Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(21)

She saw it, the change on his face, in his eyes. From polite curiosity to a terrible blend of hope and grief.

“Linh? Is it Linh?”

“It would be easier if we came inside.”

The hope died as he took an unsteady step back. “She’s dead.”

Eve stepped in to a wide, welcoming foyer scented by the bold red lilies on a stand. Peabody closed the door.

“We have some information, and some questions. Can we go in, sit down?”

“Please just tell me, is it Linh?”

“Yes, sir, we’re here about Linh.”

“My wife—” He had to stop like a man catching his breath. “She’s still in the gym. I need you—she should . . .” He walked slowly to a house intercom. “Tien. Tien, there are people here to see us. You need to come.”

It took a moment, then two, before a female voice, quietly annoyed, responded. “Sam, I haven’t done my meditation. Ten minutes, and—”

He cut her off. “Please come out now.” He turned toward the right where the big, sparkling tree stood in front of the windows. “Please, this way. We’ll sit down. My wife—that is—it’s our day off. We take a day off together.”

He glanced toward a grand piano, and the family photos arranged on it. Among them stood the one of Linh they’d used for the Missing Persons report.

“My family,” he began, and Peabody took his arm to guide him to an oversized chair.

“You have a lovely family, Dr. Penbroke. Are those your grandchildren?”

“Yes. We have two grandchildren. A boy, he’s four, and the baby is just two.”

“They must be excited about Christmas.”

“They are very excited. They . . . Tien.”

She was petite, like her daughter, and trim, but with a wiry toughness Eve recognized.

She wore the wedge cut Elsie had imagined for Linh. Her eyes, a strong green that made a compelling contrast with the golden skin, still carried that quiet annoyance though she smiled politely as she came into the room.

“I’m sorry. We were using our gym. We’re barely fit for company.”

“Tien. They’re police.”

It came again, that flipped-switch change. Tien reached for her husband’s hand. “Linh. You found her. You found our daughter.”

“I’m sorry to inform you,” Eve began.

“No.” And here, in a mother’s voice, a mother’s face, the grief after fifteen years was as fresh as it might have been at fifteen seconds. “No.”

“Here, Tien. Here.” Samuel simply drew his wife down, into the big chair with him, hugged her. “You’re going to tell us our illusions are finished, that the hope we’ve clung to all this time is gone. That our little girl is never coming back to us.”

There was no easy way, and a fast and clean cut was best.

“Dr. Penbroke, we discovered several remains of females between the ages of twelve and sixteen. We believe we’ve identified one of them as your daughter.”

“Remains,” Tien echoed.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m very sorry. You could help us confirm her identity. Did your daughter have any childhood injuries? Did she break any bones?”

“She fell,” Samuel said. “Airboarding in the park. A bad fall. She broke her arm, just above the elbow.” He clutched his own. “She was eleven.”

“Peabody.”

At Eve’s unspoken order, Peabody drew the hard copy of the reconstruction from her file bag. “We were able to approximate her face.”

Samuel reached out, took the picture. “Linh” was all he said.

“It’s my baby. It’s our baby, Sam. But the hair’s wrong. She had long hair, beautiful long hair. And . . . and her nose, the tip of her nose turned up just a tiny bit. She had a little beauty mark at the top right corner of her mouth.”

“Tien.”

“It should be right!” Tears fell in silent rivers down her face, but she pushed on. “It should be right. She was very proud of her hair!”

“We’ll see that it’s right,” Eve told her. “We’ll make it right.”

“Twelve, there were twelve,” Samuel murmured. “I heard, this morning, in the city you found twelve. She was one of them?”

“Yes.”

“When? How? When did she die? How did she die? Who did this to her?”

“I can promise you, both of you, we’re doing everything possible to find out. I can tell you that at this time, we believe she died about fifteen years ago.”

“All the time.” Tien turned her head, pressed her face to her husband’s shoulder. “All the time we looked, and prayed and waited. She was gone.”

“This is very hard, I know,” Eve continued. “Can you tell us why she left home, what happened?”

“She was very angry. Young girls have an angry time, a time they’re unhappy and rebellious. She wanted a tattoo, wanted to pierce her eyebrow, wanted to go with boys, not do her schoolwork or chores. We let her have the little nose stud—a compromise—but she wanted more. It’s a time, a phase many go through,” Tien said, with a plea in her voice. “They grow out of it.”

“She wanted to go to a concert,” Samuel explained. “We said no, as she’d skipped her classes, twice. And had behaved poorly at home. She said we were unfair, and hard things were said by all. We restricted her from her electronics as discipline. It was difficult, but . . .”