Obsession in Death(103)

Eve all but heard the two teenage hearts shudder and shake.

“You could be speaking in a whisper two rooms away, and he’d catch every word. I expect it’s like that with a canny nose such as yours, Thea. What did the smell make you think of?”

“The bathroom at school after somebody boots. I don’t mean the booting part, because if she’d smelled like that we wouldn’t have gotten on with her.”

“Sick!” Savannah giggled.

“Complete. It’s like it smells after they clean it up. Sort of like a hospital smells. All sterile and chemically.”

“That’s good. That’s good information,” Eve told her. “Can you think of anything else? Any other details?”

The girls shrugged in unison.

“Did you ever see her before? In the building, on the street?”

“I don’t think so.” Savannah looked at Thea, who shook her head. “She was on the dull train so you don’t notice, and we were all about telling Flo-lo about pranking Rizz since she couldn’t be on it.”

“Flo-lo’s grounded,” Bocca explained.

“Way bogus, but she’s getting sprung tomorrow. Her mom said, so can we go to the ball drop, Dad? Please?”

“Sure, when you’re twenty-one.”

“Dad!”

“Totally negativo.” He smiled in the way Eve imagined a weary and indulgent father might. “And Thea’s parents already nixed that, so don’t push it.”

“Then can Flo-lo sleep over?”

“Sure, why not?” He rubbed his eyes again. “The more the merrier.”

As they rode down to street level, Eve gave Roarke an elbow poke. “Sure and me young nephew back in Ireland has the ears of a two-headed bat.”

“Your Irish accent’s mired in a bog, Lieutenant.”

“Yours bumped up a couple notches – worked, too, so that’s good thinking.”

“She wants to be like everyone else, as is typical, I suppose, for the age.”

“I don’t know. At that age I was sick of being like everyone else and was counting the days until I could be on my own.”

“At that age I was boosting rides, lifting locks, and picking pockets. But then we never were like everyone else at the core, were we?” He grabbed her hand, kissed it.

“She can make herself look like, behave like everyone else, but she’s not. And she doesn’t want to be.”

“The killer, not Thea, I’m guessing.”

“She wants to be important, special, noticed.” She pulled out her ’link as they stepped out into the cold, then frowned at it. “I was going to check on Jamie and his mother.”

“But we’d both feel better if we did that in person. It won’t take long.”

“Unnecessary, but yeah. It’ll be off my brain. The smell,” she began as they got into the car. “Sealant maybe. Sealed up, top to toe, that could be it. Or part of it.”

“There’s a whiff of chemical in it, if you’re sensitive enough to smells, but you don’t use sealant when you clean vomit – and she was specific there.”

“Disinfectant, some of that. Chemicals. Maybe treated the coat. Maybe had disinfectant in the bag? Clean up anything that needed cleaning. Antiseptic? Subtle, because the other kid didn’t catch it. Maybe more a sixth sense than one of the five. The same that told her female, and gave her the sense of meanness where the other, Savannah, just saw a dull, dorky-looking person, a little annoyed maybe with a couple of girls in – what’s it? – hilarity.”

Eve scanned the streets as Roarke drove.

“She’s hurting, unless she got medical treatment – and so far no one’s reported anyone matching her description seeking it – and she’s shaken. Angry, in pain, confidence blown. Three misses in two days. What will she do now? Crawl into her hole, lick her wounds? Or find release somewhere else?”

“If she’s really hurt, I’d think she’d tend to herself first.”

“Maybe. But rage and revenge are damn good painkillers.”

When they arrived at Jamie’s the lights on the main level blazed. The holiday tree shone defiantly through the glass. And through the glass Eve saw the living room screen, all color and movement.

The uniform who answered the door looked a little abashed. And no surprise, Eve thought, considering the volume of the basketball game running on screen, and the shouts of the other uniform and Jamie at a three-point swish.

“Ah, we thought we’d keep him entertained,” the uniform said.

Eve glanced at the spread of chips, soft drinks, Christmas cookies, some sort of chunky salsa.

“I can see that.”

Jamie, young, fit, his sandy hair a little longer than the last time she’d seen him, jumped up from his slouch on the sofa. He’d caught Eve in a hug before she could stop him. Which offset, she guessed, catching two uniforms gorging on junk food and sports.

He gave Roarke the same treatment, then shook back his hair. “Good you came by, but you didn’t have to. We’re all tucked. Appreciate the badges, too, but nobody’s getting in I don’t want in. They made Mom feel better though.”

“Where is she?”

“I finally talked her into going to bed. About twenty minutes ago.”