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“I shouldn’t have let her go home alone last night.” Benny raked his fingers over his bold hair. “I should’ve made her stay at my place.”
“What time did she go home?” she asked Benny.
“It wasn’t late. Maybe nine or nine-thirty. We talked about going out and getting something to eat, or just getting blasted. But none of us much felt like either.”
“Did she log out a game? Did she log out Fantastical?”
“Yeah. Yeah. We found out this morning she’d logged it out. Why is this happening?” Benny demanded. “Somebody tried to kill her. Somebody killed Bart. Why is this happening?”
“We’re doing our best to find that out.” Eve glanced over as Peabody came in, signaled her. “Give me a minute.”
She crossed over, leaned in.
“That was a mag-ass party last night,” Peabody whispered, modulating her voice to lift just enough on the key words. “My feet EDD are killing me today. But breakthrough totally worth it because all that dancing, recovered data probably took a solid pound off my ass.”
“You do understand you’re obsessed with your own ass? Now, nod like I’ve just given you an order, then pull your communicator out as you step out. Wait a few minutes, come back in, give me a nod, and then stay in for the interview.”
“Got it.” She nodded, added a “Yes, sir!” for good measure, and took out her communicator as she left the room.
“Is that about Cill?” Benny demanded. “Is it something about Cill?”
“No. So, you last saw Cill at about nine-thirty last night?” She glanced at Var for verification.
“About that.”
“And what was her state of mind?”
“What do you think?” Anger leaked through as Benny fisted his hands on his knees. “She was wrecked. We all were. It was hard enough when she was putting the memorial together, editing the vid stream, thinking about the food. But at least that gave her, all of us, something solid to do, to work on. Now . . .”
“We were tired.” Var sighed. “We were all just really tired.”
“Where did you go after?”
“We went home.” Now Var shrugged. “We all just went home.”
“Did you walk together?”
“Yeah. Well, we walked together to Cill’s, then I headed to my place. Benny headed to his.”
“Did you notice anyone hanging around? Anyone near her building?”
She glanced over as Peabody came back in, gave her a nod.
“I waited until she went in,” Benny said. “We even talked for a couple more minutes. I wouldn’t have left her alone if I’d seen anybody hanging too close. I watched her go in before I went across to my place. Her light was on when I looked out my window after I got inside. I know she got in okay.”
“Do you always check like that?”
He shifted a little. “If we take off at the same time, I like to make sure she gets in okay. She can take care of herself, but it’s just something you do.”
“Did you talk to anyone, see anyone, have any contacts after nine-thirty?”
“God.” Var rubbed his eyes. “I got something to eat, tried to watch some screen. I couldn’t settle down so I went online for a few hours. Into a couple game rooms. I played some World Domination, tourney style. You know, elimination rounds. Maybe till about two. I didn’t go out. I didn’t want to go out.”
“Benny?”
“I didn’t talk to anybody. We’d talked to people all day. I did some personal e-mail, then some research on a couple of projects. I guess I went down about midnight. Her light was still on. I happened to notice. I almost tagged her, just to see if she wanted company, or just to talk, but I didn’t. I figured she wanted to be left alone. I should’ve gone over.” His voice trembled again. “I should’ve just gone over.”
“Stop it.” Var laid a hand on his shoulder. “Stop. It’s not your fault. We need to go be with her,” he told Eve.
