J. Robb - Innocent In Death

Actually, that’s what she was doing now, she decided as she set the oversized teacup on a tray. Mommy had to be punished for being bad. And by punishing her, it would all be tidied up again.

Then it would just be her and Daddy. She’d really be his one and only with Mommy gone.

She’d have to put her diary in the recycler now, and that made her mad. All because of that mean, nosy Lieutenant Dallas. One day she’d find a way to makeher pay for that.

But for now, it was better to get rid of it.

Daddy would buy her a brand-new one.

“Rayleen.” Allika came to the doorway. “What are you doing?”

“I think you should rest, Mommy. Look, I made you tea. Ginseng because you like it best. I’m going to take good care of you.”

Allika looked at the cup on the tray, on the bed. Everything inside her went weak. “Rayleen.”

“You’re tired and you have a headache.” Rayleen folded down the duvet, the sheets, plumped the pillows. “I’m going to make it all better. I’m going to sit with you while you rest. We girls have to take care of each other, don’t we?”

Rayleen turned with a bright, bright smile.

And maybe it was best, Allika thought as she moved like a sleepwalker to the bed. Maybe it was the only way. She let Rayleen smooth out the sheets, let her place the tray, even lift the cup.

“I love you,” Allika said.

“I loveyou, Mommy. Now drink your tea, and everything will be better.”

With her eyes on her daughter’s, Allika drank.

WHITNEY LISTENED, AND HE ABSORBED. HIS HANDS, which had been very still throughout his questioning of his lieutenant, began to tap fingers on the edge of his desk. “The mother suspects her daughter caused the boy to fall.”

“The mother knows her daughter caused the boy to fall,” Eve insisted. “She may have convinced herself, or tried to convince herself, it was an accident. Tried to patch her life back together, suffering from periodic bouts of depression and anxiety. In her gut she knows exactly what I know. It was no accident.”

“No one witnessed the fall.” But Whitney’s face was stony, his eyes dark and deep.

“Dr. Mira, in your opinion, given the scenario, is it natural for a girl to step over or around her younger brother’s dead body, while her parents are hysterical, to play with a toy?”

“That’s a broad question. The child may have been in shock or denial.”

“She was wearing the slippers. Ones she had to go downstairs to get, before she woke her parents.”

“Yes.”

“According to the investigator’s report on the death of Straffo, he died just after fourA. M. on the morning of December twenty-fifth,” Eve continued. “Statements given by both parents claim they were up, setting up the gifts, filling the stockings until about two-thirty. At which time, they had a glass of wine, then went upstairs, checking on both children before they retired, at around three. Rayleen woke them at five.”

For a moment Mira thought of the times she and Dennis had been up until the early hours of Christmas morning, putting everything together while their children slept. And how they’d snatched a few hours of exhausted sleep before the kids woke and rushed into the bedroom.

“It would be possible that the girl snuck down between the times her parents went to bed and her brother got up. But the slippers are an oddity,” Mira agreed. “I agree, it seems strange for a child of that age to sneak down, put on slippers, then go back to bed for nearly two hours.”

“Because she didn’t,” Eve said flatly. “She got up-and I’ll guarantee she had an alarm set for it because she’s a planner-fitting your profile-she likes her schedules. She got up, went into her brother’s room. She got him up, told him to be very quiet. When they got to the top of the stairs-which, according to the investigators’ reports, was at the opposite end of the second floor from the master bedroom-she pushed him.”

That little body flying out, tumbling, tumbling. Breaking.

“Then she walked down, checked to make sure she’d done a good job of it, before she went in to see what goodies she was getting from Santa. And what sort of things she would enjoy that would have been for her brother.”

She saw the horror of the picture she was painting play across Mira’s face. “She put the slippers on. She likes things with her name on them. That was a little mistake,” Eve added. “Like mentioning the diary to me. But she couldn’t resist. She probably played awhile. Her parents weren’t going to notice if she’d moved something a little, and she wouldn’t have resisted. It was all hers now.

“Then she went back up. I wonder if she even noticed her brother’s body at that point. He was no longer an issue.”

She shifted her gaze to Whitney, noted that his hands had gone still again, and that his face showed nothing. Nothing at all. “She might have tried to go back to sleep for a little while, but it was too hard. All those toys downstairs, and nobody to share them with anymore. So she woke up her parents so she could get back to what she wanted to do.”

“What you’re describing…” Mira began.

“Is a sociopath. And that’s exactly what she is. A sociopath with homicidal tendencies, a very keen intellect, and a big-ass chunk of narcissism. That’s why she kept the diary. It’s her only way of bragging about what she can do, and get away with doing.”

“We need the diary.”

“Yes, sir.” She nodded at Whitney.

“Why Foster and Williams?”

“Foster, I don’t know, unless it was for the hell of it. I don’t know,” she said again, “because she doesn’t strike me as a for-the-hell-of-it type. Williams was a very handy and unexpected goat. That’s on me, too. I pushed at him, and she saw the opportunity not only to kill again-because I think this time she got a taste for it-but to hand me a suspect. Either in him or in Mosebly. I wouldn’t doubt she knew something had gone on between them.”

“Even with the diary, even if it gives chapter and verse, it may be difficult to prove she did this on her own, or at all. Her father will, no doubt, block every step you take from here.”

“I’ll handle Straffo, sir, and I’ll get Rayleen to confess.”

“How?” Mira wondered.

“I’ll make her want to tell me.” Her communicator signaled. “With permission, Commander?” At his nod, she pulled it out of her pocket. “Dallas.”

“Sir, she left the museum minutes before I got here. I’ve been going over the place with the security cameras, and just now asked them to do a playback of the hour before I arrived. I tagged her. The nanny got a ’link call, then they exited the building on the Eighty-first Street side almost as I was coming in on Fifth.”

“Her mother. Damn it. Head back to the Straffo apartment. I’m on my way.”

“I’ll come with you. I may be useful,” Mira insisted.

“Yes, you may.” Whitney got to his feet. “Lieutenant, I want to know the minute you locate…the suspect. I want to know if and when you find this diary.”

“Yes, sir. You’re going to have to keep up,” she said to Mira, then moved fast.

Cora’s conscience pricked her until she got off the subway heading downtown, crossed over, and took the uptown train. It was too early to meet her friends for the vid matinee they’d planned on. And she didn’t really need to browse the shops where she’d just spend money she’d be better off keeping.

Most of all, she couldn’t get Mrs. Straffo’s poor, pale face out of her head. Maybe it was just a headache, maybe it was. But she knew very well the woman went into the blue place every now and then. It wasn’t right to leave her there, to leave Rayleen alone with her if the mum was feeling sad and sick.