Page 15 of Random in Death

“That’s enough for me,” Eve said as they walked back to the car. “It’s not fact, but it solidifies everything else.”

“You didn’t tell them about Jake.”

“I didn’t need to, not to get what they gave me. They’ll find out soon enough. You should go home. I’m going to be at this for a while.”

“I saw her, too. A young girl dead in an alley.” He got in the car. “I’ll stick.”

Accepting that, accepting him, she leaned her head back, closed her eyes.

“They’d had sex on the couch.”

“Well now, we were about to do the same.”

It made her smile. “Good thing we got an earlier start in the game room when I let you beat me at pinball.”

“You’d like to believe that. I tanked the first game to give you a chance.”

“I call bollocks to that, and demand a rematch.”

“You’ll have it.”

When they pulled up to the club, she saw Peabody had ordered up barricades and more uniforms. A number of people stood behind those barricades.

“Kids texted their parents,” Roarke surmised. “Now parents are flooding down to get their kids.”

“I should’ve thought of that.”

“You were thinking of one kid.”

“They’ll have interviewed and released some of them by now. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Eve approached the door just as two teens—one of each variety—burst out.

From behind the barricades came the shouts.

“Darlie! Tanner!”

The kids rolled their eyes at each other, but sprinted toward the shouts.

And those kids, she thought, unlike the one, would sleep in their own beds tonight.

She went inside.

The lights, turned up full, showed some dinge. Worn tables, a scarred dance floor, a bar with empty back shelves where the alcohol normally stood.

The place smelled like candy and sweat.

No surprise on the sweat, she supposed, as the temp control must’ve read close to eighty.

She found some relief seeing she didn’t have to deal with a couple hundred. Easily down to about fifty, she estimated. At least in the main club.

She saw McNab talking to a couple of kids at a table while others sat in chairs. They buzzed with conversation and nerves. Some tried to look bored or rebellious, but didn’t quite make it.

A man who looked like an accounting nerd with his baggy jeans, floppy sand-colored hair, and belly paunch, hurried to them.

“You’re Lieutenant Dallas. And Roarke.” He took Roarke’s hand, pumped it, then did the same to Eve’s. “I’m Harve Greenbaum. This is my place. I’m sick, just sick about what happened here. We never had anything like this happen, all these years. We’ve had to bounce out a few, sure, but nothing like this. And on the kid night, too. That poor kid.”

“Mr. Greenbaum.”

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