Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(48)

“When did it start echoing?”

“A couple of months ago, I guess. I didn’t really notice. I don’t make that many actual calls, just texts. I ditched it, so who cares?”

“We recovered it.”

“What? How?”

“Search warrant.”

“You—you had people in here, going through my things?” Outrage pushed Gwen to her feet again. “You have no right!”

“Search warrant,” Eve said mildly. “Warrant gives us the right. And we recovered your ’link from your kitchen recycler.”

“Fine then. Good. Then you’ll see I didn’t contact anybody after I left Ariel.”

“Gwen.” Eve waited until she poured more wine. “Did you tell anyone about Ariel, at any time?”

“Jesus, no.” Visibly exhausted, Gwen dropped down to sit again. “Look, I liked her, I really did, but she wasn’t the one and only. I’ve had other relationships, and I’m careful. I have to be.”

“I want names.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Do you want these charges to go away?”

Slowly, Gwen lowered her glass. “You can do that?”

“If you tell us the truth, if I can clear this up, satisfy myself you weren’t involved in Ariel’s murder, I can have the current charges dropped.”

“My parents wouldn’t have to know?”

“If I’m satisfied you’re truthful—and you don’t hide relevant information—I’d do whatever I can to maintain your privacy.”

“How far back do you want me to go?”

“To the first.”

“I’m probably not going to remember everybody. I’m being truthful! I might not remember last names, or somebody I had a one-nighter with.”

“Start with who you can—but first, tell me about Chad.”

“Chadwick Billingsly.” She closed her eyes again, smiled. Not dreamily, not fondly. Smugly. “College. I needed my parents to believe I had a solid boyfriend, a good family, one who respected my vow to stay pure until marriage. He fit. Then he asks me to marry him, and I have to say yes, and then I have to string that along awhile until I can find a way to break it off.

“I set him up, put some sleeping pills in his beer, and I paid an LC who’d lost her license to get into bed with him and take pictures. Throw those up on the Internet, and I’ve got a tearful breakup.

“‘Daddy.’” She let those slow tears roll. “ ‘I loved him! He promised we’d wait until we were married. And he cheated on me, cheated on me with a prostitute! Oh, Daddy, I just want to die. I can’t go back to college, please, please, I can’t face it. Please let me stay home.’ ”

She shrugged. “Two birds. I hated college.”

“You’re a piece of work.”

Gwen shrugged again. “I do what I have to do.”

“Start with the first,” Eve told her, “and give me as many names as you can.”

After they left, in the elevator, Eve gave Peabody a moment of silence. She could almost hear her partner wrestle with her thoughts and feelings.

“You want to feel sorry for her,” Eve began, “because she’s a victim of horrible and ugly child abuse. And worse.”

“I do feel sorry for her about that, and it’s not just the Free-Ager thing, it’s the cop thing, the human-being thing.”

“Because what happened to her, what her parents did to her at sixteen was horrible and ugly, illegal and immoral. And she had no choice, not at sixteen. Two years later, she did, and from then until now, her choice has been to lie, to cheat, to use others, then betray them, and all for money she didn’t earn. For money she’ll rake in simply because she was born, and lived a life of lies and greed and betrayal.”

“When you put it like that.”

“It is like that,” Eve said as they walked across the lobby. “It’s exactly like that. Our problem here is that doesn’t make her a murderer. She doesn’t want your compassion.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“She also doesn’t want to accept blame or responsibility for anything.” They stepped outside, crossed the sidewalk to the car. “She despises her parents, and she’s got plenty of cause, but she panders to them, is willing to ruin lives and reputations—because that’s what she’d have done to Merit Caine—and she’d have done everything she could to have a kid—a kid who’d be just another step to the money for her—to get what she wants.”

Behind the wheel, Eve glanced in the mirror, gauged the traffic, then zipped out to join it. “What she wants is a whole shitload of money, plenty of status, admiration, and the freedom to screw people over with impunity.”

“All true. And still.”

“She was sixteen. Now she’s not, and she’s screwing people over—Ariel Byrd and Merit Caine are just the last of the line. So far. Our advantage there is she’d screw over anybody who threatens her end game, and that includes whoever killed Ariel. So, clearly, she doesn’t know.”

“That’s an advantage?”

“Because now we know—can be reasonably certain—that well’s dry. But we recovered the ’link.”