Secrets in Death (In Death 45)

“What also came out? The maternal grandmother favored Lari. First grandchild, and they’d named the baby for her—more or less. Her name was Larinda. She was well-off—widowed, a kind of socialite, and she’d feed Lari all the gossip.”

Mira made an agreeable sound, continued to listen.

“She kept books—along the same lines as we found. Photos, clippings, her own notes and observations. She often took Lari along to parties and events.”

“And so Mars developed the enjoyment of finer things, society of a certain level, and gossip. Certainly not unusual hobbies and habits.”

“Yeah. The upshot is the parents figured it was an indulgence, and the kid kept her grades up, got to experience some things. She and her sister butted heads some, but the younger one wasn’t interested in the parties and glamour end. She liked athletics, and was into the whole gardening/nature thing like their mother.”

“And the change, the defining moment?”

“Lari’s nineteen when the grandmother drowns in her own backyard pool. No evidence of foul play. She had a habit of swimming in the middle of the night, often after she’d had a few. She’d had a few.

“Grandmother leaves the whole ball to Lari.”

“Only Lari?” Mira asked.

“She tossed some small bequests to her daughter, her other granddaughter, but the big bulk, all to Lari Jane. The house, the things, the jewelry—she collected it like gumdrops—the money. About five million, and triple that with the sale of the house and the stuff.”

“Young,” Mira commented. “Nineteen is very young to come into that large an inheritance, with no guidance or backstops.”

“She sold the house, had some of the stuff sold, some shipped off, though the family didn’t know the details of that.”

“She’d already shut them out of her life.”

“Sounds like it. It also sounds like—to me—she already had another place, a place she sent the larger items she wanted to keep. Once the estate settled, she took off. No good-bye, no see you around, no forwarding address. Just packed up what she decided she wanted, took the money, and left. They never heard from her again.”

“And there’s no evidence of abuse at home?”

“Zero. The sister told me Lari played a role. That’s how she put it. She played the role in school—kept her grades decent, but had no interest in anyone or anything that didn’t directly benefit her. Same at home. Mostly stayed out of trouble, did what was expected—no more. And played it up with the grandmother. Where the money and influence were.”

“No emotion, no familial feelings or ties,” Mira commented. “Some sociopathic tendencies, certainly. To cut herself off from her entire family, without cause or explanation.”

“By that time she was twenty-one,” Eve continued, “and there was nothing they could do. It shows it stunned them, cut pretty deep, but that was that. She’d cancelled all her communications—’link account, e-mail, v-mail—giving them no way to reach her.”

“She had the capacity to sever all ties with her family, her roots, her friends, and her social circle. The inheritance gave her the means to do so.”

“She’d been seeing someone the family thought she was fairly serious about. They liked him, thought he was a steady influence on her, as they saw she’d become—me, I think it was more started to show—the shallow, the selfish, the calculating. She didn’t even bother to dump him before she left. They’d just spent the weekend together, her and the guy, at his parents’ house on the river. Big weekend bash. He wakes up Sunday morning, she’s gone. She went down early, told one of the servants to bring her car around, and load her weekender into it. The servant—they got a cop connection to look into it—stated she’d had more luggage in the trunk. Two others saw her get into her car and drive away. The guy, his family, the other guests, the house staff, all stated she’d appeared to be very happy, sociable, had discussed upcoming parties and events some of them planned to attend. Then she rolls out of bed, gets dressed, drives away.”

Mira sat a moment, absorbing. “She may have felt something for the grandmother who indulged her, but even that would have been surface. She simply wasn’t capable of forming a true connection emotionally. Without the grandmother to lavish her with things and opportunities, she had no reason to remain. Still, she was smart enough, calculating enough, to stay until she had all she wanted, to maintain a kind of illusion.”

“I figure she used that couple of years to decide on who she’d become, and how. The face and body she wanted to inhabit,” Eve explained. “I could probably track her from Kansas to the sort of high-end, specialist doctors who did her work, but it’s not going to apply to the now.”

“I could certainly help with that, but I agree. The doctor or doctors who transformed her physically were only a step along the way. The name she chose, a nod to her past, was a kind of private joke. The woman she became symbolically eliminated her sister altogether in her bio, and made herself an orphan. Indeed they meant nothing to her. She felt no bond. Her emotions, her loyalties are all self-directed. A narcissist’s narcissist with the sociopath’s lack of feeling. Yet in her own way, she was devoted to her work. Dedicated.”

“It was her window into the blackmail.”

“Yes, but she was no less devoted or dedicated,” Mira insisted. “Or ambitious. The work fed her. The secrets discovered—those she revealed publicly to her audience, those she held close for profit.”

“She was hitting close to a billion in personal wealth, but she didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Okay,” Eve allowed, “devoted. Dedicated.”

“And addicted,”

Mira added. “Not only to what she did, but to the rewards.”

Eve sat back down. “The more I look at this, the more I add information, get a fuller picture of her and her … process, the more it’s leading me away from her marks. She chose carefully. She calculated, and was damn good at it. Yeah, she had data on Roarke, for instance, and that’s a rich mine. But she only gave him a single nudge—which he shut down in his Roarke way.”

Mira’s lips curved, her soft blue eyes danced. “I’m sure he did.”