for now. She and Lonergan stepped out of the bay and walked away, leaving the officer on watch at the curtain.

“What the hell?” Lonergan said. “His parents? Is he for real?”

“We might have gotten more out of him if you hadn’t come down so hard.”

“He’s a killer. Hard’s the only way to go. What, are you used to some hand-holding kumbaya crap?”

“I don’t work that way. He’s a scared kid. We don’t know what’s going on yet.”

“Foster, c’mon, he’s playing us with that crybaby shit.”

She was aware that they had gotten the attention of the medical staff, so she lowered her voice and stepped back from Lonergan. “You’re so sure about that?”

Lonergan thrust his chest out, placed his hands on his hips. “You bet I am. That scared-little-boy act doesn’t fool me, but it’s obviously got you goin’.”

She let a moment go, then chose her words carefully. “I vote for waiting until he’s fully back before we approach him again. Meanwhile, we talk to the doctor, see what we’re dealing with, then call his parents. Can we at least agree on that much?”