J. Robb - Innocent In Death

“How much longer can you keep it inside without breaking?” Eve demanded. “How much longer can you mask it with pills and busy work? With pretense? Until the next Reed Williams?”

“No. No. That was one time, that was a mistake.”

“You know you can’t live with it, Allika. You need to tell me. Tell me what she did to your little boy. To your baby.”

“She was only seven.”

Seeing the fissure in Allika, Peabody did her job. She moved over, sat beside Allika. “You’re her mother, and you want to protect her. You want to do what’s right for her.”

“Yes, of course. Yes.”

“You wanted to protect Trevor, too. You want to do what’s right for him. Telling the truth now, you have to know that’s what’s right for both of them.”

“My babies.”

“What happened Christmas morning, Allika?” Eve demanded. “What happened to Trevor?”

“Children wake up early on Christmas morning,” Allika murmured as tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’s natural. So much excitement, so much anticipation. She came in, Rayleen came into our room just before dawn, jumped on the bed. So excited, so happy. We got up, Oliver and I. We got up, and Oliver said he would go get Trev.”

She pressed a hand to her mouth. “The year before, his first Christmas, Trev was so young, not even a year old. He didn’t understand any of it. But this year, he was nearly two, and he was…It would be his first real Christmas. Oliver said he’d go get Trev, and we’d all go down together and see if Santa had come.”

“Where was Rayleen?” Eve prompted.

“Rayleen stayed with me while I got my robe. She was jumping up and down, clapping her hands. So happy, her face just shining as a little girl’s would on Christmas morning.

“And I saw…I saw she was wearing the little pink slippers I’d tucked in her stocking the night before. The one’s she’d seen and wanted so much when we’d gone shopping one day.”

Allika’s face went blank, as if everything inside her had gone away. “Rayleen was wearing the slippers,” Eve said.

“They had sparkles on them, pretty sparkles all over them, spelling out her name. She loved things to have her name on them. I started to say something, to tell her she shouldn’t have gone down there by herself-how Daddy and I, we’d promised we’d get up whenever she woke. But then I heard Oliver cry out. He cried out as if his heart had been ripped away, and I heard him running down the steps. And I ran, I ran, and I saw…My baby. Oliver was holding our baby at the bottom of the stairs, and I ran down. And he was cold. My sweet little boy. There was blood on his face, and he was cold.”

“What did Rayleen do?”

“I don’t know. I-it all blurred. Oliver was crying, and I think, I think I tried to take Trev from him, but Oliver was holding Trev so tight. So tight. I…yes, I ran to the ’link to call for help, and Ray…”

“What did she do?”

Allika closed her eyes, and she shuddered. “She was already playing with the dollhouse Oliver and I had set up under the tree. She was just sitting there in her pajamas, wearing her sparkly pink slippers, playing with her dolls. Like nothing had happened.”

“And you knew.”

“No. No. She was just a little girl. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t have understood. It was an accident.”

No, Eve thought, no, it wasn’t. And some part of this woman was being eaten away, day after day, because she knew it.

“Allika, you don’t have soundproofing in your home, not because you’re afraid something might happen to Rayleen and you wouldn’t hear. You don’t have it because you’re afraid of Rayleen, and what you might not hear.”

“She’s my child. She’s my child, too.”

“You went to see your aunt in New Mexico a few months ago. She works in leather. She uses castor beans, the oil from them, to work the leather.”

“Oh, God, stop. You have to stop.”

“Did Rayleen spend time with her? Watching her, asking questions? She likes to know things, doesn’t she? Rayleen likes to know.”

“She liked Craig Foster. He was her favorite teacher.”

“But you wonder. And Williams. Rayleen volunteers in hospital wards. She’s a clever girl. She could get her hands on a syringe, on drugs if she put her mind to it.”

“Then she’d be a monster. Do you want me to say that?” Hysteria bubbled up in her voice, and her streaming eyes went wild. “Do you want me to say my daughter’s a monster? She came from me.” She fisted a hand on her belly. “From me and Oliver. We loved her from the first beat of her heart.”

“The way you loved Trevor. If I’m wrong,” Eve said when Allika’s face crumbled, “then reading her diary isn’t going to hurt anything or anyone. If I’m right, she’ll get help before anyone else is hurt.”

“Get it, then. Take it away. Take it away and leave me alone.”

They searched. They went over every inch of the bedroom, the playroom. They turned out drawers, emptied the closet, searched among the toys, the art supplies.

“Maybe she hid it in another part of the house,” Peabody suggested.

“Or has it with her. Either way, we’ll get it. The fact that it exists has some weight. We need to interview the aunt, and get some eyes on the kid right away. If she’s got it, I don’t want her mother shifting her feet, and getting word to the kid we’re looking for it. Let’s-hell.”

She broke off to pull out her communicator. “Dallas.”

“Lieutenant, report to my office. Immediately.”

“Sir, I’m at this moment in the process of gathering evidence I believe will lead to an arrest on the Foster and Williams investigations.”

“I want you in my office, Lieutenant Dallas, before you take any further steps. Is that clear?”

“Sir, it’s clear. I’m on my way. Fuck,” she added after she’d ended the transmission. She glanced at her wrist unit, calculated. “Museum tour. Met. Get there, shadow the suspect.”

“But Dallas, the commander ordered-”

“Me. He didn’t say anything about you. I want you to locate the suspect and keep her under surveillance. Keep me apprised. Don’t let her make you, Peabody.”

“Well, Jesus, she’s ten. I think I can shadow a tweener without being made.”

“Thistweener is the prime suspect in two homicides, and very possibly guilty of fratricide as well. You’re not shadowing a kid, Peabody, and don’t forget it.”

She dumped Peabody at the elegant entrance of the Metropolitan Museum, then headed downtown. As she drove, she contacted one Quella Harmon in Taos, New Mexico.

Even as Peabody climbed the long sweep of steps, she wondered how the hell she was supposed to find one kid and her Irish au pair in the vast cathedral to art.

And as she wondered, Cora bundled Rayleen into a cab on Eighty-first Street.

“But Mom’s supposed to meet us, and take me to lunch.”

“Well, she’s rung me up, hasn’t she, and said she needs you home straightaway. So home we go, Ray darling.”

Rayleen gave a windy sigh, and clutched her pretty pink fur purse.

Both Mira and Whitney were waiting for her, and both looked grim.

“Sit down, Lieutenant.”

With no choice, Eve sat.

“Your partner?”

“She’s in the field, sir.”

Whitney’s lips tightened. “I considered it understood I wanted both of you here, and neither of you in the field at this time.”

“I apologize for the misunderstanding, Commander.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Dallas, I’m not in the mood. I’ve read your report, and it’s my opinion that you’re putting this investigation, and this department, in a very tenuous position.”

“I disagree, respectfully. Sir.”