Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(62)

“Do I have to go through the whole thing again?”

“We’re aware your brother went missing on June 12, 2059. Peabody.”

“The report stated you had no reason to believe your brother would just take off, break contact with you. And in fact had spoken with you the night before his disappearance. And, as far as you could tell, none of his belongings had been taken from his apartment.”

“Somebody’d been in there. I said that, too. Keene’s messy, but he’s messy in a certain way, and this was different. I can’t be sure if anything was missing because he had a shitload of electronics—that was his thing. And there’s no fucking way he’d have left all of it behind. There’s no fucking way he wouldn’t get in touch with me, especially with what we’d been talking about the last couple weeks.”

“Which was?”

“Natural Order. I mean, Jesus, he finally woke up, he finally got his head on straight. He told me he found out some shit that really opened his eyes.”

“What shit was that?”

“See, that’s the thing.” Savannah gestured with the tube. “He wouldn’t tell me. I thought he was being paranoid, okay? He leaned that way, which is one of the reasons he got sucked into that freaking cult. He said he couldn’t tell me, it was for my own safety. How he was going to put it all together and put it all online so they’d be exposed.

“He didn’t trust the cops,” she added. “He didn’t trust the media, either, so he was going to take care of it himself.”

Pausing, she rubbed the heel of her hand under her eye, and smeared some clay on her cheek.

Somehow it only added to the bohemian.

“Look, I thought he was just on one of his tears, but I was so glad he was getting out of that cult shit, I went along with it.”

She took a drink. “The night before he went missing, he came over, all juiced up. Actually, I think literally juiced, which is, again, why I thought he was paranoid. He told me he only needed another day or two, then it was going to blow wide open. And he figured once it did, he’d be famous, and make millions from telling the story. It was, I thought, Keene stuff. That’s the last time I saw him.”

She set the tube down. “I tried to tag him the next day, but his ’link was dead. I thought he’d shut it down or whatever. I tried a couple more times, and finally went over there. His neighbors said they hadn’t seen him. I finally got worried enough to go to the cops.”

“His supervisor at Natural Order claimed he quit on June 13, via email.” Peabody again referred to her PPC. “According to the report, the email was sent from one of your brother’s devices.”

“They disappeared him, that’s what they did.” Long eyes hot, she jabbed a finger at Peabody. “I don’t care what you say.”

Eve pulled Savannah’s attention back. “Do you know any of his friends or associates from Natural Order?”

“No. Keene and I barely spoke after he joined that crap. He tried, at first, to convert me—that would be the word. To, like, renounce my way of life for the true way. Jesus Christ, I’m gay and he’s preaching at me about how that’s unnatural. My roommate, my best pal, is mixed race. Keene wouldn’t even speak to him. He wouldn’t come over here. And then he came back. He was coming back.

“I think they killed him. I think he got caught trying to get to whatever turned him around. And I think they killed him. He had issues, okay, he had some serious issues, but he wouldn’t just take off like this.”

She shook her head fiercely, but her voice wobbled. “He just wouldn’t. Even when things were at their worst, he’d tag me on my birthday, on Christmas.”

“Has anyone from the order contacted you?”

“He had me listed as his next of kin. They sent me his final paycheck. Fuckers. I went out there once—to where he worked in Connecticut. They wouldn’t let me in. I wanted to see where he worked, to talk to somebody, but I couldn’t get past the gates. The place is a frigging fortress. They don’t want you in, you don’t get in.”

“Tell us about your relationship with Gwendolyn Huffman.”

“Gwen?” Savannah’s eyebrows winged up. “We hung out for a while. What’s she got to do with it?”

“Are you aware she’s a member of Natural Order?”

“Well, that’s bullshit. She’s gay. You can’t be a member when you’re gay. We hung out—intimately—for a couple months. Then I introduced her to Ariel, and that was that. If you want to talk about Gwen, talk to Ariel—Ariel Byrd. I think they’re still a thing. But Gwen didn’t know Keene. I never talked to her about Keene. We had sex, but we weren’t serious about it.”

“You and Ariel Byrd were friends?”

“Yeah, sure.” Savannah shrugged. “I mean, we’re not tight or anything. We’re both artists, and show our stuff at the same gallery. We hung out a few times—not intimately. Gwen went to an art show with me, and I intro’d them. I could see right off that was that. No big deal.”

“I’m sorry to inform you Ariel Byrd was murdered the night before last.”

“What?” Savannah lurched up from her slouch. “Come on!”

“You run in the same circles, as you said, but you hadn’t heard?”