Kindred in Death (In Death #29)(16)

“Jo, baby—”

“I’m Lieutenant Dallas. This is my partner, Detective Peabody.”

“Police? Are you going to haul that freak off?”

“You’re the freak.” A boy, curly brown hair shagging in the current style, eyes just as violent as his sister’s, snarled as he stormed down the steps.

“Stop! Both of you! Now!”

At last, Eve thought. Obviously stunned by the tone and the order, both kids stopped and stared at their mother as they might a two-headed alien.

Eve stepped up, pointed to a chair. “Sit.”

“Am I in trouble? I haven’t done anything. I swear.”

“Freak,” the boy muttered under his breath, then visibly shrunk under Eve’s frigid stare.

Eve turned back to Jo. “I’m sorry to inform you that Deena MacMasters was killed this morning.”

“Huh?” It was knee-jerk disbelief. “What?” And the tears welled and spilled instantly. “Mom? Mom? What is she saying?”

Though Eve preferred to leave weepers to Peabody, she sat across from Jo, kept their faces level as the mother squeezed into the chair to put her arms around her daughter.

“Someone killed her. Someone she knew. A boy she’s been seeing secretly. What’s his name?”

“She is not dead. We went shopping on Saturday with Hilly. Why are you saying that?”

The brother moved to her other side, all anger forgotten.

“She let someone into the house while her parents were away. Who was she dating?”

“Nobody.”

“Lying doesn’t help her now.”

“Lieutenant, please. Can’t you see how upset she is? We all are.”

“Her parents are upset, too. They came home and found their daughter dead. Who was she seeing, Jo? What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. Mom. Mom. Make her go away.” She turned her face, pressing it to her mother’s breast. “Make it go away.”

“It can’t go away.” Eve said it coldly, before Mrs. Jennings could speak. “It happened. Were you her friend?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“I’ll get her some water,” Peabody murmured, and turned away to find the kitchen.

“Tell me everything you know. It’s the only way to help her now. If you’re her friend, you want to help her.”

“But I don’t know. I really don’t. I never met him, or even saw him. She just called him David. She said his name was David, and he was wonderful. They met in the park a few weeks ago. She ran there a couple times a week. More sometimes.”

“Okay. How did they meet?”

“She liked to run, and this one day he was on the same path, and he tripped. He went down pretty hard, so she stopped to see if he was okay. He was all embarrassed, and he’d banged his knee a little, turned his ankle, you know? And he told her he was fine, not to stop, but when he tried to get up, his water bottle was broken and spilled all over, and he was more embarrassed because it got her shoes wet. They went over to sit on the grass, started talking a little, so she could make him feel better. And he was really cute.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t really know. She just said he was really cute. Adorable squared, and he was from Georgia and had an accent that just made her go wizzy. He was clumsy and really sweet and courteous. Old-fashioned. She really liked that about him.”

Peabody brought in a glass of water. Jo stared at it. “Thank you. I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

“Why did she keep him a secret?” Peabody asked gently.

“It was romantic. She didn’t even tell me until, like, last month, and only because she said she’d burst if she couldn’t talk about him. And . . . well, she knew her parents would ask questions, and he told her he’d gotten in some trouble back home in Georgia when he’d been in high school. With illegals. Her father wouldn’t have liked it, even though he told her straight out, and he’d done his rehab and community service and everything. She wanted some more time before she said anything about him.”

“But you never met him either,” Eve pointed out.

“He was shy, and he said—I think—how he liked it just being the two of them for a while. They didn’t do anything. Honest, Mom, they didn’t . . . you know.”

“It’s all right, sweetie. It’s all right, Jo.”

“They just met in the park sometimes, or went for walks or rides on his board, and they went to see a couple vids and talked on the ’link a lot. It was weeks before he even kissed her. And he was nineteen. She was afraid her parents wouldn’t like that he was older.”

“Did they have a date last night?”

Jo nodded, miserably. “She was going to have him over, just to eat and hang out a while because he was going to take her to a show. She liked going to the theater, and he got tickets to Coast to Coast. It’s why we went shopping, especially. She wanted a new outfit. She bought this really mag purple skirt—it’s her favorite color, and new shoes to go with it. She was really excited.”

Eve thought of the shoes near the table by the stairs, the purple skirt rucked up on the bruised thighs.

“She went out yesterday afternoon for a mani and pedi.” Eyes streaming, she burrowed into her mother. “She tagged me to see if I could meet her, but we had to have dinner at Gram’s and Poppa’s. She wanted it to be special. She was so happy. He wouldn’t have hurt her. He was nice. There has to be a mistake.”