Innocent in Death (In Death #24)(88)

“I don’t care. It’s just a stupid book.” Rayleen shrugged. “I remember everyone’s numbers and codes anyway. I have an excellent head for numbers.”

“Good for you.”

“I looked you up and you’ve solved lots of cases.”

“It’s ‘closed.’ If you’re going to work with cops, you have to use the right term. We close cases.”

“Closed,” Rayleen repeated. “I’ll remember. You closed the one where those men broke into a house and killed everyone in it but a girl, younger than me. Her name was Nixie.”

“Still is.”

“Did she give you clues? To help you close the case?”

“As a matter of fact. Shouldn’t you go find your mother or something?”

“I’ve been trying to think of clues for this one.” She wandered to a mirror, studied her own reflection, fluffed her curls. “Because I was right there and everything. I saw, and I’m very, very observant. So I could help close the case.”

“If you think of anything, be sure to let me know. Now scram.”

Her eyes met Eve’s in the mirror, a quick flash, then Rayleen turned. “It’smy room.”

“It’s my warrant. Beat it.”

Rayleen narrowed her eyes, folded her arms. “Will not.”

The kid’s face was a study of defiance, arrogance, confidence, temper. And Eve noted, challenge. Make me .

Eve took her time absorbing it all as she crossed over. Then she took Rayleen by the arm, pulled her out of the room.

“Taking me on’s a mistake.” Eve said it quietly, then closed the door. Locked it.

In case Rayleen got ideas, Eve strode down to the bedroom door, closed and locked that as well.

Then she went back to work.

She was undisturbed until Peabody knocked. “Why’d you lock the door?”

“Kid got under my feet.”

“Oh. Well. I had the guys haul some of the boxes we’re taking out. They’re labeled, receipts done. Unfortunately, we didn’t come across any poison in the spice cabinet or blackmail notes in the library. But we’ve got some shit to cull over once we log it in at Central. You get anything in here?”

“This and that. Here’s what I haven’t got. Her diary.”

“Maybe she doesn’t keep one.”

“She mentioned she did when Foster was killed. I’m not finding it.”

“They can hide them good.”

“I can find them good, when they’re here.”

“Yeah.” Peabody pursed her lips, looked around. “Maybe she doesn’t keep one after all. Ten’s a pretty much between-age for boys, and boys are the big topic of diaries.”

“She’s got an active, busy brain for any age. So where’s the ‘Mom and Dad won’t let me have a tattoo. It’s so bogus!’ Or ‘Johnnie Dreamboat looked at me in the hall today!’”

“Can’t say, and can’t think what that would tell us if she had a journal going and we found it.”

“Daily stuff—what Mommy said to Daddy, what this teacher did, and so on. The kid notices things. Got a snotty streak, too.”

Peabody grinned. “You think all kids are snots.”

“Goes without saying. But this one’s got something in there.” Eve glanced back at the mirror, saw again the way Rayleen had looked at herself, then the flash in her eyes. “If something pissed her off or hurt her tender feelings, you bet your ass she’d document. Where’s her documentation?”

“Well…Maybe McNab will find something buried on her comp. She’s smart enough, she’d want to keep her observations and bitches where Mommy and Daddy and the au pair wouldn’t find them if they poked around.”

“Put a flag on that.”

“Sure. Seems a little out there, Dallas.”

“Maybe.” She turned, studied the vacation shot again. “Maybe not.”

17

WHEN THE ITEMS FROM THE STRAFFO RESIDENCE were logged, Eve commandeered a conference room. There, she and Peabody spread everything out, grouping according to area, subgrouping by person or persons who owned or used the item.

She dragged in her murder board, clipping up pictures of various items or groupings.

She studied, she circled, she paced.

“Please, sir, I must have food.”

Distracted, Eve glanced over. “What?”

“Food, Dallas. I gotta eat something or I’m going to start gnawing on my own tongue. I can order something in or run down to the Eatery.”

“Go ahead.”

“Mag-o. What do you want?”

“To nail this bastard down.”

“To eat, Dallas. Food.”

“Doesn’t matter, as long as it comes with caffeine. She had a box full of pictures.”

“Sorry?”

“Allika, in her sitting room. A big pretty box, up in her closet, not quite hidden, but not out in the open. It was full of pictures of the dead kid, had a lock of his hair, some of his toys, a piece of his blanket.”

“Jeez.” Peabody’s tender heart ached a little. “Poor woman. It must be awful.”

“Not one picture of the kid anywhere in the open, but bunches of them in her box. Hers.” Eve moved around the groupings again, stopped by the section taken or copied from Oliver Straffo’s office. “Nothing like that in Straffo’s office or in the bedroom or any of the family areas.”