Page 48 of Random in Death

“It meant a lot to them, having you stay for wine and burgers.”

“I figured we’d stay five minutes, and it ended up closer to three hours. But it meant a lot to me, too. It’s the happiest damn unfinished house.”

“Another six to eight weeks, it will be finished, and I expect happier yet.”

“Mavis pulled carrots out of the ground. She knew they were carrots even though the carrot part’s in the ground, and knew how to yank them out. Of the ground. Then what to do with them after that.”

It both baffled and amazed.

“When I first met her, the closest she’d have come to a carrot would’ve been sliding by them in a market on her way to steal a candy bar.”

Eve considered. “After she’d lifted somebody’s wallet.”

“It was a lovely salad.”

“She put those flowers in it. The nasty ones.”

“Nasturtiums.”

“Right, those. It’s weird eating flowers even though they’re, well, tasty. And you’re showing Leonardo how to cook burgers, Peabody’s making fries from potatoes, McNab’s dancing around with the kid on his shoulders.

“Where does she get that laugh?” Even now, Eve could hear it. “It’s like somebody on happy juice in an asylum.”

She started to close her eyes, then realized if she did, she’d be asleep before she opened them again.

“The victim’s bedroom? Peabody called it a music studio with a bed, and that’s accurate.”

“She was serious about the music then?”

“Deeply. And, Jesus, Roarke, the kid had a voice. Peabody went through her equipment, her recordings. Jake wants to listen to the demo she made. The one she brought to the club, hoping to get it to him.”

“Of course he does.”

Of course for Jake, Eve agreed. But plenty of others would want just the opposite. Self-preservation.

“It’ll cut at him. Listening to her today cut at me, and I know better. It’ll cut sharp at him.”

“Tell me about her. You know her now.”

“Young for her age. Part of that’s the parental shield, and part’s her focus on music. At the same time a maturity. She had her goals lined up. She liked boys, but wasn’t interested in hookups. Tight with her two friends and their families.

“She wanted a tat,” Eve remembered. “Musical notes—she drew three of them in her notebook. On her wrist.” Eve tapped the inside of her wrist. “Big no from the parental shield on that, which pissed her off. She wasn’t a wheeze or a weeb or a tot or a flaker or a bruiser.”

“What language are you speaking?” Roarke asked as he approached the gates.

“Teenage. She got decent grades, stayed out of trouble, liked cherry fizzies. She wished she had longer legs and bigger boobs. The usual complaints about the parents being too strict or the little brother bugging her, but it comes across she loved them.

“She had a serious talent and big dreams for building on it.”

Because the towers and turrets of home had a big bed inside them, she let the fatigue wash over her again.

“I think, I really think, she’d have grabbed those dreams if some dooser hadn’t killed her.”

“Translate dooser.”

“Combo of dick and loser.”

“That’s a good one.”

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