Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(22)

“It was normal,” Peabody put in.

“Yes. Yes.” Tien managed a smile through the rain of tears. “Her brother and sister had both had this stage. Not as dramatic as Linh, but she was always more passionate. And she was the youngest. Perhaps we indulged her more.”

“On the morning of September twelfth,” Samuel continued, “she didn’t come down for breakfast. We thought she was sulking. I sent her sister upstairs to get her. Hoa came down, told us Linh wasn’t upstairs, that some of her things were gone, and her backpack.”

“First we searched the house, then called friends, neighbors. Then the police.”

“Did she have friends in the city?” Eve asked. “In Manhattan?”

“Her friends were here, but she liked to go to the city. She loved it.” Tien paused to compose herself again. “The police looked, and we hired a private investigator. We went on screen, offered rewards. They found, finally, she’d taken the subway into the city, but they couldn’t find her.”

“She never contacted you, or any of her friends?”

“No.” Tien wiped at the tears. “She didn’t take her ’link. She’s a very smart girl. She knew we had a parental tracer on it, so we’d know where she was. She didn’t want us to know.”

“She would have bought another,” Samuel said. “She had money. She had five hundred dollars. Her sister told us, when it became clear Linh had run away, that Linh had saved money and hidden it in her room, made her sister swear not to tell. We were glad she had money, glad she had enough to pay for food. And we thought . . . we thought . . . she’d come home.”

“But she didn’t. She never came home.”

“We’ll bring her home now.” Samuel pressed his lips to his wife’s hair. “We’ll bring our baby home now, Tien. We need to see her.”

“Dr. Penbroke—”

“We’re doctors,” he said. “We understand what happens to the body. We understand you’d only have her bones. But we need to see her.”

“I’ll try to arrange it. We’re working to identify her, and the others. If we could take DNA samples from you, it would quicken the process for Linh.”

“Yes. They’re on record,” Tien explained. “But take fresh ones so there can be no mistake. Did someone hurt her?”

Navigate carefully, Eve warned herself. “I think someone kept her from coming home to you. We’re working to find out who. I can promise you we’ll do our best for her, for all of them.”

She glanced at Peabody again, and her partner took two DNA kits from her bag.

“Just a few more questions,” Eve began as Peabody rose to get the samples.

5

“Take the samples to DeWinter,” Eve told Peabody when they left the Penbrokes. “Let’s get this confirmed asap. And give the reconstructionist the long hair, the beauty mark, the bit about the nose. Let’s make it right.”

“I will. We will.”

“If there’s a completed reconstruction of the next vic, make sure I get that. Take a good, hard look at the Missing Persons report and investigative notes. If there’s a hole, we’re going to plug it. So contact the detective who headed it up, have a talk.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll take the handyman and the donor, her granddaughter. If you finish what I’m giving you, do a run on this Jubal Craine, and get me anything you find. We do an immediate search for match on every face as it comes to us. Whatever you find, I know about it when you do.”

“Same goes.”

“Same goes,” Eve agreed, then looked back at the house. “She had a good family, from the way it looks. A well-off one, but a normal one. Rules, chores, responsibilities, an airboard, a sister who’d keep a secret.”

“I think she’d have passed through the phase where everything her parents said, wanted, expected was—or seemed to be—exactly the opposite of frosty. And you really want to be frosty at that age.”

“She made a mistake—I’ll show them I can do what I want when I want. I’m not a kid, they can’t boss me around—and she never got a chance to fix it. That’s how it feels.”

“But you’re going to dig down into the Penbrokes anyway.”

“They loved their kid, and never hurt her. But . . . you talk to the detective who caught the case, and I’ll poke a little deeper. It’s better to be sure.”

She dumped Peabody two blocks from the lab, continued on—then considered.

She used the in-dash ’link to contact Roarke.

He answered, and quickly. “Lieutenant.”

As she’d suspected, whatever meeting he might be in, whatever meetings he might have next, his mind—like hers—was focused on the girls.

“I appreciate the data you’ve been feeding to us. We’re using it. Wanted to update you. We think—hell, I’m sure—we’ve ID’d the first victim.”

“What was her name?”

He would ask that, first. He would want to put the name in his memory. “Linh—that’s L-i-n-h—Penbroke. The probability it’s her is very high. I’ve just come from notifying her parents, and getting DNA samples so we can confirm. But—”