The Devil's Daughter (Hidden Sins #1)(23)
“You’re very good at what you do.” Only her mother would make the statement sound like a bad thing.
“Yes, I have a perfectly respectable percentage of closed cases.” There were certain ones that had stayed with her—and would always stay with her. Victims’ families who’d have no closure. Killers who’d struck again. Leads that had gone from hot to cold to downright dead. She wasn’t any better at letting go now than she had been as a kid. “It could be better.”
“You really haven’t changed.” Martha gave a sad smile that pulled at her heartstrings despite her best efforts to shield herself against it. “Always something you could do better, something you were downright determined to do better.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be better.”
“You never wanted better. You wanted perfect. Perfection doesn’t exist, baby.”
She’d always said that. It drove Eden so damn crazy, because there was nothing wrong with aiming to be more, to have a better life than she had. It wasn’t in her nature to settle—never had been. That was what her mother had done—burrowing deep and creating a nest here for herself that she rarely left and ruled with an iron fist. Eden wasn’t like Martha. She refused to be.
She pushed to her feet. “I think that’s enough for today.” She hadn’t gotten what she wanted, but she wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take.
“You’ll be back.”
It wasn’t quite a question. In fact, it was a whole lot like a command. She fought down the instinctive need to say she was never setting foot in this place again. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t actually giving Martha what she wanted. Her mother knew she was here to investigate that girl’s murder, and she wasn’t above using a horrific situation to further her own aims. She wanted Eden back in the fold, with whatever tool she needed to make it happen. “I’ll be back.”
Martha’s smile was beatific. “Elysia’s gates are always open to you, baby. You know that. You may come and go as you please.”
She ignored that through sheer force of will and concentrated on keeping her posture relaxed and her face unconcerned. Show no weakness. “That works for me.”
Did you kill that girl, knowing I’d come back, that I’d have to come back?
And what if she did?
Many people blindly sent money to Martha because of those damn commercials she’d commissioned six years ago, and there were more who lived in the commune itself. If Martha was indicted for murder, her property would be forfeit. If she didn’t cash it out to pay for an attorney, it would fall to the next of kin.
Me.
The mere thought made her sick, but she couldn’t shake it. There was too much knowledge in her mother’s whiskey-colored eyes, so similar to her own. Eden stared. “If you had something to do with this murder, you will pay. It doesn’t matter if you’re my mother or if you have all these people eating out of the palm of your hand. Justice doesn’t care about either of those things.”
Martha shook her head, her expression sad. “Baby, don’t you know? Justice is a lie. All this world cares about is power—and I have that in spades.”
Zach’s phone rang exactly at five o’clock, and he was desperately glad for the distraction. “Owens.”
“I’m going to call in an order to Hakeem’s. In about twenty minutes, why don’t you go pick it up and meet me at my room?”
It took him several seconds to connect the exhausted voice with Eden Collins. She sounded nothing like she had during their last few encounters. He double-checked the caller ID just in case. Yeah, it was most definitely her. “I thought we were meeting in Augusta.”
“Martha knows what I’m here for, which means she’ll be expecting me to be in contact with you, regardless of whether you think I’m a suspect or not. There’s no reason to hide that we’re talking. And, forgive me for being blunt, but today was fucking beyond rough, so if you want a report, coming to me is your only option.”
He wanted that report. There was also the added bonus of being able to talk frankly with her without worrying about an audience or someone connected with Elysia eavesdropping. She’d probably thought of that, tired or not, because Eden didn’t seem like the type of woman to let a rough day get the best of her. “I’ll be there in thirty.”
She hung up without saying good-bye. Zach set his phone on his desk and sighed. Today had been dead end after dead end. None of the kids at the high school claimed to know a damn thing about where Neveah had gotten to. When he’d asked about potential parties, they’d clammed up across the board, which led him to believe there had been a party last weekend, though he was at a loss to figure out if she’d been there. He bothered to break up bonfires only when the kids were trespassing or there was a high fire-risk warning in place. Mostly because if they weren’t doing it in his territory, they’d be driving farther out to do the same damn thing. There’d only been one alcohol-induced death because of drunken driving since he’d been sheriff, but one was more than enough.
That didn’t matter to the kids. They saw him as a representation of the Man, and they weren’t going to give him any ammunition, promises not to arrest or no. It made his job a whole hell of a lot harder.