Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(36)

“I don’t, but I can get a full employment record from the manager.”

“Not yet anyway. She and Juan have three kids. He’s on the job, out of the two-two-six.” She swung to her ’link, then frowned at the glass of wine Roarke set in front of her.

“I’ll see about dinner,” he said.

“But I—”

“We’ll eat, and we’ll sort through all this while we do.”

“Fine, okay. Fine. This is Lieutenant Dallas out of Central,” she began as Roarke walked back down to the kitchen and the AutoChef.

When he came back in she was talking to someone—he assumed whoever had caught the Missing Persons case—taking notes.

He left her to it, used the little table to set down the meal.

“Appreciate it,” she said. “And yeah, I’ll keep you in the loop on her.”

She clicked off, frowned at the wine again. But this time she picked it up, sampled.

“I caught the detective who headed the investigation. She’s got a solid memory. She said she remembered this one especially as her daughter was the same age at the time.”

“Come eat, and tell me.”

She thought how much easier a slice of pizza would’ve been since she could’ve kept working while she chowed it down. But still, reviewing what she had with him couldn’t be considered a waste of time.

She went over, sat across from him. “Another reason she remembers is she and the aunt keep in touch. At least once a year one of them contacts the other, just to touch base. What I get is the kid was pretty shattered when her parents were killed, but it helped some she was tight with the aunt. They got counseling, and the kid seemed to be coming along.”

“It must be crushing, even with a close family member able and willing to care for you, to lose both parents that way.”

“Had to go to a new school, too, as the aunt didn’t have enough money to move and keep her where she’d been. But according to the aunt, and the detective believed her, still does, the kid was doing better. Then about a week or so before she went missing, she started coming home late from school. The aunt had to work, but she had a neighbor keep an eye out for Lupa, and she started coming in just before her aunt was due home.

“This is really good,” she said after another bite.

“Thanks. I slaved over the AutoChef for minutes.”

Grinning, she ate some more. “When the aunt called her on it, the kid claimed she was just hanging with her new friends, doing her homework with them. But she was evasive, and the aunt didn’t push. Felt she needed some room. Then one day she didn’t come home at all.”

“From all you said, she doesn’t sound like a runaway.”

“I don’t think she ran away. I think she was lured or enticed into that building, killed there. I think, most likely, those few days before she poofed, she met the killer, or someone who connected her to him. She—the kid—started asking a lot of God questions.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, how come God this, or why doesn’t God that. They’re pretty serious Catholics, according to the primary, but during the investigation, they found she’d been reading about alternative religions and—what would you call them? Philosophies? Using the house comp, as they could only afford the one, late at night after the aunt was in bed.”

“It doesn’t seem unusual behavior for a young girl, especially one who’d suffered a major loss.”

“No, but I think about that higher power stuff, and I wonder. It’s another possible connection to HPCCY.”

She gestured with her spoon, then used it to dig back into the stew. “Say the kid was meeting somebody from The Sanctuary—resident or staff. Someone she knew from her time there, had a connection with. They’ve never been able to track down where she spent that time, after school, before getting home. Could be someone used that spiritual angle to hook her. Why did God do such a shitty thing? Here are some answers.”

“She might’ve walked by the building going to school,” Roarke suggested.

“She’s the second vic who was in residence there. It’s not going to be coincidence, it’s not going to be happenstance. She wasn’t doing illegals, no sign of that anywhere.”

“A good girl,” Roarke put in, “with hard and sorrowful circumstances.”

“Yeah. She went to school every day, and her grades were solid. She got counseling, both separately and with the aunt, and nobody saw her as runaway material. She and the aunt hadn’t fought. Added to all that, she took nothing with her. She had school stuff, the clothes on her back. A kid doesn’t take off without hauling some of her stuff.”

No, Eve thought, no. A kid does what Linh did, packs up some of her things.

“She had a little money saved—just a little bit from doing chores or errands, that kind of thing. She didn’t take it either. Nobody looked at this as a runaway once they got the ball rolling. And nobody came forward claiming to have seen anybody lurking around. I’m getting the case file, but my sense is this detective put in the time and effort, and maybe more than most would.”

“But you have two of your victims in residence at The Sanctuary, at the same time.”

She drank a little more wine as she considered.