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She slid behind the wheel, drove toward the gates.
“How’s Jamie holding up?” she asked Peabody. “I need to know if I should throttle back on his duties.”
“I think he’s riding it out. It’s rough for him,” Peabody added, “but he’s riding it out. He talked a lot about her last night. Good for him, plus it gives me another picture of her to add to my own. Or one of how Jamie saw her, anyway.”
“Is it different? His picture from yours?”
“Some, yeah. He didn’t really see her as a girl, as especially female. She was a friend, a pal. It makes me wonder if she felt the same, or if that was frustrating for her. It can be a bitch to be the girl the boy thinks of as just a pal.”
Peabody shifted, angling toward Eve. “It makes me wonder if that designation wasn’t usual for her, that—I mean—she was used to having guys see her that way. So she was maybe resigned to seeing herself that way. Not the girl guys looked at, and wanted to be with.”
“Until this guy.”
“Yeah. This one looked at her, wanted to be with her—or made her think that. And I think she was different with this guy because of it. It’s what happens when you go over for a guy, especially at that age, especially the first time. And from everything he said, I think this was her first major crush. Her first serious thing, so she’d be different.”
“How?”
“Well, not as shy—not with him. He makes her so damn happy. And a girl, that age, that background, with a college guy making over her? It’s all flutters and shudders. She’s ready to do what he wants, go where he wants, believe—or at least pretend—that she likes what he likes. She’ll make herself into what she thinks he wants. I figure that’s one of the ways he got her to keep all this on the down low. So much so she barely told her best friend any real details.”
“If you’re not already what he wants, why is he making over you?”
“That’s logic—and self-confidence, and just doesn’t apply to that first rush of romance, especially at sixteen. Just think back to when you were that age.”
“I didn’t care about any of that when I was sixteen. All I cared about was getting through the system and into the Academy.”
“You knew you were going to be a cop when you were sixteen?” The idea struck Peabody as nearly inconceivable. “I was obsessed with music, vid stars, and January Olsen when I was sixteen.”
“January Olsen?”
“This really adorable boy I had a crush on.” She could sigh over it now, fondly. “I figured we’d cohab, raise two adorable kids, and do important and world-changing social work. If he’d ever actually look at me or speak my name. You didn’t have a January Olsen?”
“No—which means it’s harder for me to get into her head than it is for you.”
“Well . . . I guess on some level Deena and I were kindred spirits. At least when I was sixteen. Kind of shy, awkward around guys, but casual pals with many. I was planning on doing big work. The stuff about her appearance? Her mother and the neighbor noticed she was taking more trouble. That’s a sure sign there’s a guy.”
Peabody began ticking off points on her fingers. “Updating your do, your wardrobe. That’s definitely one. Two, she wasn’t hanging with Jamie as much, something he didn’t think about until now. He’s busy with school and his college friends, so he didn’t give it much thought when she made excuses a couple of times when he tagged her to see if she wanted to catch a pizza or a vid. She was eking out her time for the guy, cutting herself off some from her core group.
“That’s three,” Peabody added. “A break or a little distance from your core. See you want your core group to meet the guy and like the guy, but part of you worries. What if they don’t? So keeping him to yourself is a way to avoid the possibility.”
“It’s awfully damn complicated.”
Sagely, Peabody nodded. “Being a teenager is hell and misery and wild delight. Thank God it’s only one decade out of all of them.”
Her own teenage years hadn’t been nearly as hellish or miserable as her first decade. But Eve understood.
“She got sneaky and secretive.”
“She was, in a way, having a rebellion. Only she was really quiet about it,” Peabody added. “I’m also inclined to think Jamie’s right about the guy not being on the stuff, or doing any of the hard. She’d have copped to it. And that kind of rebellion wasn’t in her. I don’t think he’s wrong there.”
“All this is telling us what kind of mask he wore. Not what’s under it. He’s taken it off now. No more need for it.”
She pulled into an illegal slot, activated her On Duty light.
“It’s worse than Coltraine.”
Eve got out, said nothing as Peabody walked around to meet her.
“We knew her.” Her eyes, dark and troubled, searched Eve’s face. “She was one of us. And she was Morris’s. I didn’t think it would ever hit home as hard as that one, working that one. But this? A cop’s kid, a girl like that, done like that? And I knew her. It’s worse.”
