“Ah. I think I started to say chill, but she grabbed her arm. Like this.” Leelee pressed a hand to her biceps. “So then I thought, I guess somebody’s elbow really jabbed her, like ouch. Then she kind of turned around, and looked behind her. She said ‘Asshole,’ then she like brushed it off, and we kept dancing. So I still thought elbow jab. A hard one.”

  And maybe so had she, Eve realized.

  “Before she brushed it off, and she turned around to look, what did you do?”

  “I guess I was sort of dancing, and I looked at the stage because I wanted to watch.”

  “You didn’t notice anyone leaving the dance floor, just about that time? Right after Jenna turned around to look.”

  “I really didn’t. We were all still riding that smile and the music.”

  “I maybe did.”

  Eve shifted her focus to Chelsea. “You saw someone moving off the dance floor.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Stop and think,” her mother told her. “Are you seeing someone because Lieutenant Dallas suggested it, or because you think you did?”

  “I think I did. Like I wasn’t really paying attention because we were totally wrapped. But he was sort of…” She rocked her shoulders side to side. “Like, ah, showing off, like guys walk when they think they frost it. But he wasn’t dancing, he was walking away, and I thought: Dooser can’t wait until the end of the song, which was ripping it, to take a piss. Sorry.”

  Audrey cast her eyes to the ceiling. “Rules relaxed.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  She shrugged. “Dooser. I think black baggies and a black shirt, maybe. He had his hands in his pockets, like he was frosting it.”

  “Was he tall, short?”

  “I dunno, maybe sort of short. I dunno.”

  “How about hair color, skin color?”

  She shrugged. “The lights were all swirly and red. It was only a couple seconds. I just noticed he walked like a dooser. I didn’t even think about it last night. I swear.”

  “We didn’t know to ask you about it last night,” Peabody said in her I-understand tone.

  “We never thought anybody hurt Jenna. We were all feeling so mag, and Leelee and I said we’d get some cold drinks.”

  “Because Jenna wanted to go sit down, work it out how to meet Jake. She said she was all floaty, but we thought it was The Smile.”

  “I bet she did, too.” Peabody reached out, gave Leelee’s hand a squeeze.

  “We never saw her again. When we finally got back to the table, we thought she’d gone looking for us, or gone to the bathroom. So we went to the bathroom, and the line took forever. If we’d looked for her sooner, or looked faster, maybe—”

  “Chelsea.” Eve cut her off. “It wouldn’t have mattered. As much as you would’ve wanted to help her, you couldn’t have. No one could.”

  “Are you sure? We would’ve called for help, an ambulance, the police.”

  “Jake did that. He did that only a handful of minutes after whoever hurt her walked away. The medicals arrived only a couple minutes after that, and they couldn’t help her, either.”

  “Why did he do it? Why did he kill her? She never hurt anybody. We’re only sixteen years old.”

  “We’re going to do everything we can to find out why, to find out who, and to put him away where he can’t hurt anyone else. Can you think back again, earlier? Did anyone try to pressure Jenna to dance?”

  “We danced with some guys, some other girls a few times. Mostly everybody just bops, right?” Leelee’s brow furrowed as she tried to think. “I guess we all said ‘no, thanks’ a couple times because we were doing something else? Like we wanted a drink or had to pee or whatever. Mostly we danced together.”

  “Did anybody get, ah, snarly?”

  The girls looked at each other, both shook their heads.

  “How about farther back, before last night. Anyone she dated who wanted more than she did?”

  “She’d have told us that for sure, and she didn’t. She didn’t have the mood to date-date yet. She wanted to stay loose because she had plans. Songwriting, practicing, putting an act together. She figured to solo artist because she didn’t know anybody who wanted what she wanted, or not enough.”

  “Someone who wanted to go out with her, and she said no?”

  “I can’t think of anybody.” Chelsea looked at Leelee, got another head shake. “I mean if somebody asked, and she wasn’t into something, she’d go out. We’d probably make it a group. Leelee’s got a guy.”

  “We’re not wrapped.” Leelee spoke quickly, with one sidelong glance at her mother. “We mostly hang. But he’s on vacation with his fam, so he couldn’t go last night. Anyway, if you mean like back in school, she never had a solid, didn’t want one. But she got along, you know? She wasn’t a wheeze, or like the weebs some of the bruisers pick on, or the tots who flaunt it.”

  “Or a teaser or geek.”

  “Maybe sort of a music geek.”

  Chelsea managed a smile. “Yeah, maybe sort of.”

  “All right. If you think of anything—any little thing, any incident, anything—you can contact me or Detective Peabody.”

  “Lieutenant,” Maddie began, “both girls would very much like to see Jenna’s family. When it’s appropriate.”

  “We’ll see them later today. I’ll let them know. I’m sure they’ll contact you. Again, we appreciate you coming in, appreciate all your help. Do you need transportation?”

  “No, we’re fine.” Audrey rose, offered her hand. “It’s hard for us, and we appreciate your understanding. I know your reputations. I’m going to say please find him, Lieutenant, Detective. Please find him.”

  They walked the group as far as the bullpen, waited while they caught a glide down.

  “What the hell is a dooser?” Eve demanded.

  “Oh, a cross between a dick and a loser.”

  Eve considered. “That’s a good one. Do I need to know weeb and tots? The rest was self-evident.”

  “No, but basically boring or awkward for weeb and tots are slutty types.”

  “All right then, we’re looking for a dooser in, probably, black baggies, maybe shortish, no further description.”

  “It’s more than we had.”

  “It is that. And she didn’t react, not violently ill, at least for a couple minutes. Time for him to book it, for the song to end, for the three girls to separate. Jenna very likely thought the elbow jab initially. What kid’s going to think that dooser stuck me with a needle full of heroin and whatever the fuck else he could think of?”

  “And she was riding on The Smile. It plays out. She’s excited, head-spinning giddy. It’s hot, she’s breathless. She’s sixteen and going to live forever anyway.”

  “It probably didn’t really kick in until she was headed back to the table. Felt floaty, okay, The Smile, the heat, the dancing. But now, feel sick, feel wrong—turn off for the ladies’, but it’s bad, and there’s that line ahead of her.”

  “Try for the alley,” Peabody continued. “Can’t make it before her stomach heaves up.”

  “By then her arm’s probably burning, and some part of her thinks about the jab. Sick, confused, hurting, she stumbled out into the alley.

  “We’ve got the timing. We’ve got the drugs he put in her, and got a glimpse at a dooser in baggies.”

  “We’ve got that her two best friends can’t come up with anybody who’d want to do this,” Peabody added. “Nobody at the club that night, nobody before last night. I’m saying you’re right. She didn’t know him.”

  “We need to find out if he knew her. We can start with her school and her neighborhood. Contact the school, see if we can line up her teachers from last year. We can put uniforms out on the neighborhood after we check her room.”

  “I’ll get on it.”

  “There’s a reason for the roofie in the mix,” Eve speculated. “Maybe he watched her, wanted her. She didn’t blow him off so much as not see him. Too good for me, she thinks, doesn’t even know my name. That builds up until he decides, she’ll notice me now. She’ll pay for ignoring me. And nobody will have her. Ever.”

  “Extreme.”

  “Yeah, shooting her up with a heroin cocktail’s pretty damn extreme.” She pulled out her signaling ’link. “Text. Julia Harbough. They’re ready for us. We’re in the field,” she called out to Santiago and Carmichael, then headed for the elevator.

  Chapter Six

  On the way to the garage, she checked in with Feeney.

  “No luck here,” he told her. “I’m about to head in.”

  “Try asking if any of them noticed a shortish dooser type, black baggies, hands in pockets, kind of strutting off the dance floor toward the johns near the end of the set. Or anyone like that near the victim prior.”

  “I’ll roll it out.”

  “We’re on our way to check out the victim’s bedroom. Carmichael and Santiago are doing runs on interviewees.”

  “If I hit with your dooser, you’ll know. Otherwise, I’ll work with McNab awhile.”

  “Keep an eye out for that description, such as it is, when you do. Thanks.”

  “Letting McNab know about the dooser,” Peabody said, then slid her ’link back into her pocket. “I’m not going to speculate how many black baggies walked into that club last night.”

  “We take what we get as we get it.”

  They crossed the garage to the car.

  “He has to have a source.” Pulling out, Eve aimed for the exit. “Or the means, knowledge, and facilities to create that kind of cocktail. Her school first, going with the she-didn’t-notice-him angle. But if he was trolling, looking for a target, maybe college. The eighteen-to-twenty type. Better equipment in colleges, more time to study, practice.”

  “So maybe a chem major, maybe a TA. Could even be younger and in college—one of the supersmarts.”

  “Anything from that to a kid living with a chemi-head, a dealer, a cook and learning the family business. We start with the most probable. He knew the target, or wanted to, used source and/or knowledge to create the murder weapon. We work from there, then spread it out.”

  It struck her that finding space to park barely three yards from the Harboughs’ rated as another Sunday thing.

  She’d take it.

  “Getting steamy,” Peabody commented. “But no bitching about it because I love summer. And love it more now that we’ve got an actual garden. Oh, and I love how Louise made a classy cottage garden out of the little front courtyard.”

  “Why are they courtyards? Do people judge them? Hold court in them? They call them dooryards in Ireland, and I don’t get that, either, but at least there’s a kind of yard outside the door.”

  She rang the bell.

  Caught up, Peabody asked, “Why are they yards? It’s not like everybody’s is a multiple of three feet.”

  Eve poked her shoulder. “Right. Why are they yards?”

  She filed it away for later contemplation when Julia opened the door.

  She looked like a woman who hadn’t slept in days. She’d pulled her hair back, leaving her face, its color dull, unframed. Shadows, like deep bruises, spread under her eyes reddened by weeping.

  “Please come in.”

  “Dr. Harbough, my partner, Detective Peabody.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Dr. Harbough.”

  “Thank you.”

  Like her color, the words were dull. “We’re in here.”

  Shane sat with his son tucked under his arm. While Jenna had her father’s coloring, it looked to Eve as if the DNA chefs had mixed up the parents’ codes to make a near-perfect blend of both in one boy.

  His mother’s coloring, his father’s eyes, his mother’s mouth, his father’s hair.

  While his sister had been pretty, the boy was striking.

  Charles and Louise sat nearby, and Charles stood as they entered.

  “Louise … Louise is going with us,” Julia began. “I asked Charles to stay while you … I’d like to have someone we know in the house while we’re gone and you’re here. I don’t mean to imply—”

  “It’s no problem,” Eve assured her.

  “I’d like Reed to stay—”

  “I’m going.” Teary eyes diluted the impact of the mutinous tone.

  “Dr. Morris said it’s allowed, but…”

  “You need to see her, to say goodbye.” Peabody stepped toward him. “You know it’ll be hard, but you have to see her, for yourself.”

  “She was supposed to come back. When she left, I said she looked okay, for a wheeze.”

  Though a tear slipped down Shane’s cheek, Peabody focused on the boy. “Then you did your job. I’ve got brothers, and they always do their job.”

  “She laughed.”

  “You’ll remember that. It’s important to remember she laughed.”

  “When you catch who killed my sister, will you hurt him?” Reed shifted his gaze, intense now, to Eve. “Hurt him bad.”

  “It hurts bad to spend the rest of your life in prison.”

  “It’s not enough.”

  “Come on now, Reed.” Shane pressed a kiss to his hair. “We need to go now.”

  Reed stood. “I saw the vid about you,” he said to Peabody. “So I know you’re the nice one. You can be mean,” he said to Eve. “You have to be mean to the bastard who killed my sister. Check it?”

  “I’ve arrested a lot of people. None of them thought I was the nice one.”

  “Reed, you and Dad go on out. I just need another minute.”

  “You just want to talk about stuff you don’t want me to hear, and I—”

  “Please, Reed.” Tears filled Julia’s voice now. “Not today. Please.”

  The anger on his face dropped away. He just nodded and went with his father.

  “It’s so hard for him,” she murmured. “They could bicker until I thought my head would explode, but they loved each other. I wish he’d stay here, but that’s selfish. What you said, Detective, and what Louise already had, is right.”

  She took a deep breath. “I need to know if you’ve learned any more. I can filter that for Shane and Reed. And I can promise any information you give me won’t leave this house.”

  “We know when and where your daughter was assaulted. We know she was injected with a lethal cocktail of drugs.”

  “What drugs?” At Eve’s hesitation, Julia stood firm. “I’m a doctor. I’m her mother. I understand fully your need to keep information out of the media. Such as Jake Kincade’s involvement, which you didn’t tell us before.”

  “Let me start with this. Heroin, ketamine, potassium chloride, Rohypnol. The needle was, we believe deliberately, tainted.”

  “God.” Julia shut her eyes tight. “My poor girl.” She steadied. “You didn’t say she was sexually assaulted.”

  “She wasn’t. I can’t tell you the purpose of the inclusion of Rohypnol, but Jenna wasn’t raped. She died within minutes of the injection. Jake Kincade’s involvement was limited to being in the alley when she came out, sick, confused, and as a medical, you’ll understand already dying.”

  “But—”

  “When she collapsed, he caught her. He tried to help her, called for an ambulance, attempted to revive her with CPR—as was witnessed by Nadine Furst, who came out shortly after, and the medicals when they arrived, again, shortly after.”

  “He really was with her? He stayed with her?”

  “Yes. All of this is verified, conclusively, by the security feed from the door cam.”

  “I want to see that.”

  “No.”

  “I have a right to—”

  “No, you don’t. She wasn’t alone in those last minutes, and that’s what you need to know. I’m going to ask you again, was there anyone who bothered her, made her uncomfortable, that she dismissed? Or anyone you noticed paying too much attention to her? Most likely a male between fifteen and twenty.”

  “No. I swear I’d tell you. And I’m sure she’d have told me. But if not me, she’d have told Chelsea and Leelee. You could ask them.”

  “We have. They say no.”

  “Then it’s no. Jenna wasn’t a secret keeper. I’m not saying she told me everything. Girls that age don’t share everything with Mom. But they do, girls like Jenna, with their best friends.”

  “Okay. Chelsea, Leelee, and their families would like to see you or speak with you, when you’re ready.”

  “Yes. Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Jenna made a demo she hoped to give to Jake Kincade. He’s asked if he could hear it.”

  Tears flooded her eyes, spilled from them. “That was her dream.”

  Armed with tissues, Louise walked over, slid an arm around Julia’s waist.

  “You said he was a good man.”

  “Yes. He is,” Louise assured her.

  “He stayed with her. He stayed with Jenna?”

  “Dr. Harbough, she died in his arms. He held her, he called for help, then he tried to revive her. He never left her.”

  “He held my little girl when I couldn’t. He stayed with her. Yes, of course he can hear her demo. She made it for him, after all. I need to go. They’ve been waiting too long.”

  Eve waited until Louise led her out, then let her shoulders relax.

  “Neither of you could’ve handled that any better than you did. I don’t know how you do it,” Charles added. “I won’t get in your way, but if I can help, I’m here.”

  “First help? Where’s her room?”

  “Upstairs, to the right, second door on the left. I know my way around the kitchen well enough to get coffee if you want it.”

  “No, but thanks.”

  With Peabody, she went up. A glance up and down the wide hallway showed her every door closed.

  It made her itchy. She understood the desire for privacy with cops in the house, but as a cop she’d have preferred a quick look behind those closed doors.

  She opened the door on the left.

  “Well, wow.” Peabody’s eyes popped. “It’s like a music studio with a bed. And the wall color, that’s an energy color.”

  Though posters—Avenue A, Mavis, and other music luminaries—covered most of it, what Eve could see looked like the color you might get from crushing ripe purple grapes.