Eternity in Death (In Death #24.5)(5)

Reaching out, Eve took the cup of mocha from Daffy’s limp fingers, set it aside. “Do you know the name of the man she’s been seeing recently?”

“I…She called him her prince. Lots of times she had names for her men. This one was Prince. Dark Prince, sometimes.” Daffy pressed her hands to her eyes, then dragged them up over her face, through her hair. “She’s only been into him for a week or so. Maybe two. I can’t think.” She put her hand to her head, rubbed her temple as if she couldn’t keep her fingers still. “I can’t think.”

“Can you describe him?”

“I never met him. I was supposed to, but I didn’t. We’ve been fighting,” she repeated as tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Tell me what you know about him.”

“Did he hurt her?” Her voice broke on the question as the tears started to gush. “Did he kill Tee?”

“We’re going to want to talk to him. Tell me what you know about him.”

“She…she met him at some underground club. I was supposed to go, but I got hung up, and I forgot. I was supposed to meet her there.”

“Where?” Eve prompted.

“Um…a cult club, underground, near Times Square, I think. I can’t remember. There are so many.” When Peabody offered tissues, Daffy sent her a pathetically grateful look. “Thanks. Thanks. She—Tee, she tagged me about eleven when I didn’t show, and we got into it because I’d forgotten, and this guy I hooked up with and I decided to zip down to South Beach for the night. I was already down there when she tagged me.”

On a long breath, she bent forward to retrieve the cup of mocha, and now sipped slowly. “Okay. Okay.” She breathed in and out. “It was my screw-up, about the club, so I mea culpa’d the next day. She was all about this guy, this Prince. But she looked out of it, so I knew she’d been using.”

Daffy pressed her lips together. “I’m clean, and I’ve got to stay clean. My father still holds some of the purse strings on me, you know? If I get in any trouble like that again, he said he’d cut me off. He means it, so…Shit, you’re cops. I’m not going to impress you, so the straight deal is this: Besides the edict from my dad, I’ve had enough of chems.”

“But Tiara hadn’t,” Eve said.

“Tee’s always going to go over the top, it’s just her way. Always going to push the limits, then look for the next big thing.” As Daffy mopped tears, she managed a wan smile. “But she knows I’ve got to stay clean. She’d been using, and she’d sworn off six months ago, like a solidarity deal? We took an oath, so I was pissed.”

“What was she on?” Eve asked.

“I don’t know, but she was strung. We scratched at each other about that, but it was mostly her telling me how I had to go with her to this club, meet this guy and his friends. She said he was complete, the absolute. That they’d banged all night, and it was the best she’d ever had. She nagged me brainless about it until I said I’d go.”

Shaking her head, Daffy drank again. “Then later I started thinking how even if I didn’t use, she would, and I’d get busted. So I tagged her back and told her I wasn’t going, and why didn’t we hook up with this guy somewhere else. No go. His club or nowhere.”

“His club?”

“Not like he owned it. Or maybe he does. She never said; I never asked. But she got stewed because I wouldn’t go, and Carm’s in New L.A. until next month, so she couldn’t pull her instead of me.”

Eve waited while Daffy brooded into the mocha she’d so desperately wanted. “Do you know if anyone else went with her to this club? Any of your other mutual friends?”

“I don’t think so. I never heard any buzz about it, not from anyone but Tee. Anyway, we didn’t talk for a couple days, then yesterday she came by here, earlier than this even. Like just after sunrise. She looked bottomed. Pale and glassy-eyed. Using again, and she hadn’t been using before this run for that whole six months. She was still hyped, talking wild. Going to live forever, that’s what she said. Laughing and busting around. She and her prince were going to live forever, and screw me for flipping her off. I tried to get her to stay, but she wouldn’t, just told me I’d be sorry, I’d had my chance. Now he was only taking her.”

“Taking her where?” Eve asked.

“I don’t know. She wasn’t making any sense. I’m telling you, she was over. I got pissy right back at her, and we yelled at each other, then she stormed out. And now she’s dead.”

“That’s the last time you saw or spoke with her?”

“Yeah. Did he hurt her? I mean…you didn’t say how she, she died. Did he hurt her?”

“I can’t tell you that yet, I’m sorry.”

“She’s such a baby about pain.” Daffy swiped the back of her hand over her cheek. “I hope he didn’t hurt her. I should’ve gone to the club that night. If I’d gone to the club instead of South Beach, maybe…Is it my fault? I should’ve looked after her better. She got sucked into stuff so easy. Is it my fault?”

“No, it’s not your fault.”

“She was almost a year older, but I was the one who looked after her—mostly. I could pull her back from the edge when she went too far. But I didn’t, you know? I just told her she was being an idiot or whatever. Only Tee would actually believe in vampires.”