In addition to the monthly schedule, there were additions of birthday parties, field trips, school projects, Drama Club meetings, doctors’ appointments, museum and library trips, art projects, family outings.
As far as Eve could see, the kid had more going on than both of her parents.
No wonder they needed the au pair, Eve mused. Though it was a little odd that Allika had carried professional mother status from the time Rayleen was born until the death of the son. Though she wasn’t pursuing a career, or even a paying hobby outside the home, Allika had let that status lapse.
Eve bagged the notebooks. She wanted more time to study them, and to verify all the names and groups and locations.
She went through the little desk. Monogrammed stationery—so Allika handwrote some of those thank-yous and invites, Eve mused. Huh. An organized-by-occasion selection of cards—birthdays (humorous, flowery, formal, youth), sympathy, congratulations, and so on.
Spare discs and memo cubes, address book, a file of clippings on decorating.
It made Eve think of the clippings Peabody had found in Lissette Foster’s cube. Common ground, Eve mused. Something there? Maybe the women had crossed paths in their interest in decorating.
She made a note to check it out, though she doubted Allika and Lissette shopped for doodads or draperies at the same level.
Correspondence Allika had saved ran to cute little cards or notes from girlfriends, printed out e-mails from same, or from the kid.
There were birthday cards and feel-better cards from Rayleen, all of them handmade. And with more style and skill, Eve admitted, than she herself could claim. Pretty paper and colors, some comp-generated, some hand-drawn.
DON’T BE SAD, MOMMY!
One of the cards announced in big, careful printing on heavy pink paper. There was a drawing of a woman’s face with shiny tears on the cheeks.
Inside the woman was smiling, with her cheek pressed to the cheek of a girl’s face. Flowers bloomed all around the edges and a wide rainbow curved at the top. The sentiment read:
I’LL ALWAYS BE HERE TO MAKE YOU SMILE! LOVE, YOUR OWN RAYLEEN
Eve noted Allika had written the date on the back of the card. January 10, 2057.
In the closet she found some art supplies, a paint smock, clear boxes filled with things like glass marbles, stones, beads, ribbons, silk flowers. Hobby stuff, Eve supposed, all as organized as the rest of the place.
And on the top shelf, behind boxes of supplies, a large and lovely fabric-covered box with a jeweled latch.
Eve took it down, opened it. Found the dead son.
Here were the photographs, from infant to toddler. A beaming and pregnant Allika, a dreamy-eyed Allika holding an infant wrapped in a blue blanket. Pictures of the baby boy with his big sister, with his father, and so on.
She found a swatch of the blanket, a lock of downy hair, a small stuffed dog, a single plastic block.
Eve thought of the memory box Mavis and Leonardo had given her and Roarke one Christmas. This was Allika’s memory box, dedicated to her son.
How often did she take it out, Eve wondered. Look through all the pictures, rub that blue fabric between her fingers or stroke that lock of hair against her cheek?
Yet she kept it all on a high shelf at the back of a closet. Tucked away. And not one memento of the boy, that Eve had seen, touched the rest of the house.
Why?
She went through it all, every piece. Then replaced it and put the box back.
When she finished with the room, she stepped over to where Peabody was just winding up with Straffo’s home office.
“Nearly done here. McNab started on the master bedroom up here so we wouldn’t get in each other’s way. Boxed a lot of discs and files. Nothing’s popped out though.”
“You find anything on the kid? Their dead kid?”
“Who? Oh, oh, right. Forgot. No, nothing here on their son.” Peabody stopped, frowned. “Nothing,” she repeated. “That’s kind of odd, really.”
“One more thing. There’s a stash of decorating clippings in Allika’s sitting room. Lissette had some in her cube.”