Innocent In Death

Her mind, he knew, was labyrinthine and linear, fluid, flexible, and stubbornly rigid. He could and did admire it without ever fully understanding its workings. Her gut, he believed absolutely, was close to infallible.

He stepped back and let his own mind clear, refocus, in an attempt to see what she was moving toward.

When he did, his shock was instant. His denial automatic. “You can’t be serious.”

“You see it?”

“I see what you’re stitching together, what pattern you’ve made out of it. But I can’t put my head around why you’d aim in that direction.”

“What? You don’t think a ten-year-old girl can be a stone-cold killer?”

She said it casually as she pi

“Not murder, not close to it. You saved your own life, and destroyed a monster. You’re talking about a child deliberately and coldly pla

“Maybe more than that.” Eve reached into her file, took out the ID photo of Trevor Straffo she’d already printed. And pi

“Christ Jesus, Eve.”

“Maybe he fell down the steps. Maybe he did. Maybe he had help. Maybe it was a tragic accident, which involved his sister.”

Her gaze was pi

She turned, and those flat cop’s eyes met Roarke’s now. “I don’t think so. I think she pushed him. I think she got him up when her parents were sleeping, lured him out of bed. Don’t make any noise. Santa’s downstairs! Let’s peek.”

“Well, my God,” Roarke muttered.

“Then, when he gets to the steps, a good hard shove. No more little brother edging in on your territory. Squeezing into the center of your circle.”

“How can you think this? She’d have been all but a baby herself when that happened.”

“Seven. She’d have been seven. She’d had all the spotlight for five of those years, and now she has to share it. Maybe it’s a novelty at first, let’s play with the baby. But it got old, and they’re not paying nearly enough attention to Rayleen. Princess Rayleen. Just have to fix that, won’t we?”

“What you’re saying, it’s obscene.”

“Murder always is. The mother knows,” Eve said quietly. “She knows. She’s terrified and she’s sick and she tries different ways to escape the horror of it. But she can’t.”

“You’re so sure of it.”

“I saw it in her. I know it. But knowing it and proving it, especially something like this, are way different.”

He had to struggle to overcome an i

“I don’t think she’d give a flat shit about her mother’s affair. Sex isn’t on her radar, not really. And it doesn’t really apply to her directly. I don’t know why, that’s the bitch of it. I’ve got Peabody searching through Foster’s student records to start. Maybe he caught her cheating, or stealing.”

Didn’t fit, she thought, a

She began to pace. “I need Mira’s take. For me, this kid fits the profile down the line. But I need Mira to back that up. I need that, and I need to catch Allika alone tomorrow. Wear her down, break through the protective shield. I need more than what I’ve got because unless I’m completely crazy, this kid’s killed three people in her first decade. And she hasn’t even come close to hitting her stride.”

“How would she know what ricin is, much less how to use it?”

“Kid’s smart. Smart enough to listen, observe, and check the web.”

“And the paralytic used on Williams. How’d she get her hands on it?”

“She volunteers, some organization called From the Kids. You know what they do?” She tapped the copy of Rayleen’s busy schedule. “They visit pediatric wards, geriatric wards, spend time with the sick and infirm to brighten their day. I bet she could get whatever the hell she wanted. Who’s going to look at some sweet, socially conscious little girl? I need to find her diary.”

“You’re sure she has one?”

“That was a little mistake she made right off, mentioning her diary to me when she was pulling the spotlight on herself. Cued in to that from the get,” Eve told him. “All those I’s. I saw, I found, I think, I know. But I didn’t see, not clearly enough.”

Her mouth firmed. “Well, neither did she. How could she know I’d go poking around in her personal space? It’ll be in her diary-all of it. Who can pat her on the back but herself? The only way to do that is to write it down. She got it out of the house before we searched it.”

She circled the board again, picking out details, separating them, mixing them together again. “Plenty of time to get it out of the house while her daddy flexed his lawyer muscles. Hell, maybe she destroyed it. She’s smart enough to have done that, cover herself. Maybe I just have to prove, for now, that shehad a diary.”

“You’re cool about this,” Roarke commented.

“I have to be. I let it slip by, again and again. I didn’t want to look there. Jesus, who would? I didn’t want to look at that kid with her pretty curls and see a murderer. But I did. I do. If I’m going to get justice for the dead, I have to have every detail and tie them up with a bow. Nobody’s going to want to hang multiple premeditated murders on a sweet-faced school girl.”

“If you’re right…what if there are more?”

Letting out a breath, Eve switched displays on screen manually, brought up Rayleen’s ID photo. “Yeah, that’s gone through my head, and stuck in my gut. What if there are more? Sick kids, sick elderly. Did she put one down? She’s got activities scheduled all over hell and back. How many people does sheintersect with every day, every week, month, and so on? Was there another accident, another death, another unsolved murder? Going to find out eventually.”

“She must be very, very sick.”

“I don’t know what she is, but I know I’m going to do everything I know how to do so she pays for what she’s done.” She saw his face, felt her muscles tighten. “You think I should feel sorry for her?”

“I can’t say, that’s God’s truth. I’m not sure what to think, but the fact is you believe, and you’ve crafted a very convincing argument that thischild has committed cold-blooded murder.”

He stepped up to her triangle again, her family gallery. “Let me argue back. Have you considered that one or both of her parents killed, that somehowshe knows. That this is what you sense in her.”

“We’ll keep it on the table.”

“Eve.” He turned to her, his intense eyes in contrast to his gentle hand as he touched her hair. “I need to ask. Is there something in you that wants it to be her?”

“No. No. There’s something in me that doesn’t want it to be her. So I let it slip by, I didn’t look close enough. Then today, standing with her in that perfect little girl’s room, I couldn’t not look. I couldn’t not see. I’m not going to feel sorry for her, Roarke. But I can feel sick about it.”

“All right, then.” He rested his brow on hers. “All right. What can I do?”

“Can you think like a homicidal ten-year-old girl?”

“It’s not in my usual repertoire, but I can give it a try.”

“If you kept a diary, and didn’t destroy it, and were smart enough to know you had to get it out of the house, where would you put it?”

She turned away, paced around the board once more. “She’s got dance class, probably has a locker of some kind there, or she could have a hidey-hole at one of the wards she visits. The school’s too risky, she wouldn’t be that careless. Maybe-”