“Good for you.”
“I looked you up and you’ve solved lots of cases.”
“It’s ‘closed.’ If you’re going to work with cops, you have to use the right term. We close cases.”
“Closed,” Rayleen repeated. “I’ll remember. You closed the one where those men broke into a house and killed everyone in it but a girl, younger than me. Her name was Nixie.”
“Still is.”
“Did she give you clues? To help you close the case?”
“As a matter of fact. Shouldn’t you go find your mother or something?”
“I’ve been trying to think of clues for this one.” She wandered to a mirror, studied her own reflection, fluffed her curls. “Because I was right there and everything. I saw, and I’m very, very observant. So I could help close the case.”
“If you think of anything, be sure to let me know. Now scram.”
Her eyes met Eve’s in the mirror, a quick flash, then Rayleen turned. “It’s my room.”
“It’s my warrant. Beat it.”
Rayleen narrowed her eyes, folded her arms. “Will not.”
The kid’s face was a study of defiance, arrogance, confidence, temper. And Eve noted, challenge. Make me.
Eve took her time absorbing it all as she crossed over. Then she took Rayleen by the arm, pulled her out of the room.
“Taking me on’s a mistake.” Eve said it quietly, then closed the door. Locked it.
In case Rayleen got ideas, Eve strode down to the bedroom door, closed and locked that as well.
Then she went back to work.
She was undisturbed until Peabody knocked. “Why’d you lock the door?”
“Kid got under my feet.”
“Oh. Well. I had the guys haul some of the boxes we’re taking out. They’re labeled, receipts done. Unfortunately, we didn’t come across any poison in the spice cabinet or blackmail notes in the library. But we’ve got some shit to cull over once we log it in at Central. You get anything in here?”
“This and that. Here’s what I haven’t got. Her diary.”
“Maybe she doesn’t keep one.”
“She mentioned she did when Foster was killed. I’m not finding it.”
“They can hide them good.”
“I can find them good, when they’re here.”
“Yeah.” Peabody pursed her lips, looked around. “Maybe she doesn’t keep one after all. Ten’s a pretty much between-age for boys, and boys are the big topic of diaries.”
“She’s got an active, busy brain for any age. So where’s the ‘Mom and Dad won’t let me have a tattoo. It’s so bogus!’ Or ‘Johnnie Dreamboat looked at me in the hall today!’”
“Can’t say, and can’t think what that would tell us if she had a journal going and we found it.”
“Daily stuff—what Mommy said to Daddy, what this teacher did, and so on. The kid notices things. Got a snotty streak, too.”
Peabody grinned. “You think all kids are snots.”