“Careful, Lieutenant,” Whitney warned.
She was done being careful. “That’s what she’s counting on. That we’ll all be so fucking careful. That we won’t look at her because she’s a nice little girl from a nice family. She killed two people inside of a week. And she’s got me beat, because she killed at seven. Not her father, but her two-year-old brother.”
Whitney’s eyes narrowed. “You included the information on Trevor Straffo in your earlier reports, and the investigator’s report, the ME’s report, which both concluded accidental death.”
“They were both wrong. I’ve spoken with Allika Straffo.”
While Eve fought to make her case and Peabody sat in the Met’s security office scanning the screens for Rayleen, Allika sent Cora away again.
“It’s your half-day off.”
“But you don’t look well, missus. I’m happy to stay. I’ll make you some tea.”
“No. No. It’s just a headache. Rayleen and I will be fine. We’ll be fine. We’ll…we’ll just have some lunch here, then go ahead to the salon.”
“I’ll put lunch together for you then, and-”
“We’ll manage, Cora. Go meet your friends.”
“If you’re sure then. You can ring me back anytime. I’m not doing anything special.”
“Enjoy yourself. Don’t worry about us.” Allika nearly cracked before she could get Cora out the door. Then she leaned back against it. “Rayleen,” she murmured. “Rayleen.”
“What’s the matter, Mommy?” Rayleen’s eyes were sharp as lasers. “Why can’t we go to lunch at Zoology? I love seeing the animals.”
“We can’t. We have to leave. We’re going to take a trip. A trip.”
“Really.” Now Rayleen brightened. “Where? Where are we going? Will there be a pool?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think.” How could shethink? “We have to go.”
“You’re not even dressed.”
“I’m not dressed?” Allika looked down, studying her robe as if she’d never seen it before.
“Are you sick again? I hate when you’re sick. When’s Daddy coming home?” she asked, already losing interest in her mother. “When are we leaving?”
“He’s not coming. Just you and me. It’s best. That’s best. We have to pack. They didn’t find it, but they’ll come back again.”
“Find what?” Now Rayleen’s attention swung back and zeroed in. “Who’ll come back?”
“They looked.” Allika’s gaze shifted up. “But they didn’t find it. What should I do? What’s best for you?”
Without a word, Rayleen turned away to walk upstairs. She stood at the doorway of her room, saw that her things were moved. And she understood perfectly.
She’d imagined something like this. In fact, she’d written what she could do, might need to do, in her diary the night before. Even as she walked down the hall to her parents’ room, her only genuine emotion was a quiet fury that her things had been gone through again, moved around, left untidy.
She liked her thingsexact. She expected her personal space to berespected.
She went into her mother’s drawers where the medications were hidden. As if anyone could actually hide something from her. They were so stupid, really. She slipped the bottle of sleeping pills into her purse along with her diary, then moved to the sitting area and programmed herbal tea.
Her mother favored ginseng. She programmed it sweet, though her mother rarely took much sweetener.
Then she dissolved a killing dose of sleeping pills into the sweet, fragrant tea.
It was all simple, really, and she’d thought about doing this before. Considered it. They would think her mother had self-terminated, out of guilt and despair. They’d think her mother had killed Mr. Foster, Mr. Williams, then hadn’t been able to live with it.
She knew her mother had had sex with Mr. Williams. She’d confessed it the night before the police had come to search. Rayleen was good at hearing things adults didn’t want her to hear. Her mother and father had talked and talked, and her mother had cried like a baby. Disgusting.
And her father had forgiven her mother. It had been a mistake, he said. They’d start fresh.
That had been disgusting, too-just like the sounds they’d made when they had sex after. If anyone lied to her the way her mother had to her father, she’d have made them pay. And pay and pay.
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.
20
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.”