Page 37 of Random in Death

“We’ve all known each other since the girls were in middle school.” Audrey kept her hand on Chelsea’s shoulder.

“If you’d come with me.”

“We have a lounge on this floor,” Peabody told them, talking directly to the girls. “It’ll be pretty quiet in there today. I know this is hard. You were both really helpful last night when we talked.”

“We didn’t know she was sick.” Leelee’s eyes flooded. “We just didn’t know.”

“You couldn’t have. Let’s take the big table there.” Peabody had already pushed two together in anticipation. “Would you like something to drink? Vending has lemonade this time of year, but it sucks beyond.” Peabody smiled at the mothers. “The coffee goes beyond the beyond.”

“We could use a round of Cokes. Okay, Maddie? Nobody got much sleep last night.” Audrey, a freckle-skinned redhead, took a seat, drew Chelsea with her swollen blue eyes and purple-streaked blond hair down beside her.

“We’ll relax the rules.” Maddie, a dark-skinned brunette, her brown eyes a near match with her daughter’s, did the same while Peabody went to Vending.

“I know you talked with Detective Peabody last night, and as she’s already said, you were very helpful. I’m sorry to ask you to go over it again, but sometimes people remember things, just some little detail, they didn’t think of.”

“Mom says it can help Jenna, but I don’t see how anything helps.” Now Chelsea’s eyes filled. “We’re never ever going to see her again.”

“Someone hurt her,” Eve began.

“It wasn’t Jake Kincade!” It all but exploded out of Leelee. “We saw stuff on the Internet. Bogus extreme, and—”

“It wasn’t Jake Kincade. He did everything he could to help her.”

“You’re not going to arrest him?” Chelsea watched Eve with shadowed and suspicious eyes. “Mom says cops can lie. She’s a lawyer.”

Since Eve had already run a background on the families, she was aware. “We’ve established conclusively, through solid evidence, Mr. Kincade was not, in any way, responsible for Jenna’s death.”

“Mom?”

“Lieutenant Dallas has no reason to lie about that, baby.”

Leelee elbowed her friend. “Plus, we saw the clone vid and she was totally iced getting the bad guys. You were, too,” she said when Peabody brought the drinks.

“Maybe.” Chelsea swiped at tears. “But I know Jake and Leon and Mac and Art and Renn were all onstage when Jenna said somebody jabbed her, and they’re saying illegals killed her, and some fuckwads—”

“Chels!”

“I don’t care, Mom.” The girl’s voice rose in pitch and volume. “It’s freaking me because they’re fuckwads saying she OD’d, and she was a junkie.”

“They’re fuckwads,” Eve agreed, ignoring the mother, giving the girl her attention. “And they’re liars looking to stir up ugliness about someone who can’t defend herself. We’ve also concluded, conclusively, through sold evidence, Jenna did not use illegals.”

“As if,” Leelee muttered. “Illegals are for losers and flakers. Jenna wasn’t, ever.”

“But someone did jab her, and she did overdose—through no fault of her own. I want you to think back to that last song before the break.”

“We’ve thought and thought.”

“And it’s hard,” Peabody put in, “hard to keep thinking. But that’s when and where he hurt her.”

“We were all there, all three of us. This close.” Chelsea held her hands up, a foot apart. “And she was so mega juiced because Jake looked at her, right at her, and smiled. I mean that was the ult!”

“She wanted to meet him so bad,” Leelee continued. “She knew he’d take the demo and listen to it if she could.”

“And it was then, when she was happy, when she told you he smiled at her, just after that, when she said someone jabbed her? Is that how you remember it now?”

“We were all juiced because it’s just the ult, and I looked at the stage. Maybe one of them would look at us again, you know? So I looked that way,” Chelsea continued. “Then Jenna sort of yelled, half yelled, I guess. Like ‘Ow!’”

“She did. I was mostly looking at her, and her eyes got really big, and she sort of jerked.”

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